72 Matching Annotations
  1. Jan 2026
    1. "fall line;"

      The Atlantic Seaboard Fall Line is a 900-mile escarpment where the Piedmont and Atlantic coastal plain meet in the eastern United States. Before navigation improvements, such as locks, the fall line was generally the head of navigation on rivers due to their rapids or waterfalls, and the necessary portage around them.

    2. Burke

      Edmund Burke was an Anglo-Irish writer, philosopher, and politician who is widely credited as the founder of the cultural and political philosophy of conservatism.

    3. the census of 1890

      The 1890 United States census was taken beginning June 2, 1890. The census determined the resident population of the United States to be 62,979,766, an increase of 25.5 percent over the 50,189,209 persons enumerated during the 1880 census. The data reported that the distribution of the population had resulted in the disappearance of the American frontier.

    4. Peck's New Guide to the West

      John Mason Peck (1789–1858) was an American Baptist missionary to the western frontier of the United States, especially in Missouri and Illinois. A prominent anti-slavery advocate of his day, Peck also founded many educational institutions and wrote prolifically.

    5. "Kit" Carson

      Christopher Houston Carson (December 24, 1809 – May 23, 1868) was an American frontiersman, fur trapper, wilderness guide, Indian agent and U.S. Army officer. He became an American frontier legend in his own lifetime through biographies and news articles; exaggerated versions of his exploits were the subject of dime novels. His understated nature belied confirmed reports of his fearlessness, combat skills, tenacity, as well as profound effect on the westward expansion of the United States.

    6. Daniel Boone

      Daniel Boone (November 2 [O.S. October 22] 1734 – September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. He became famous for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, which was then beyond the western borders of the Thirteen Colonies. In 1775, Boone founded the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap and into Kentucky, in the face of resistance from Native Americans. He founded Boonesborough, one of the first English-speaking settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains.

    7. Webster

      Daniel Webster (January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented New Hampshire and Massachusetts in the U.S. Congress and served as the 14th and 19th U.S. secretary of state under presidents William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, and Millard Fillmore. Webster was one of the most prominent American lawyers of the 19th century, arguing over 200 cases before the United States Supreme Court in his career. During his life, Webster had been a member of the Federalist Party, the National Republican Party, and the Whig Party. He was among the three members of the Great Triumvirate along with Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun.

    8. salt springs of the Kanawha

      The Kanawha saltworks were an important 19th-century mineral resource of the United States. Originally known as Buffalo Salt Lick, in the early 19th century salt producers began creating brine wells, in the vicinity of the Great Kanawha River in what is now West Virginia.

    9. Bishop Spangenburg

      August Gottlieb Spangenberg (15 July 1704 – 18 September 1792) was a German theologian, minister, and bishop of the Moravian Church. As successor to Nicolaus Zinzendorf as bishop of the Moravian Church, he helped develop and lead international Moravian missions in colonial-era Province of Pennsylvania and stabilized Moravian theology and organization.

    10. Lewis and Clark

      The Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the United States expedition to cross the newly acquired western portion of the country after the Louisiana Purchase. The Corps of Discovery was a select group of U.S. Army and civilian volunteers under the command of Captain Meriwether Lewis and his close friend Second Lieutenant William Clark. Clark, along with 30 others, set out from Camp Dubois (Camp Wood), Illinois, on May 14, 1804, met Lewis and ten other members of the group in St. Charles, Missouri, then went up the Missouri River. The expedition crossed the Continental Divide of the Americas near the Lemhi Pass, eventually coming to the Columbia River, and the Pacific Ocean in 1805. The return voyage began on March 23, 1806, at Fort Clatsop, Oregon, ending six months later on September 23.

    11. The ranges of the Great Plains, with ranch and cowboy and nomadic life, are things of yesterday and of to-day.

      Cattle drives were a major economic activity in the 19th and early 20th century American West, particularly between 1850s and 1910s. In this period, 27 million cattle were driven from Texas to railheads in Kansas, for shipment to stockyards in St. Louis and points east, and direct to Chicago. The long distances covered, the need for periodic rests by riders and animals, and the establishment of railheads led to the development of "cow towns" across the frontier.

    12. War of 1812

      The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States declared war on Britain on 18 June 1812. Although peace terms were agreed upon in the December 1814 Treaty of Ghent, the war did not officially end until the peace treaty was ratified by the United States Congress on 17 February 1815.

