Frontiers and Empires in The Late Nineteenth Century

The Western History Association
Frontiers and Empires in the Late Nineteenth Century

Author(s): Walter Nugent
Source: The Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Nov., 1989), pp. 393-408
Published by: Western Historical Quarterly, Utah State University on behalf of The Western
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and Empiresin the
Frontiers
Late Nineteenth
Century
WALTER NUGENT
n thelate nineteenthcentury,Europeansand theircolonialdescendants

around the world pushed into new regionson a scale theyhad never
beforemanaged, and withan assurednesstheywould neveragain pos-
sess after1914. Sometimestheyexpanded into frontiers,and sometimes
intoempires.The purposeofthisessayis to suggestwaysin whichfrontier-
buildingand empire-building were similar,and ways in whichtheywere
different.1
Europeans began sailing around southernAfricato South and East
Asia, and westwardto the Americas,just before1500. They established
theSpanish and Portugueseseaborneempiresin thesixteenthcentury,and
the French,Dutch, and English in the seventeenth.The eighteenthcen-
turybecame, fromtheEuropean standpoint,a "second age ofdiscovery"
withthe explorationofthe Pacific. There were new varietiesof European
expansion: demographic,withthe rise of population in modern Britain,
Europe, and NorthAmerica; economic,withthebeginningofindustriali-
zation; political,withthe independenceof the United States in 1776 and
of Latin Americaduringand just afterthe Napoleonic Wars (1810-1822);
and diplomatic-imperial, in the formof contactsand conquests involving
NorthAfricaand the Middle East, China (1839-1842), and Japan (1853).
Up to this point the "rise of the West" or "expansion of Europe" is a
familiarstory.It principallyinvolvedpoliticalor militaryelites.
But duringthenineteenth century,Europe's populationbegan to move
acrossbordersand even acrosstheAtlantic.The populationofthe United
States, withoutmuch help fromEurope and withoutsignificantMalthu-
sian checks,multipliedby one-thirdeverydecade up to 1860. The arrival
of steam-poweredindustryand transportation in the thirdquarterof the
Walter Nugent is AndrewV. Tackes Professorof Historyat the Universityof Notre

Dame.
I
This is a revisedversionof an essay which appeared in Michael Heyd et al., eds.,
Religion,IdeologyandNationalisminEuropeandAmerica: EssaysinHonorofYehoshua
Arieli(Jerusa-
lem, 1986). The author thanksProfessorArieli forgraciouslyconsentingto its republica-
tion. He also thanksCharles S. Petersonforencouragementand forincisivequestionsthat
broughtabout clarificationof many points.
394 THE WESTERN HISTORICAL QUARTERLY November
centurytransformed European expansivenessinto a mass movement.Ad-

vances in technologyalso created a NorthAtlanticnexus of politicaland
economic energythat drove much of the world until 1914, and in some
places until after1945. In the four-hundred years since Vasco da Gama
and Columbus, Europe's expansivepowerand self-confidence were never
greater than in the forty-oddyears before 1914, and in the 1880s it was
probably greatest of all.
The thesishere is thatin the 1870-1914 period, the frontierimpulse
and theimperialimpulsewererelatedin sourceand performance; thatfront-
iers may be distinguishedand a typologyof frontiers developed; and that
empire-building(imperialism), context,appears be a special typeof
in to
frontier. The keyto thetypology,thoughnot itsonlyingredient,is demog-
raphy.Demographicstability,or thelack of it, providedfirmnessor tran-
siencyforfrontiers and empires.In general,empiresprovedtransientand
frontiersevolved into permanentsocieties.
A fewmorewords,however,shouldbe said about whythe late nine-
teenthcentury-especiallythe 1880s-was special. Why mightEuropeans
and Americansof thattimehave thoughttheirachievementsunique and
theirballooning self-confidence justified?In the 1880s several factors-
economic, technological,cultural-nationalistic, and political-converged
to producean exuberantproliferation ofexpansionistepisodes.The slightly
longerperiodof 1873 to 1896 was once regarded,especiallyin Britain,as
a "Great Depression," largelybecause Britishgrowthlost ground com-
pared to earlierVictoriantimesand because thelong-termtrendin money
supplywas deflationary.But "Great Depression" does not fitthe larger
transatlantic context.2Even a neoclassicalhistoricaleconomistwho retains
thetermand rightlypointsto theseverityofthe 1873-1878and 1893-1897
depressionsin theUnitedStatesproperlycalls the 1880s "a decade ofbuoy-
ant growth"in the United States as well as Britain.3From the economic
standpoint,in fact,expansionlasted in the United States fromthe recov-
ery in late 1878 untilthe Panic of mid-1893,and in Britain,France, and
Germanyfromlate 1879 to 1891. Industrialproductionrose 20 to 25 per-
cent in France and Britainin those years, and about 50 percentin Ger-
many.4This robustmaterialclimatewas a necessarypartoftheexpansionism
of the period.
Economicgrowthand technologicalinnovationwerelegionduringthe
1880s. Steel outputdoubled in France, tripledin Britain,and quintupled
2
S. B. Saul, TheMythoftheGreatDepression inEngland(London, 1969); Dan S. White,
"Political Loyaltiesand EconomicDepressionin Britian,France,and Germany,1873-1896,"
unpublishedpaperdeliveredat theAmericanHistoricalAssociationmeeting,December 1979.
3 Jeffrey G. Williamson,LateNineteenth-Century
American A General
Development: Equilibrium
Theory (New York, 1974), 93, chp. 5.
B. R. Mitchell, EuropeanHistoricalStatistics
1750-1970 (New York, 1976), 335.
1989 WALTER NUGENT 395
in Germanyand theUnited States.5Not so different in populationsize at

