Frontier – American Environments to 1893

March 10, 2014

The Fatal Flaw of The Fatal Environment

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After reading Slotkin’s The Fatal Environment, I was impressed but unconvinced with Slotkin’s concept of the “Frontier Myth.” While Slotkin provides an extremely thorough examination of how the “myth” of the frontier has been molded to explain Westward expansion, I think the breadth of his work makes some parts of his narrative superfluous.

Much like Ian, I found Slotkin’s Part III – “The Metropolis vs. The Frontier” to be one of his most effective sections. I would like to add to Ian’s analysis that while Slotkin argues that “humanity does in fact exist in nature,” I think Slotkin also believes that in the minds of nineteenth century American industrialists, humans were very separate from nature (iasolcz). This is seen in “The Language of the Frontier Myth” when Slotkin discusses the dispossession of Native Americans. While arguing that Indians were human despite white industrialist ideas that assumed otherwise, Slotkin outlines nature as something “primarily inhuman” (79). He asserts that throughout the Indian wars and American industrialization, the myth emerged that an inherent struggle existed between this inhuman realm and that of human “civilization,” and that it was this conflict that fueled tensions during Westward expansion (79).

Additionally, Part III set the framework for the remainder of Slotkin’s narrative by juxtaposing both perceptions of the frontier in popular culture – as found in many of Cooper’s novels – and the expansion of democracy and politics to the West with the idea of a separate, civilized “Metropolis” that dominated American culture (109-110). I thought this section was particularly interesting because it covered similar topics to our previous readings, particularly Turner’s “Frontier Thesis.” Unlike Turner, however, Slotkin emphasizes the expansion of the frontier as a result of the specific economic, political, and national concerns that emerged within the Metropolis. For example, he ties the spread over the frontier in the 1840s to the increased prevalence of “‘Jacksonian’ ideology” in the early nineteenth century (114).

Slotkin’s section on the railroad also relates to our reading of William Cronon and the development of Chicago in Nature’s Metropolis. Both Slotkin and Cronon emphasize the importance of human actors in bringing change to the environment. They also argue that the development of the railroad and the opening of the frontier was a direct result of the injection of capitalist ideals into the economy –this brings us back to Cronon’s “geography of capitalism” (15, 26). Like Slotkin notes, railroads made access to “nodes of superabundance” increasingly easy (211). However, Slotkin also seems to take Cronon’s analysis one step further and questions whether capitalism might have molded the perception of the railroad opening the frontier. While questions like this are certainly intriguing, this kind of curiosity from Slotkin ultimately turned me away from his narrative. I think these questions detracted too much from an environmental history and instead created a massive study in historical psychology. This was only furthered when Slotkin included his chapters on George Custer. Although the story of Custer’s Last Stand was an effective lens to introduce perceptions of the frontier in the nineteenth century, Slotkin’s perpetuation of the hero myth throughout the book seemed to be a thoughtful, but unnecessary addition to his main argument.

March 9, 2014

The Fatal Environment: White Supremacy and Myth

Myth and history are not mutually exclusive. Richard Slotkin provides his own definition of myth in The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800-1890. “Myths are stories, drawn from history, that have acquired through usage over many generations a symbolizing function that is central to the cultural functioning of the society that produces them,” writes Slotkin. (16) His work rests on the foundation that myth is an essential part of history, shaping, influencing, and molding a culture’s perception of its own history and past. Slotkin’s main thesis revolves around the idea that the glorified myth of the frontier on the eve of the industrial age was in fact a warped vision of the true history of the frontier.

I almost found Slotkin’s argument, though believable, to be repetitive. He argues that the history of the frontier was not a completely romanticized dream, but a story about white supremacy and racial superiority. The doctrine adopted to white man’s treatment of the West revolved around converting savages and suppressing their otherness. Frontier ideology, epitomized by James Fenimore Cooper, “centered on the representation of the history of American development as the confrontation between warring races, Indian and white.” (100) Slotkin then goes on to explain, “In the triumph of the white and the vanishing of the red, the progress of civilization is achieved, in both moral and material terms.” (100) White Americans viewed the conquering of the Indian in the West as an ultimate conquer over nature, for Americans regarded the Indians as an integral part of nature and the wilderness itself. I agree with Ian that “in breaking down Slotkin’s definition, we can see his position in that humanity does in fact exist in nature, as human heroics are allowed to tread there.” In class, we often discuss the possibility that mankind and their workings are as much a part of nature as any other animal. Looking through a twenty-first century lens, I could find support in Slotkin’s work that man is in fact a part of nature and the wilderness. Looking through a nineteenth century looking-glass, however, it might have been hard to consider Native American Indians as “mankind” when they were so often looked upon as savages.