    13. Albany congress of 1754

      The Albany Congress (June 19 – July 11, 1754), also known as the Albany Convention of 1754, was a meeting of representatives sent by the legislatures of seven of the British colonies in British America: Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. Those not in attendance included Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Jersey, Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Representatives met daily at the City Hall in Albany, New York, from June 19 to July 11, 1754, to discuss better relations with the Native American tribes and common defensive measures against the French threat from Canada in the opening stage of the French and Indian War, the North American front of the Seven Years' War between Great Britain and France.

    14. Duquesne

      Michel-Ange Duquesne de Menneville, Marquis Duquesne (4 April 1700 – 17 September 1778) was a French Navy officer and colonial administrator who served as Governor General of New France from 1752 to 1755.

    15. La Salle

      René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (November 22, 1643 – March 19, 1687), was a French explorer and fur trader in North America. He explored the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, and the Mississippi River. He is best known for an early 1682 expedition in which he canoed the lower Mississippi River from the mouth of the Illinois River to the Gulf of Mexico.

    16. South Pass in the Rockies

      South Pass is a route across the Continental Divide, in the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Wyoming. Though it approaches a mile and a half high, South Pass is the lowest point on the Continental Divide between the Central and Southern Rocky Mountains. The passes furnish a natural crossing point of the Rockies. The historic pass became the route for emigrants on the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails to the West during the 19th century. It was designated as a U.S. National Historic Landmark on January 20, 1961.

    17. Cumberland Gap

      The Cumberland Gap is a pass in the eastern United States through the long ridge of the Cumberland Mountains, within the Appalachian Mountains and near the tripoint of Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee. At an elevation of 1,631 feet (497 m) above sea level, it is famous in American colonial history for its role as a key passageway through the lower central Appalachians.

    18. Loria

      Achille Loria (2 March 1857 – 6 November 1943) was an Italian political economist. He was educated at the lyceum of his native city and the universities of Bologna, Pavia, Rome, Berlin, and London and graduated at the University of Bologna (1877).

    19. Pacific Railroad

      America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the "Overland Route") was a 1,911-mile (3,075 km) continuous railroad line built between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, Iowa, with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay.

    20. The United States Army fought a series of Indian wars in Minnesota, Dakota, and the Indian Territory.

      Wars which occurred from the time of the earliest colonial settlements in the 17th century until the end of the 19th century between the European Settlers and the Native Americans.

    21. Alleghenies

      The Allegheny Mountain Range is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the Eastern United States and Canada. Historically, it represented a significant barrier to westward land travel and development.

    22. Grund

      Francis Joseph Grund (September 19, 1805 – September 29, 1863) was a Bohemian-born American journalist and author who wrote such works as The Americans in Their Moral, Social, and Political Relations (1837).

    23. Astor's American Fur Company

      American Fur Company, enterprise incorporated in New York state (April 6, 1808) by John Jacob Astor, which dominated the fur trade of the central and western United States during the first third of the 19th century. The company absorbed or crushed its rivals during its search for furs in the Great Lakes region, Missouri River valley, Rocky Mountains, and Oregon. Explorations by the firm’s traders and trappers, directed chiefly from its office in St. Louis, did much to prepare the frontier for settlement.

    24. census of 1820

      The 1820 United States census was the fourth census conducted in the United States. It was conducted on August 7, 1820. The 1820 census included six new states: Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama and Maine. The total population was determined to be 9,638,453, of which 1,538,022 were slaves.

    25. first census

      The 1790 United States census was the first United States census. It recorded the population of the whole United States as of Census Day, August 2, 1790, as mandated by Article 1, Section 2, of the Constitution and applicable laws. In the first census, the population of the United States was enumerated to be 3,929,214 inhabitants.

    26. proclamation of 1763

      The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued by King George III of Great Britain on 7 October 1763. It followed the Treaty of Paris (1763), which formally ended the Seven Years' War and transferred French territory in North America to Great Britain.[1] The proclamation at least temporarily forbade all new settlements west of a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains, which was delineated as an Indian Reserve.[2] Exclusion from the vast region of Trans-Appalachia created discontent between Britain and colonial land speculators and potential settlers.

    27. King

      George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 1738 – 29 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 25 October 1760 until his death in 1820.