thattime,Germanyand the United States led Europe and the Americas
in demographicand industrialexpansion. The basic railwaynetworksof
Europe and NorthAmerica were mostlyin place by the early 1890s. In
the 1880s alone, fournew transcontinental lines were added to the Union
Pacific/Central Pacificline of 1869, whileJohnA. Macdonald's National
Policybore fruit(ifoftenbitterforearlyprairiefarmers)in the completion
oftheCanadian Pacificin 1885. Elsewhere,thetrans-Siberian railroadbegan
in 1891, whileotherrailroad-building, less dramaticthan those immense
efforts yetcriticalfortheirregions,flunglinesacrosstheArgentinepampas
and theS5o Paulo plateau,as wellas throughout easternGermany,divided
Poland, Austria-Hungary,and Romania.
Sudden,effective improvements in publichealthand sanitationlowered
mortality and disease ratesafter 1880, dramatically in European and Ameri-
can cities.6Publicauthorities and physiciansbegan to acceptthegermtheory
and thegrimcostsofbad sanitation.The Scientific American adviseditsreaders
that "of the cases of disease now currentin civilizedcommunities,about
one-thirdcould have been preventedby intelligentsanitation,personal or
general." Microorganismswere everywhere,people learned.' Sanitation
regulationsalso improvedthesafetyofmigrantembarkationand debarka-
tionportssuch as Hamburg, New York, Santos, and Buenos Aires,as well
as the steamshipscruisingbetweenthem.
The periodsaw notonlygreateconomicand technologicalchangebut
also an unprecedented churningofpeople.EightmillionEuropeansmigrated
between 1880 and 1890 alone, across provincialand national boundaries
withinEurope and among New World countries.They used the newly-
built networksof railroadswithinEurope, steamshipsto cross the Atlan-
tic,and railroadsagain to travelto inlandcities,coffeeplantations,mines,
or wheatfields.8Millionsventuredout ofHamburg,Bremen,Antwerp,Na-
ples, Trieste,and Odessa, to Northand South America-and, often,back
again. As late as the 1920s, Ukrainians and otherEast Europeans com-
pleted the settlementof the Canadian prairiefrontier.They also ended a
farm-seeking migrationprocessthat,in itsbasic shape, began around 1720
when Germans fromthe Rheinpfalzand Scots-IrishfromUlster started
5 Ibid., 399.
6
Edward Meeker, "The ImprovingHealth of the United States, 1850-1915," Explo-
rationsin EconomicHistory,9 (Summer 1972), 353-73.
7 From the "50 and 100 Years Ago" columns,Scientific (April 1984, Novem-
American,
ber 1984).
8 B. R. Mitchell,International
HistoricalStatistics:TheAmericas
andAustralasia(Detroit,
1983), 657-58, 661-62. For railwaylines in operation,see Mitchell,EuropeanHistoricalStatis-
tics,583-84.
migratingto farmsteadsin easternPennsylvaniaand northernVirginia.

