Post One: The American West and Legacy of Conquest Reviewed

The readings definitely put the history of the West in a different light. Both texts we read mentioned Fredrick Jackson Turner's declaration that the American Frontier was the "meeting point between civilization and savagery". However in Patricia Nelson Limerick's introduction in the Legacy of Conquest, the problems Turner left to the history of the West was illuminated. She clearly demonstrated that Turner's thesis of 1893 declared the frontier gone "and with its going has closed the first period of American History". She went on to say this thesis stagnated historical analysis because other proteges did not challenge his thesis (until recently).

With Turner's thesis remaining unchallenged for decades, ideas such as history's views on the American Indian also remained stagnant. It's no suprise now that we have seen Indian self-determination and resistance to the federal government emerge in the later half of the 20th century. Resistance through modern organizations like the American Indian Movement confronted Indian stereotypes that were set in stone when Turner tried to close history's chapter on the American West. Hire and Faragher touched on Indian attrocities such as the Southern Cheyenne massacre and U.S. treaty violations as best perhaps as they could because of the book's broad scope. But to get a better feel from the Indian perspective on these and other attrocities I suggest reading Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown.

Regarding set in stone stereotypes, Patrica Nelson Limerick's book The Legacy of Conquest, showed that George Catlin contributed greatly to the Indian stereotype. Catlin had a great admiration for the Indian as a noble savage but viewed that these noble savages "could not coexist with civilization". (p 182 Limerick) As the author asserts: "many of Catlins assumptions of Native Americans still play a large role in Indian-White relations today" (p185 Limerick) - thanks in large part to Fredrick Jackson Turner. As the Hine and Faragher text quotes Russell Means, "We're still here, and were still resisting, John Wayne did not kill us all." (p543 Hine and Faragher)