In 1893, when Frederick Jackson Turner delivered his famous essay "The Importance of the Frontier in American History," the United States had recently reached the the goal of their manifest destiny in completing their conquest of the West. West. Westward expansion was an integral part of the American identity, and its citizens wondered what would continue to propel the United States into the future. At the same time, people were also looking back and trying to determine how exactly the frontier had shaped American life. The common belief was that America's conquest of the West was glorious and peaceful, and Turner's essay serves as a perfect example of this line of thinking. For Turner and his ilk, the West was an uninhabited area that was free for appropriation. By taking these lands, settlers created the American identity – one that symbolized individualism and strength. Although the West certainly helped shape America, this view has often overlooked the brutal nature of America's march westward. Turner's influential essay only helped cement the myth of benevolent Western colonization in American history. In his second paragraph, Turner makes an important statement that forms the thrust of the rest of the essay. He states that when “the nation grew, it encountered other growing peoples whom it conquered. But in the case of the United States, we are faced with a different phenomenon.” When other nations conquer people and places, the conquerors are forced to assimilate these new places into their existing society. The American tradition is different, however, because the United States had nothing to conquer. The West was empty, which allowed the Americans to settle on the free territory of...... middle of paper ......ed on westward expansion, so it didn't It's not very appealing to realize that westward expansion meant the brutal conquest of the indigenous population. To deal with this reality, Native Americans were pushed out of American consciousness. Westward expansion is much more palpable if the West is seen as a free and open land, ready to be conquered – as Turner's thesis describes it. When Americans were finally confronted with the fact that Native Americans had occupied the land, they were portrayed as brutes incapable of properly caring for the land. Over time, however, historians have been able to modify Turner's thesis into a more balanced argument. Turner's thesis remains important, however, because it very clearly represents American attitudes toward the frontier and westward expansion at the turn of the century...