Slotkin’s discussion on the conquering of nature reminds me of different aspects of human nature. Men are afraid of defeat, afraid of destruction. When white Americans sought a controlled nature and suppression of the Indian race, it was due to their fear of the “Custer Complex.” This complex was based off of the drive to conquer men and nature at any cost. Americans feared a defeat similar to the defeat of General George Custer by the Sioux. They also used Custer’s defeat as justification to rid of the Indian population to “protect or avenge the imperiled female.” (377) Slotkin argues that Custer’s defeat became a prominent legend of American West mythology. (14) Not only did the loss become a part of American myth and legend, but also placed itself within a conversation of gender and racial discrimination. Slotkin’s literary and historical approach in his work present interesting arguments in a somewhat unusual way, but his thesis does not extensively add to a new historical argument about white supremacy and oppression.

March 9, 2014

The Literature of the Environment

The Fatal Environment by Richard Slotkin takes an unconventional approach to analyzing environmental history, using the lens of 19^th century myths in literal works and newspapers to hone in on what the frontier truly was. Through his analysis, Slotkin references the debate that we are continually having in class, what is nature and the sub questions that have come with this ongoing debate? Using the Western Frontier as his study of nature, he says “it is divided between two realms: the “Metropolis,” the civilizational center; and the “Wilderness,” into which the heroic energies of the Metropolis are projected (41). In breaking down Slotkin’s definition, we can see his position in that humanity does in fact exist in nature, as human heroics are allowed to tread there. But, he also seems to clearly state that the more sophisticated and advanced members of society leaving the more “primitive” to extend their travels into the unknown and resource filled wilderness, which for him is somewhat synonymous with nature.

Slotkin’s ideas on the west, and thereby nature, being more primitive are further represented in his piece when referencing the classic captivity and hunter narrative that are so prevalent in many 19^th century literary works. In describing this narrative, Slotkin indicates that the frontier was one of “regression” civilized men and women leave contemporary society, and enter- willingly or as captive- a primitive, primal world (63). Though nature under Slotkin’s school of thought does contain a human hand, it also represents a digression from the promise of industrialization in the cities into the dangerous and often Native American inhabited frontier.

For some though, this journey into the frontier and away from the “civilized” society of the city was not a bad thing, but something of a rebirth. Slotkin indicates through the narrative of Sam Houston that the frontier often offered a renewal to men who had suffered “moral or material ruin” in the struggles of the metropolis (163). For Houston, this is exactly what happened, and after living with the Cherokee Indians and learned “Nature’s truths” he emerged from his journey to embark upon his most memorable feats in the war for Texas’s Independence from Mexico. Though he may have entered the “primitive land” to live with Native Americans, Houston never lost his more sophisticated teachings, continuing to read literary works, thereby displaying his status what Slotkin coins as a “natural aristocrat” (163).

As this is the first post for this week, I thought it would be a good idea to connect Slotkin’s work to one of the overarching questions of our class, that being about nature as an “actor.” Through Slotkin’s usage of literature as a lens to analyze environmental history, I believe he does a great job of framing nature as an actor in the cultural development of the United States, specifically as the antagonist of the story. Throughout the piece, Slotkin identifies the frontier, thereby the most “natural” part of the United States as an uncivilized and primitive environment. Under this understanding, the natural landscape of the United States becomes not only the antagonist of the story, but something that must be overcome and conquered in order for society to blossom. Through his descriptions of nature being an entity that must overcome and conquered, Slotkin casts the natural environment of the West (the frontier) as somewhat of an organic creature, one that actively fights against the progressions of American culture.