Afrontier is apolitical andgeographical term referring to areas near or beyond aboundary.
The term "frontier" was frequently used incolonial Australia in the meaning of country that borders the unknown or uncivilised, the boundary, border country, the borders of civilisation, or as the land that forms the furthest extent of what was frequently termed "the inside" or "settled" districts.[1] The "outside" was another term frequently used in colonial Australia, this term seemingly[original research?] covered not only the frontier but the districts beyond. Settlers at the frontier thus frequently referred to themselves as "the outsiders" or "outside residents" and to the area in which they lived as "the outside districts". At times one might hear the "frontier" described as "the outside borders".[2] However the term "frontier districts" was seemingly[original research?] used predominantly in the early Australian colonial newspapers whenever dealing with skirmishes between black and white in northernNew South Wales andQueensland, and in newspaper reports fromSouth Africa, whereas it was seemingly not so commonly used when dealing with affairs inVictoria,South Australia and southern New South Wales. The use of the word "frontier" was thus frequently connected to descriptions of frontier violence, as in a letter printed in theSydney Morning Herald in December 1850 which described murder and carnage at the northern frontier and calling for the protection of the settlers saying: "...nothing but a strong body ofNative Police will restore and keep order in the frontier districts, and as the squatters are taxed for the purpose of such protection".[3]
The southern indigenous frontier of theViceroyalty of the Río de la Plata was the southern limit into which the viceyolty could exert its rule. Beyond this lay territories[4]de facto controlled by indigenous peoples who inhabited thePampas andPatagonia. These group were mainly theTehuelche,Pehuenche,Mapuche,[5] and theRanqueles.
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Various military campaigns and peace treaties were arranged by the Spanish in order to either stop indigenous incursions in Spanish lands or to advance the frontier into indigenous territory.[6] In the 1870s, to counter the cattle raids (and the native peoples on horseback), Argentina constructed a deep trench, calledZanja de Alsina, to prevent cattle from being driven west and establish a boundary to the raiding tribes in the Pampas.
Under GeneralJulio Argentino Roca, theConquest of the Desert extended Argentine power intoPatagonia.
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For long time a frontier existed east ofTarija in southeastern Bolivia.[7][8] Starting in the late 16th century the Spanish saw the tribes inhabiting the eastern jungles, and the "Chiriguanos" in particular, as a threat.[7] This frontier attractedMaroons and indigenous individuals who escaped Spanish rule in theReal Audiencia of Charcas.[8] The frontier remained remakably stable until the late 18th century when the Spanish made some advances into the Chiriguano territory.[8] Later, in the second half of the 19th century a more definitive advance begun on the Chiriguano lands with the last resistance being crushed in the early 20th century.[8]
TheDestruction of the Seven Cities (1599–1604) led to the formation of a frontier calledLa Frontera, with theSpanish ruling north ofBiobío River andMapuche retaining independence south of the said river. Within this frontier the city ofConcepción assumed the role of "military capital" of Spanish-ruled Chile.[9] This informal role was given by the establishment of the SpanishArmy of Arauco in the city which was financed by a payments of silver fromPotosí calledReal Situado.[9] Santiago located at some distance from the war zone remained the political capital since 1578.[9]
Following theMapuche uprising of 1655 and abolition ofMapuche slavery in 1683 in the Spanish Empire trade across the frontier increased.[10] Mapuche-Spanish and later Mapuche-Chilean trade increased further in the second half of the 18th century as hostilities decreased.[11] Mapuches obtainedgoods from Chile and some dressed in "Spanish" clothing.[12] Despite close contacts Chileans and Mapuches remained socially, politically and economically distinct.[12] Spanish and later Chilean officials with the titles ofcomisario de naciones andcapitán de amigos acted as intermediaries between the Mapuche and colonial and republican authorities.[13]
During theOccupation of Araucanía the Republic of Chile advanced the frontier south fromBío Bío River toMalleco River where a well defended line of forts was established between 1861 and 1871.