    28. expedition in 1714

      The Knights of the Golden Horseshoe Expedition, also known as the Transmontane Expedition,[1] took place in 1716 in the British Colony of Virginia. The Royal Governor and a number of prominent citizens traveled westward, across the Blue Ridge Mountains on an exploratory expedition.

    29. Governor Spotswood

      Major-General Alexander Spotswood (12 December 1676 – 7 June 1740) was a British army officer, explorer and colonial administrator who served as the governor of Virginia from 1710 to 1722. After an unsatisfactory military career, in 1710 he was appointed as Virginia's governor, a post he held for twelve years. During that period, Spotswood engaged in the exploration of the territories beyond the western border, of which he was the first to see the economic potentials.

    30. Professor von Holst

      Hermann Eduard von Holst (June 19, 1841 – January 20, 1904) was a German-American historian and author. Von Holst emigrated to the United States and wrote extensively on the Constitution of the United States, largely from an anti-slavery perspective.

    31. slavery struggle

      The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was federal legislation of the United States that balanced the desires of northern states to prevent the expansion of slavery in the country with those of southern states to expand it. It admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state and declared a policy of prohibiting slavery in the remaining Louisiana Purchase lands north of the 36°30′ parallel.

    32. Calhoun

      John C. Calhoun (born March 18, 1782, Abbeville district, South Carolina, U.S.—died March 31, 1850, Washington, D.C.) was an American political leader who was a congressman, the secretary of war, the seventh vice president (1825–32), a senator, and the secretary of state of the United States.

    1. Filson's

      John Filson (c. 1747 – October 1788)was an American author, historian of Kentucky, pioneer, surveyor and one of the founders of Cincinnati, Ohio.

    2. John Underhill

      John Underhill (c. 1608/09 – 21 July 1672) was an early English settler and soldier in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Province of New Hampshire, where he also served as governor; the New Haven Colony, New Netherland, and later the Province of New York, settling on Long Island. Hired to train militia in New England, he is most noted for leading colonial militia in the Pequot War (1636–1637) and Kieft's War which the colonists mounted against two different groups of Native Americans. He also published an account of the Pequot War.

    3. Roger Williams

      Roger Williams (c. 1603 – March 1683) was an English-born New England minister, theologian, author, and founder of the Providence Plantations, which became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and later the State of Rhode Island. He was a staunch advocate for religious liberty, separation of church and state, and fair dealings with the Native Americans.

    4. Cotton Mather

      Cotton Mather FRS ( February 12, 1663 – February 13, 1728) was a Puritan clergyman and author in colonial New England, who wrote extensively on theological, historical, and scientific subjects. After being educated at Harvard College, he joined his father Increase as minister of the Congregationalist Old North Meeting House in Boston, then part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where he preached for the rest of his life.

    5. Robert Frost

      Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) was an American poet. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech,Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New England in the early 20th century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes.

    6. Kenneth Rexroth

      Kenneth Charles Marion Rexroth (December 22, 1905 – June 6, 1982)was an American poet, translator, and critical essayist. He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement.

    7. Himard Mumford Jones

      Howard Mumford Jones (April 16, 1892 – May 11, 1980) was an American intellectual historian, literary critic, journalist, poet, and professor of English at the University of Michigan and later at Harvard University.

    8. Joseph Campbell

      Joseph John Campbell was an American writer. He was a professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College who worked in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work covers many aspects of the human condition. Campbell's best-known work is his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), in which he discusses his theory of the journey of the archetypal hero shared by world mythologies, termed the monomyth.

    1. Slotkin’s Boone undergoes a baptism by combat, his legacy is defined by acts of violence against the wilderness and the Natives.He represents the "regeneration through violence" required to possess the New World.

      The pivotal position of the Indian war narratives and John Filson's legend of Boone's "baptism by combat" in the development of American mythology and literature is explained by their applicability to the universal problem of the colonial period: the problem of acculturation, of adjusting the mores and world view of one's native culture to the requirements of life in an alien environment.

    2. The American character was created through a process of "regeneration through violence", physical combat against the wilderness and its inhabitants was necessary to spiritually renew the colonist and create a new national identity

      Because of the nature of myth and the myth-making process, it is a significant comment on our characteristic attitudes toward ourselves, our culture, our racial subgroupings, and our land that tales of strife between native Americans and interlopers, between dark races and light, became the basis of our mythology and that the Indian fighter and hunter emerged as the first of our national heroes. In order to understand the complex and many-leveled influence of our history on our mythology, and of mythology on our culture, we must understand the nature of the peculiar forces that shaped mythology in America.

