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Transcriber's Notes:
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[i]
THE FRONTIER
IN AMERICAN HISTORY
BY
FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1921
[ii]
Copyright, 1920
By
FREDERICK J. TURNER
[iii]TO
CAROLINE M. TURNER
MY WIFE
[iv]
[v]
PREFACE
In republishing these essays in collected form, it has seemed best toissue them as they were originally printed, with the exception of a fewslight corrections of slips in the text and with the omission ofoccasional duplication of language in the different essays. Aconsiderable part of whatever value they may possess arises from thefact that they are commentaries in different periods on the centraltheme of the influence of the frontier in American history. Consequentlythey may have some historical significance as contemporaneous attemptsof a student of American history, at successive transitions in ourdevelopment during the past quarter century to interpret the relationsof the present to the past. Grateful acknowledgment is made to thevarious societies and periodicals which have given permission to reprintthe essays.
Various essays dealing with the connection of diplomatic history and thefrontier and others stressing the significance of the section, orgeographic province, in American history, are not included in thepresent collection. Neither the French nor the Spanish frontier iswithin the scope of the volume.
The future alone can disclose how far these interpretations are correctfor the age of colonization which came gradually to an end with thedisappearance of the frontier and free land. It alone can reveal howmuch of the courageous, creative American spirit, and how large a partof the histor