Having decisively defeated Peru in thebattles of Chorrillos andMiraflores in January 1881 Chilean authorities turned their attention to the southern frontier in Araucanía seeking to defend the previous advances that had been so difficult to establish.[14][15][16] The idea was not only to defend forts and settlements but also to advance the frontier all the way fromMalleco River toCautín River.[14][16]
In theUnited States, thefrontier was the term applied by scholars to the impact of the zone of land beyond the region of existing European occupation. That is, as pioneers moved into the frontier zone they were changed significantly by the encounter. That is whatFrederick 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 caused by land scarcity, and wastefulness of natural resources.
Operating in tandem with the doctrine of "manifest destiny", the "frontier" concept also had a massive impact on Native Americans like the declaration ofterra nullius[17] enacted by the British around 1835 to legitimize their colonization ofAustralia. The idea implicitly negated any recognition of legitimate pre-existing occupation and embodied a blank denial of land rights to the indigenous peoples whose territories were being annexed by European colonists.
Throughout American history, the expansion of settlement was largely from the east to the west and so 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 alsomarches). 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.
In the earliest days of European settlement of theAtlantic 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 theSt. Lawrence,Connecticut,Hudson,Delaware,Susquehanna River andJames.
British, French, Spanish, and Dutch patterns of expansion and settlement were quite different from one another. Only a few thousand French migrated to Canada; thehabitants settled in villages along the St. Lawrence River, built communities that remained stable for long stretches, and did not leapfrog west the way that the Americans would. Although French fur traders ranged widely through theGreat Lakes andMississippi River watershed, as far as theRocky Mountains, they did not usually settle down. Actual French settlement in those areas was limited to a few very small villages on the lower Mississippi and in theIllinois Country.[18]
Likewise, the Dutch set up fur trading posts in the Hudson River Valley, followed by large grants of land topatroons, who brought in tenant farmers who created compact permanent villages but did not push westward.[19]
In contrast, the British colonies generally pursued a more systematic policy of widespread settlement of theNew World for cultivation and exploitation of the land, a practice that required the extension of Europeanproperty rights to the new continent. The typical British settlements were quite compact and small: under a square mile. Conflict with the Native Americans arose out of political issues on who would rule. Early frontier areas east of theAppalachian Mountains included the Connecticut River Valley.[20] TheFrench and Indian Wars of the 1760s resulted in a complete victory for the British, who took over theFrench colonial territory west of the Appalachians to the Mississippi River. The Americans began moving across the Appalachians into areas such the Ohio Country and theNew River Valley.
After victory theAmerican Revolutionary War and the signingTreaty of Paris in 1783, theUnited States gained formal, if not actual, control of the British lands west of the Appalachians. Many thousands of settlers, typified byDaniel Boone, had already reachedKentucky andTennessee and adjacent areas. Some areas, such as theVirginia Military District and theConnecticut Western Reserve (both inOhio), were used by the states as rewards to veterans of the war. How to formally include the new frontier areas into the nation was an important issue in theContinental Congress in the 1780s and was partly resolved by theNorthwest Ordinance (1787). TheSouthwest Territory saw a similar pattern of settlement pressure.
For the next century, the expansion of the nation into those areas, as well as the subsequently-acquiredLouisiana Purchase,Oregon Country, andMexican Cession, attracted hundreds of thousands of settlers. The question of whether theKansas Territory would become "slave" or "free" helped to spark theAmerican Civil War. In general before 1860, Northern Democrats promoted easy land ownership, and Whigs and Southern Democrats resisted theHomestead Acts for supporting the growth of a free farmer population that might oppose slavery and for depoulating the East.
When the Republican Party came to power in 1860, it promoted a policy of a free land, 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 impact of the frontier in popular culture was enormous, as shown indime novels,Wild West shows, and after 1910Western films that were set on the frontier.
The American frontier was generally the edge of settlement in the West and typically was more democratic and free-spirited in nature than the East because of the 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 historianFrederick Jackson Turner, who built hisFrontier Thesis in 1893 around the notion.
