Dictionary Definition
frontier
Noun
1 a wilderness at the edge of a settled area of a
country; "the individualism of the frontier in Andrew Jackson's
day"
2 an international boundary or the area (often
fortified) immediately inside the boundary
3 an undeveloped field of study; a topic inviting
research and development; "he worked at the frontier of brain
science"
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Noun
- That part of a country which fronts or faces another country or
an unsettled region; the marches; the border, confine, or extreme
part of a country, bordering on another country; the border of the
settled and cultivated part of a country; as, the frontier of
civilization.
- 1940 "The frontier was not a line, but a district where thieving Scot and thieving Englishman had sufficient liberty for roving forays." W K Hancock. Survey of Commenwealth affairs Vol II part I p.3.
- 1979 "Unlike a boundary, which evokes the image of a line on a map and demarcates spheres of political control, the frontier is an area where colonisation is taking place....no authority is recognised as legitimate by all parties or is able to excersise undisputed control over the area." The shaping of South African Society, 1652 - 1820. Eds. Richard Elphic and Hermann Guilomee. Longman p. 297.
Translations
part of a country that fronts or faces another
country or an unsettled region
Adjective
frontier- Lying on the exterior part; bordering; conterminous.
- a frontier town
- Of or relating to a frontier.
Extensive Definition
A frontier is a political and geographical term referring
to areas near or beyond a boundary, or of a
different nature.
United States
In the United
States, the frontier was the term applied by scholars to the
impact of the zone of unsettled land outside the region of existing
settlements of Europeans. That is, as pioneers moved into the
frontier zone they were changed significantly by the encounter.
That is what Frederick
Jackson Turner called "the significance of the frontier." For
example, Turner argued in 1893, one change was that unlimited free
land in the zone was available and thus offered the psychological
sense of unlimited opportunity, which in turn had many
consequences, such as optimism, future orientation, shedding of
restraints due to land scarcity, and wastefulness of natural
resources.
Throughout American history, the expansion of
settlement was largely from the east to the west, and thus the
frontier is often identified with "the west". On the Pacific Coast,
settlement moved eastward. In New England, it moved north.
'Frontier' was borrowed into English from French
in the 15th century with the meaning "borderland," the region of a
country that fronts on another country (see also marches). The use of frontier to
mean "a region at the edge of a settled area" is a special North
American development. (Compare the Australian "outback".) In the Turnerian
sense, "frontier" was a technical term that was explicated by
hundreds of scholars.
Colonial North America
In the earliest days of European settlement of the Atlantic coast, the frontier was essentially any part of the forested interior of the continent beyond the fringe of existing settlements along the coast and the great rivers, such as the St. Lawrence, Connecticut, Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna River and James.English, French, Spanish and Dutch patterns of
expansion and settlement were quite different. Only a few thousand
French migrated to Canada; these habitants settled in villages
along the St. Lawrence river, building communities that remained
stable for long stretches; they did not leapfrog west the way the
Americans did. Although French fur traders ranged widely through
the
Great Lakes and Mississippi
River watershed, as far as the Rocky
Mountains, they did not usually settle down. Actual French
settlement in these areas was limited to a few very small villages
on the lower Mississippi and in the Illinois
Country. Likewise, the Dutch set up fur trading posts in the
Hudson river valley, followed by large grants of land to patroons
who brought in tenant farmers who created compact, permanent
villages. They did not push westward.
In contrast, the English colonies generally
pursued a more systematic policy of widespread settlement of the
New World for cultivation and exploitation of the land, a practice
that required the extension of European property
rights to the new continent. The typical English settlements
were quite compact and small--under a square mile. Conflict with
the Native Americans arose out of political issues, viz. who would
rule. Early frontier areas east of the Appalachian
Mountains included the Connecticut
river valley. The French
and Indian Wars of the 1760s resulted in a complete victory for
the British, who took over the French
colonial territory west of the Appalachians to the Mississippi
River. Americans began moving across the Appalachians into
areas such the Ohio Country and the New River
Valley.
American frontier
Following the victory of the United States in the American Revolutionary War and the signing Treaty of Paris in 1783, the United States gained formal, if not actual, control of the British lands west of the Appalachians. Many thousands of settlers, typified by Daniel Boone, had already reached Kentucky and Tennessee and adjacent areas. Some areas, such as the Virginia Military District and the Connecticut Western Reserve (both in Ohio), were used by the states as rewards to veterans of the war. The issue of how to formally include these new frontier areas into the nation was an important issue in the Continental Congress of the 1780s and was partly resolved by the Northwest Ordinance (1787). The Southwest Territory saw a similar pattern of settlement pressure.For the next century, the expansion of the nation
into these areas, as well as the subsequently acquired Louisiana
Purchase, Oregon
Country, and Mexican
Cession, attracted hundreds of thousands of settlers. The
question of whether the Kansas frontier would become "slave" or
"free" was a spark of the American
Civil War. In general before 1860 Northern Democrats promoted
easy land ownership and Whigs and Southern Democrats resisted. The
Southerners resisted Homestead
Acts because it supported the growth of a free farmer
population that might oppose slavery.