    3. This cycle produces the fundamental traits of American society: democracy, individualism, a spirit of free enterprise

      From the conditions of frontier life came intellectual traits of profound importance. The works of travelers along each frontier from colonial days onward describe certain common traits, and these traits have, while softening down, still persisted as survivals in the place of their origin, even when a higher social organization succeeded. The result is that, to the frontier, the American intellect owes its striking characteristics. That coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness, that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients, that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great ends, that restless, nervous energy, that dominant individualism, working for good and for evil, and withal that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom -- these are traits of the frontier, or traits called out elsewhere because of the existence of the frontier.

    4. His primary legacy is that of pioneering the way for civilization and finding the trails that allow the "farmer's frontier" to follow him,.

      As the eastern lands were taken up, migration flowed across them to the west. Daniel Boone, the great backwoodsman, who combined the occupations of hunter, trader, cattle-raiser, farmer, and surveyor -- learning, probably from the traders, of the fertility of the lands of the upper Yadkin, where the traders were wont to rest as they took their way to the Indians, left his Pennsylvania home with his father, and passed down the Great Valley road to that stream.

      Learning from a trader whose posts were on the Red River in Kentucky of its game and rich pastures, he pioneered the way for the farmers to that region. Thence he passed to the frontier of Missouri, where his settlement was long a landmark on the frontier. Here again he helped to open the way for civilization, finding salt licks, and trails, and land.

    5. Turner treats Native Americans primarily as a military obstacle or a common danger that forced the colonies to unite politically

      The effect of the Indian frontier as a consolidating agent in our history is important. From the close of the seventeenth century various intercolonial congresses have been called to treat with Indians and establish common measures of defense. Particularism was strongest in colonies with no Indian frontier. This frontier stretched along the western border like a cord of union. The Indian was a common danger, demanding united action. Most celebrated of these conferences was the Albany congress of 1754, called to treat with the Six Nations, and to consider plans of union. Even a cursory reading of the plan proposed by the congress reveals the importance of the frontier. The powers of the general council and the officers were, chiefly, the determination of peace and war with the Indians, the regulation of Indian trade, the purchase of Indian lands, and the creation and government of new settlements as a security against the Indians.

    6. He also mentions them as guides or traders, but ultimately he only sees them as a temporary barrier to be crushed by the new waves of civilization.

      Long before the pioneer farmer appeared on the scene, primitive Indian life had passed away. The farmers met Indians armed with guns. The trading frontier, while steadily undermining Indian power by making the tribes ultimately dependent on the whites, yet, through its sale of guns, gave to the Indian increased power of resistance to the farming frontier. French colonization was dominated by its trading frontier; English colonization by its farming frontier. There was an antagonism between the two frontiers as between the two nations. Said Duquesne to the Iroquois,

    7. the contact between the settler and the wild environment is what created a distinct American identity.

      Little by little he transforms the wilderness, but the outcome is not the old Europe, not simply the development of Germanic germs, anymore than the first phenomenon was a case of reversion to the Germanic mark. The fact is, that here is a new product that is American.

    8. Turner argues that the wilderness changes the colonist, it strips him of European garments, and forces him to change and adapt.

      Now, the frontier is the line of most rapid and effective Americanization. The wilderness masters the colonist. It finds him a European in dress, industries, tools, modes of travel, and thought. It takes him from the railroad car and puts him in the birch canoe. It strips off the garments of civilization and arrays him in the hunting shirt and the moccasin. It puts him in the log cabin of the Cherokee and Iroquois and runs an Indian palisade around him. Before long he has gone to planting Indian corn and plowing with a sharp stick; he shouts the war cry and takes the scalp in orthodox Indian fashion. In short, at the frontier the environment is at first too strong for the man. He must accept the conditions which it furnishes or perish, and so he fits himself into the Indian clearings and follows the Indian trails.

