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Until The Late Eighteenth Century, Any Land Located Beyond The Alleghany Mountai
Until the late eighteenth century, any land located beyond the Alleghany mountains was believed to be savage, uninhabited land. Thus, it became known as the American frontier. According to Turner, the definition of frontier means, "the meeting point between savagery and civilization and a region of sparse settlement." 1 With the overwhelming number of frontiersmen invading this uninhabited land, many myths about winning the West arose, some containing truth, while others neglecting to tell the truth about treatment of Indians. Many of these myths referred to them as being the victims of white man's progress. In the short tale, O Pioneers, written by Willa Cather in 1913, tells a tale of the oncoming future of the Great Plains. Although this tale tells about the great fortune of the plains, it forgets to mention the heartaches of the Native Americans. Willa Cather was born December 7 , 1873 in a town west of Winchester, Virginia.2 In 1884, the Cather's moved their four children to a town called Red Cloud in Nebraska where they arrived to a place uninhabited, but with much fortune and hard work ahead of them. 3 In 1890, Willa attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she gained the knowledge and creativity to write such beautiful work. In her first works, Willa's animosity towards Nebraska was relevant in her work. 4 After she went east in 1896 and became editor of McClure's Magazine and gained success, her feeling toward Nebraska changed, which was evident in "The Bohemian Girl," in 1912. 5 When she published O Pioneers in 1913, many of her memories of childhood and life on the prairie were depicted in the tale. For example, a phrase in the tale O Pioneers is a memoir of the Divide when she was a child: "The variegated field, are all one colour now; the pastures, the stubble, the roads, the sky the same keaden gray. The frozen ground is so hard it bruises the foot to walk in the roads or in the ploughed fields." 6 After the quick rise of her successful career, Cather wrote many more wonderful works that revolved around her home . . . the Divide. Willa Cather died on April 24, 1947 in New York City as a celebrated person and a talented author. The Great Plains, America's largest openland frontier, may be defined as the region between the 98th meridian on the east and the Rocky Mountains on the west and extending from southern Texas up to the forested area in northeastern Canada. 7 The climate of the Great Plains is distinguished by its unpredictable weather, low rainfall, high winds and immoderate temperatures throughout the seasons. When the settlers from most European countries came to inhabit the new, unsettled land, they had no idea what was in store for them concerning weather and the Indian tribes of the land. The plains Indians created the worst threat to the white man that began to advance into the frontier. These tribesmen were difficult to control since they were nomadic and took their homes with them and lived off the land. 8 The Indians followed the buffalo, as it was their main source of food and clothing. When the white man drove the buffalo off the land, the Indians were forced to stay on reservations created by the...This is ONLY a preview of the article. If you would like to view the entire document, you must subscribe to Electronic References. Please register below now! Get This Full Article After Registration
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