When the Republican party came to power in 1860
they promoted a free land policy — notably the Homestead
Act of 1862, coupled with railroad land grants that opened
cheap (but not free) lands for settlers. In 1890, the frontier line
had broken up (Census maps defined the frontier line as a line
beyond which the population was under 2 persons per square
mile).
The popular culture impact of the frontier was
enormous, in dime novels,
Wild West shows, and, after 1910, Western
movies set on the frontier.
The American frontier was generally the most
Western edge of settlement and typically more democratic and
free-spirited in nature than the East because of its lack of social
and political institutions. The idea that the frontier provided the
core defining quality of the United States was elaborated by the
great historian Frederick
Jackson Turner, who built his Frontier
Thesis in 1893 around this notion.
Canadian frontier
A Canadian frontier
thesis was developed by Canadian historians Harold
Adams Innis and J. M.
S. Careless. They emphasized the relationship between the
center and periphery. Katerberg argues that "in Canada the imagined
West must be understood in relation to the mythic power of the
North." [Katerberg 2003] In Innis's 1930 work The Fur Trade in
Canada, he expounded on what became known as the Laurentian thesis:
that the most creative and major developments in Canadian history
occurred in the metropolitan centers of central Canada and that the
civilization of North America is the civilization of Europe. Innis
considered place as critical in the development of the Canadian
West and wrote of the importance of metropolitan areas,
settlements, and indigenous people in the creation of markets.
Turner and Innis continue to exert influence over the
historiography of the American and Canadian Wests. The Quebec
frontier showed little of the individualism or democracy that
Turner ascribed to the American zone to the south. The Nova Scotia
and Ontario frontiers were rather more democratic than the rest of
Canada, but whether that was caused by the need to be self-reliant
on the frontier itself or the presence of large numbers of American
immigrants is debated.
The Canadian political thinker Charles
Blattberg has argued that such events ought to be seen as part
of a process in which Canadians advanced a "border"-- as distinct
from a "frontier"--from east to west. According to Blattberg, a
border assumes a significantly sharper contrast between the
civilized and the uncivilized since, unlike with a frontier
process, the civilizing force is not supposed to be shaped by that
which it is civilizing. Blattberg criticizes both the frontier and
border "civilizing" processes.
Canadian prairies
The pattern of settlement of the Canadian prairies began in 1896, when the American prairie states had already achieved statehood. Pioneers then headed north to the "Last Best West." Before settlers began to arrive, the North West Mounted Police was dispatched to the region. When settlers began to arrive, a system of law and order was already in place and the Dakota lawlessness for which the American "Wild West" was famed did not occur in Canada. Before settlers arrived, the federal government also sent teams of negotiators to meet with the Native peoples of the region. In a series of treaties, the basis for peaceful relations was established and the long wars with the Natives that occurred in the United States largely did not spread to Canada. Like their American counterparts, the Prairie provinces supported populist and democratic movements in the early 20th century.European Union
In the European Union, the frontier is a term used to describe the region beyond the expanding borders of the European Union. The European Union has designated the countries surrounding it as part of the European Neighbourhood. This is a region of primarily less-developed countries, many of which aspire to become part of the European Union itself. Current applicants include Turkey and Croatia. Ukraine has also set itself the primary task of eventually joining the Union, as have many small countries in the Balkans and South Caucasus. Romania and Bulgaria, joined the European Union in 2007. Proposals to admit Turkey have been debated but are now currently stalled, partly on the ground that; Turkey is beyond Europe's historic frontier and it is yet to comply with the 35 point policy areas set out by the EU. If all or most East European states become members, the frontier may be the boundaries with Russia and Turkey.Notes
References
US history
- The Frontier In American History by Frederick Jackson Turner
- Billington, Ray Allen. America's Frontier Heritage (1984), an analysis of the frontier experience from perspective of social sciences and historiography
- Billington, Ray Allen. Westward Expansion: A History of the American Frontier (1952 and later editions), the most detailed textbook, with highly detailed annotated bibliographies
- Billington, Ray Allen. Land of Savagery / Land of Promise: The European Image of the American Frontier in the Nineteenth Century (1981)
- Blattberg, Charles Shall We Dance? A Patriotic Politics for Canada (2003), ch. 3, a comparison of the Canadian 'border' with the American 'frontier'
- Hine, Robert V. and John Mack Faragher. The American West: A New Interpretive History (2000), recent textbook
- Lamar, Howard R. ed. The New Encyclopedia of the American West (1998), 1000+ pages of articles by scholars
- Milner, Clyde A., II ed. Major Problems in the History of the American West 2nd ed (1997), primary sources and essays by scholars
- Nichols, Roger L. ed. American Frontier and Western Issues: An Historiographical Review (1986) essays by 14 scholars
- Paxson, Frederic, History of the American Frontier, 1763-1893 (1924)
- Slotkin, Richard, Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860 (2000), University of Oklahoma Press
Canada
- Blattberg, Charles Shall We Dance? A Patriotic Politics for Canada (2003), ch. 3, a comparison of the Canadian 'border' with the American 'frontier'
- Cavell, Janice. "The Second Frontier: the North in English-canadian Historical Writing." Canadian Historical Review 2002 83(3): 364-389. ISSN 0008-3755 Fulltext in Ebsco
- Clarke, John. Land, Power, and Economics on the Frontier of Upper Canada. McGill-Queen's U. Press, 2001. 747 pp.