In the earlynineteenthcenturyGermans and Italians similarlycolonized
Brazil's Rio Grande do Sul. From about 1850 throughthe 1880s British,
German, and Scandinavian farmfamiliespeopled the upper Mississippi
Valley and Great Plains while otherEuropeans migratedto newlyavail-
able farmlandin New Zealand, Australia,and South Africa.In thistradi-
tionaltransatlanticmigration,a familytradedin, so to speak, a small, no
longercompetitivefarmin northernEurope fora larger,efficient, poten-
tiallyproductiveone in the United States, Canada, or southernBrazil.
Repatriationwas uncommon in this farmseeking,familymigration.
Increasinglyafter1880,however,transatlantic steamshipscarriedtem-
porarymigrants,sometimescalled "golondrinas" or "birds of passage."
Most of themwere young men seekingmarginalwage advantage some-
wherein the Americas,puttingaside or sendinghome cash, returningto
Europe aftera season or two, and migratingagain when opportunityap-
peared. Labor-seeking, temporary migrationwithinEuropewas an old prac-
tice; examples can be found in the seventeenthcenturyor even earlier
withoutstretching definitionsof"laborseeking"too far.Withsteam-powered
transportation in place, the range of opportunitiesexpanded fromtrans-
Alpine or trans-Elbianto transatlantic,creatinga migrantlabor pool in-
volvinghundredsofthousandsofpersonseveryyear, travelingthousands
insteadofhundredsofmiles,out ofEurope, mainlyto Canada, theUnited
States, Brazil, and Argentina,and oftenback again.
Nearlytwoand one-halftimesas manypeopleleftEurope in the 1880s
thanin the 1870s. Aftera dip in the 1890s thenumberofmigrantsreached
11.4 millionfrom1901-1910,the all-timehighforone decade.9 The new
elementin the 1880s was thelabor-seeking,temporarymigration,adding
to the continuingfarm-family migration.Most ofthe 800,000 people who
went to Argentinain the 1880s were labor-seekers,and so, with certain
differences,were the 500,000 who went to Brazil, the 900,000 who went
to Canada, and the nearly5,000,000 who wentto the United States-the
destinationofhalfto two-thirds ofall European emigrantsthroughoutthe
whole periodofmass emigrationfromthe 1840s to World War I. Borders
weremoreopen thantheywerebeforeor later,government policiesgenerally
encouragedmigrationratherthanrestricted it, and themeansoftravelwere
saferand moreaccessible.The Atlanticbecame a two-wayboulevard,and
the demographiccharacterof both Europe and the Americas changed
irrevocably.
9 Mitchell,EuropeanHistorical 135. The per-decadetotalsofmigrantsleaving

Statistics,
Europe are (in millions): 1851-60,2.2; 1861-70,2.8; 1871-80,3.2; 1881-90, 7.8; 1891-1900,
6.8; 1901-10, 11.4; 1911-20, 6.8; 1931-40, 1.2.
So did theirfrontiers,
thelands withintheNew Worldcountriesprevi-
ously unoccupied by people of European stock. Elsewherein the world,
themigrationofEuropean populationcould also mean farmsettlementor
wage-seeking,as it did in Australiaand New Zealand. It could also repre-
sentempire-building.The availabilityof "free" land in the United States
and Canada (bothwithattractivehomesteadpolicies),thetenantcontracts
on the Argentinepampas and Paulo's coffeeplantations(both areas
to
opening development and Sa.o
settlement at about thesame rateas theNorth
AmericanGreat Plains), as well as thewages to be earned in factoriesand
minesin theUnited Statesand elsewhere,attractedEuropeans irresistibly
to theNew World's manyfrontiers. The newly-founded Africanand Asian
coloniesoftheGreatPowerswerefarlessenticing.Unlessone countsCanada
and Australia,or NorthAfrica,as sitesofempire-and theywereverydiffer-
ent fromRhodesia or India, Indo-China or the Philippines-it becomes
clear that empire-buildingwas not in the same demographicclass with
frontier-settlingor labor-seekingmigration.
An importantsimilaritybetweenfrontiers and empireslies in the fact
thatno "new" (to Europeans) regionwas trulyempty.No regionof the
world,tropicalor temperate,to whichpeople ofEuropean stockmigrated
in the 1870-1914 period, lacked indigenouspeople. The permanenceor
transienceof the European approach depended greatlyon what those in-
digenouspeople werelike and how successfully theycould resistor absorb
theEuropeans.Some oftheindigeneswereweakmilitarily, looselyorganized
socially,or technologicallysimple. Otherswere strong,old, highlydevel-
oped civilizations
thatdid notsharetheEuropeanand European-American's
senseofracialsuperiority towardthem.Some indigeneslivedin areas recog-
nized in internationallaw to be withinthe limitsof sovereignterritory of
the European-stocknation,as was trueofNative AmericansfromPatago-
nia to the Arctic,or aboriginalAustralians.Others lived in places some-
timesfardistantfromtheintrudingEuropean-stocknation,as was thecase
withAfricansor Indians. Frontiers,in otherwords,werewithinterritorial
boundaries;empireswereoutsidethem.This difference bore consequences,
to be sure, but it should not obscure the fact that both were targetsof
European-stockmigration.
In the frontiergroupwere thelargestofthe New World nations,ter-
ritoriallyand in population(except Mexico): Canada, the United States,
Brazil, and Argentina.1?All fourconfrontedrelativelyweak native peo-
ples and, therefore,contained extensive"free" lands withintheir own
10
Mexico, impoverishedby the free-tradepolicies of the Porfirio Diaz regime
(1874-1911), and racked forthe decade afterthatby revolution,was in no positionto de-
velop whateverfrontier it had left,much of whichhad been swallowedby the United States
in the war of 1846-1848 anyway. Like the South of the United States, Mexico already had
an oversupplyof poor people and an undersupplyofjobs. Europeans had no reason to mi-
grate there,eitherforfarmsor forwages.
borders.The second group includedthe most powerfulEuropean states:

