American History Through the 19th Century.
History can be talked about and argued about around many different views and angles. The view in this paper, we"ll discuss the, "East to West", or westward movement.
Frederick Jackson Turner had an argument that can be used to explain the developments in American history through the close of the nineteenth century. Turner argued that events in American history could be categorized in four periods: a period of Native American Indian dominance, a period of exploration, a period of settlement, and a period of big business.
The period of Native American Indian dominance can be described by their knowledge of how to grow crops and to live in an environment of wilderness so well. They did it so well that the whites wanted to learn from them and eventually trade with them. In his book, "The Middle Ground", Richard White talks about the equal dependency in trade between the whites and Indians. The Indians were trying to work with white settlers in peace. However, come to find out that the whites came in overwhelming numbers and eventually wiped out N. A. Indian dominance because of the capitalist system from the big business men taking up the land. Furthermore, even though the Indians may be dominant over crops, after the Revolutionary War, the whites no longer needed the Indians because they've gained all the necessary knowledge required to grow a successful crop. During this time of trade with the whites, a historian, "Ray Allen Billington", explains that Indians died out because of diseases from the whites such as Smallpox, Syphilis, etc .
The period of exploration starts with the whites coming to America, mainly for economic reasons, in search for gold or free land. On the other hand, Christopher Columbus was looking for a passage to Asia, looking for wealth, but found San Salvador. Lewis and Clark explored west across Louisiana after the Louisiana Purchase in 1804.