ACanadian frontier thesis was developed by the Canadian historiansHarold Adams Innis andJ. M. S. Careless, who 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). Innis's 1930 workThe Fur Trade in Canada expounded on what became known as the Laurentian thesis: the most creative and major developments in Canadian history occurred in the metropolitan centres of Central Canada, and the civilization of North America is the civilization of Europe. Innis considered place to be 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 have continued 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 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 a frontier process in which the civilizing force is not supposed to be shaped by what it civilizes. Blattberg criticizes both the frontier and the border "civilizing" processes.
The pattern of settlement of the Canadian Prairies began in 1896, when the American Prairies had already achieved statehood. Pioneers then headed north to the "Last Best West." Before the settlers began to arrive, theNorth West Mounted Police had been dispatched to the region. When the settlers began to arrive, a system of law and order was already in place, and the Dakotas' lawlessness that was famous for the American "Wild West" did not occur in Canada. The federal government had also sent teams of negotiators to meet with the indigenous peoples of the region. In a series of treaties, the basis for peaceful relations was established, and thelong wars with the Natives that occurred in the United States largely did not spread to Canada.
Like their American counterparts, the Canadian Prairies supported populist and democratic movements in the early 20th century.[21]
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The expansion ofRussia to the north, south (Wild Fields) and east (Siberia, theRussian Far East andRussian Alaska) exploited ever-changing frontier regions over several centuries and often involved the development and settlement ofCossack communities.[22]
Xinjiang inChinese literally means "New Frontier" or "New Territory" (Chinese:新疆), and its previous full name was "Xiyu Xinjiang" (Chinese:西域新疆;lit. 'new frontier of theWestern Regions'), afterQing China conquered the region in 1759[23].
The transformation of Xinjiang into a Chinese frontier was decisively shaped by the Qing Empire’s military conquest of theDzungar Khanate in the 18th century, a series of campaigns often referred to as theDzungar Wars (1687–1757). These brutal wars against theMongol Buddhist Dzungars—who had built a powerful steppe polity stretching from the Altai to theIli River—culminated in the near-total destruction of the Dzungar population through warfare, famine, disease, and state-sanctioned mass killings, which some historians characterize as genocidal. Following the conquest, the Qing initiated a large-scale demographic, military, and administrative reordering of the region. Vacated Dzungar lands in the north (Zhunbu) were repopulated withManchus,Han Chinese,Mongols, and especially Uyghur Muslims from the south (Hui Muslims), laying the foundation for the modern ethno-geographic landscape of Xinjiang. This moment marks the beginning of Xinjiang as an imperial frontier—not just a militarized buffer againstCentral Asia andRussia, but a zone of active settler colonization, resource extraction, and frontier governance. The Qing’s establishment of garrisons, banner systems, and dual administration over Muslim and nomadic populations illustrates the imperial strategy of managing diversity while extending sovereignty.
Northeast part ofGuizhou Province was called "Liangyou Xinjiang" (Chinese:两游新疆;lit. 'new frontier of two prefectures') in early Qing Dynasty. During the reign of theYongzheng Emperor (1722–1735), the Qing state undertook a more assertive and systematic effort to incorporate and develop Guizhou, a rugged, mountainous frontier province inhabited largely by non-Han ethnic groups such as theMiao andBuyi. This campaign reflected the broader Qing ambition to solidify imperial authority across its southwestern periphery. Yongzheng implemented the policy ofgaitu guiliu (Chinese:改土归流;lit. 'replacing chiefs into regular officials'), replacing hereditary native chieftains (tusi) with centrally appointed officials in order to strengthen bureaucratic control and undermine semi-autonomous indigenous governance[24].
{{cite book}}:|journal= ignored (help){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Discharged and unemployed or deserting servicemen, younger sons and other dependents of men already in frontier service in older areas, fleeing criminals, sedentarized steppe Tatars, and cossacks took up residence in or near the new centers. Decade after decade, however, peasants fleeing to the frontier made up the largest category of migrants. [...] The more venturesome Russian migrants avoided the frontier towns and peasant villages in favor of life as cossacks (from the Turkickazak, meaning 'free man').