    1. "Kit" Carson'

      Christopher Houston Carson (December 24, 1809 – May 23, 1868) was an American frontiersman, fur trapper, wilderness guide, Indian agent and U.S. Army officer. He became an American frontier legend in his own lifetime through biographies and news articles; exaggerated versions of his exploits were the subject of dime novels. His understated nature belied confirmed reports of his fearlessness, combat skills, tenacity, as well as profound effect on the westward expansion of the United States.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit_Carson

    2. Daniel Boone

      Daniel Boone (November 2 [O.S. October 22] 1734 – September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. He became famous for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, which was then beyond the western borders of the Thirteen Colonies. In 1775, Boone founded the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap and into Kentucky, in the face of resistance from Native Americans. He founded Boonesborough, one of the first English-speaking settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Boone

    3. Lewis and Clark

      The Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the United States expedition to cross the newly acquired western portion of the country after the Louisiana Purchase. The Corps of Discovery was a select group of U.S. Army and civilian volunteers under the command of Captain Meriwether Lewis and his close friend Second Lieutenant William Clark. Clark, along with 30 others, set out from Camp Dubois (Camp Wood), Illinois, on May 14, 1804, met Lewis and ten other members of the group in St. Charles, Missouri, then went up the Missouri River. The expedition crossed the Continental Divide of the Americas near the Lemhi Pass, eventually coming to the Columbia River, and the Pacific Ocean in 1805. The return voyage began on March 23, 1806, at Fort Clatsop, Oregon, ending six months later on September 23.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_and_Clark_Expedition

    4. War of 1812

      The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States declared war on Britain on 18 June 1812. Although peace terms were agreed upon in the December 1814 Treaty of Ghent, the war did not officially end until the peace treaty was ratified by the United States Congress on 17 February 1815.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812

    5. Albany congress of 1754

      The Albany Congress (June 19 – July 11, 1754), also known as the Albany Convention of 1754, was a meeting of representatives sent by the legislatures of seven of the British colonies in British America: Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. Those not in attendance included Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Jersey, Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Representatives met daily at the City Hall in Albany, New York, from June 19 to July 11, 1754, to discuss better relations with the Native American tribes and common defensive measures against the French threat from Canada in the opening stage of the French and Indian War, the North American front of the Seven Years' War between Great Britain and France.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albany_Congress

    6. La Salle

      René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (November 22, 1643 – March 19, 1687), was a French explorer and fur trader in North America. He explored the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, and the Mississippi River. He is best known for an early 1682 expedition in which he canoed the lower Mississippi River from the mouth of the Illinois River to the Gulf of Mexico.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9-Robert_Cavelier,_Sieur_de_La_Salle

    7. South Pass in the Rockies

      South Pass is a route across the Continental Divide, in the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Wyoming. Though it approaches a mile and a half high, South Pass is the lowest point on the Continental Divide between the Central and Southern Rocky Mountains. The passes furnish a natural crossing point of the Rockies. The historic pass became the route for emigrants on the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails to the West during the 19th century. It was designated as a U.S. National Historic Landmark on January 20, 1961.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Pass_(Wyoming)

    8. Cumberland Gap

      The Cumberland Gap is a pass in the eastern United States through the long ridge of the Cumberland Mountains, within the Appalachian Mountains and near the tripoint of Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee. At an elevation of 1,631 feet (497 m) above sea level, it is famous in American colonial history for its role as a key passageway through the lower central Appalachians.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumberland_Gap

    9. Astor's American Fur Company

      American Fur Company, enterprise incorporated in New York state (April 6, 1808) by John Jacob Astor, which dominated the fur trade of the central and western United States during the first third of the 19th century. The company absorbed or crushed its rivals during its search for furs in the Great Lakes region, Missouri River valley, Rocky Mountains, and Oregon. Explorations by the firm’s traders and trappers, directed chiefly from its office in St. Louis, did much to prepare the frontier for settlement.

      https://www.britannica.com/money/American-Fur-Company

    10. his proclamation of 1763

      The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued by King George III of Great Britain on 7 October 1763. It followed the Treaty of Paris (1763), which formally ended the Seven Years' War and transferred French territory in North America to Great Britain.[1] The proclamation at least temporarily forbade all new settlements west of a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains, which was delineated as an Indian Reserve.[2] Exclusion from the vast region of Trans-Appalachia created discontent between Britain and colonial land speculators and potential settlers.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Proclamation_of_1763

    11. Governor Spotswood

      Major-General Alexander Spotswood (12 December 1676 – 7 June 1740) was a British army officer, explorer and colonial administrator who served as the governor of Virginia from 1710 to 1722. After an unsatisfactory military career, in 1710 he was appointed as Virginia's governor, a post he held for twelve years. During that period, Spotswood engaged in the exploration of the territories beyond the western border, of which he was the first to see the economic potentials.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Spotswood