- Colpitts, George. Game in the Garden: A Human History of Wildlife in Western Canada to 1940 U. of British Columbia Press, 2002. 216 pp.
- Forkey, Neil S. Shaping the Upper Canadian Frontier: Environment, Society and Culture in the Trent Valley. U. of Calgary Press 2003. 164 pp.
- Katerberg, William H. "A Northern Vision: Frontiers and the West in the Canadian and American Imagination." American Review of Canadian Studies 2003 33(4): 543-563. ISSN 0272-2011 Fulltext online at Ebsco
- Mulvihill, Peter R.; Baker, Douglas C.; and Morrison, William R. "A Conceptual Framework for Environmental History in Canada's North." Environmental History 2001 6(4): 611-626. ISSN 1084-5453. Proposes a five-part conceptual framework for the study of environmental history in the Canadian North. The first element of the framework analyzes approaches to environmental history that are applicable to the Canadian North. The second element reviews historical forces, myths, and defining characteristics that pertain to the region. A third element of the framework tests the validity of Turner's Frontier Thesis and Creighton's Metropolitan Thesis when applied to northern Canada. The fourth element consists of an overview of major northern environmental trends. The final element consists of four interrelated themes that identify the environmental relationships between northern and southern Canada.
External links
frontier in German: Grenzland
frontier in French: Mythe de la Frontière
frontier in Japanese: フロンティア
frontier in Norwegian: Grenseområdene
frontier in Portuguese: Fronteira
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
Berlin wall, China, Darkest Africa, God knows
where, Greenland,
North Pole, Outer Mongolia, Pago Pago, Pillars of Hercules,
Siberia, South Pole,
Thule, Tierra del Fuego,
Timbuktu, Ultima Thule,
Yukon, anteriority, antipodes, back country,
backcountry,
backwash, backwater, backwoods, bamboo curtain,
bold front, boondock,
boondocks, border, border ground, border
line, bordering,
borderland, borderline, bound, boundary, boundary condition,
boundary line, bounding, bounds, bourn, brave face, brave front,
break boundary, breakoff point, brush, bush, bush country, bushveld, ceiling, circumscription,
coastal, compass, confine, cutoff, cutoff point, dark horse,
deadline, delimitation, determinant, determinative, determining, display, division line, end, enigma, extreme, extremes, extremity, facade, face, facet, facia, finish, floor, fore, forefront, foreground, forehand, foreland, forepart, forequarter, foreside, forests, foreword, fringing, front, front elevation, front
line, front man, front matter, front page, front view, frontage, frontal, frontier post,
frontiers of knowledge, frontispiece, godforsaken
place, hack, head, heading, hedge, high-water mark, hinterland, interface, iron curtain,
jumping-off place, lap,
limbic, limen, liminal, limit, limitation, limiting, limiting factor,
limits, line, line of demarcation, littoral, low-water mark, lower
limit, march, marches, marchland, marginal, mark, matter of ignorance, mete, mystery, n, nowhere, obverse, outback, outer space, outlandish, outpost, outskirts, pale, pole, preface, prefix, priority, proscenium, puzzle, remote, riddle, rimming, sealed book, skirting, start, starting line, starting
point, sticks, target
date, term, terminal, terminal date,
terminus, terra
incognita, the Great Divide, the South Seas, the boondocks, the
bush, the incalculable, the moon, the sticks, the strange, the
tullies, the unfamiliar, the unknowable, the unknown, three-mile
limit, threshold,
timbers, time allotment,
twelve-mile limit, unexplored ground, unexplored territory,
uninhabited region, unknown quantity, unsettled, up-country, upper
limit, virgin land, virgin territory, wasteland, wild West, wilderness, wilds, window dressing, woodlands, woods, x, z