Germany,France, and Britain.Creating or adding to far-flung empires,
they superimposedthemselvesupon peoples and civilizationsolder than
theirown, as in South and East Asia, or at least radicallydifferent from
theirs,as in Africa and Oceania. The frontierspeopleand the empire-
builders-all Europeans or European-Americanssharingthe same trans-
atlanticeconomy,technology,and migrationpool, all migrants,all in some
way expanders-differedless in who theythemselveswere than in whom
theymet.1'
BetweentheNew World frontier societiesand theOld World empire-
builders,and withineach group, national peculiaritiesstronglynuanced
the expansionistdrive. In the case of the fourEuro-Americancountries,
the task was to colonize the interior:the Great Plains of Canada and the
United States,thepotentiallycoffee-bearing plateau ofSao Paulo stateand
adjacent areas, and the pampas of central and northernArgentina.The
threeEuropean imperialpowers,on the otherhand, thrustinto the Afri-
can interiorfromall pointsof the compass, into Indonesia and otherPa-
cific islands, into Malaysia and Indo-China, and to the limited degree
possible, into the Chinese empire.
Sometimesthe Europeans made permanentinroads, sometimesnot.
In places wherepoliticalcontrolwas alreadyconsolidatedin western-style,
formally liberalpoliticalsystems,thefrontier area was assimilatedin every
functionalway. Familiarcases are theUnited States and Canada: Despite
lingeringwestern-state or prairie-province resentment towardWashington
or Ottawa, no one could possiblyarguethattodaytheAmericanand Cana-
dian Wests are anythingbut securepartsofthosecountries.But in places
wherepoliticalcontrolwas newlyimposedfromEurope, and keptin place
by an authoritymoremilitarythanmoraland morephysicalthancultural,
such controlseldomsurvivedlong after1945. In theGerman case (though
forintra-European,not intrinsically colonialreasons)it enduredonlyuntil
1918.
These different resultscan be explainedby differences in culture,tech-
nology,militarystrength, or other I
ways. would like to point out demo-
graphicconsiderations(among them the relativesizes of the indigenous
populations) that, togetherwith social and culturalfactors,help explain
theirsuccessor failurevis-a-visthe Europeans. In NorthAmerica, native
peoplesoffered fiercebut sporadicand ineffectiveresistance.The Comanche
" Comparativefrontiershave receivedmanyenlighteningdiscussionsin recentyears.

Two thathave helped me mostare William H. McNeill, TheGreatFrontier:
Freedom andHier-
archyinModernTimes(Princeton,1983), and AlistairHennessy, TheFrontier
in LatinAmerican
History(Albuquerque, 1978).
and Apache of Texas and the desertSouthwestbroughtthe Spanish to a

stalematefortwocenturieson thethinly-populated northernborderofNew
Spain, but gave way to the overwhelming mass of incoming Anglo-
Americansin the 1870s and 1880s.12 A highculturallevel was of no help.
The civilizedtribesof the southeasternUnited States were removedwith
ease (not to themselves)in the 1830s to a place hundredsof miles west-
ward. In Brazil, the indigenesconsistedchieflyofjungle peoples, pushed
out of the centralplateaus in the eighteenthcentury.13In Argentina,the
armydrovetheAraucaniansoffthepampas and largelyexterminated them
in the "Conquest oftheDesert" endingin 1880, in an effort"even more
effective than the Indian wars of the [U.S.] Mid-west."'14 Several writers
have pointedout thatEuropean-stockfrontierspeople defeatedthe Sioux,
theAraucanians,and theZulu, all in or about 1879, and themetisand their
Indian allies in westernCanada in 1885.15No convenientlycoincidental
date marksnative-whitecontactin Australia and New Zealand, because
the Europeans had already taken over.16
The nativepeoples of theWesternHemisphere,thoughat timesfor-
midable,did notpresentto Europeanstheintractable resistanceoftheHindi,
the Annamese, the Thai, or theJavanese. Nor were Zulu, Abyssinians,
or Sudanese easy marks.Thus, in the WesternHemisphere,the willing-
ness of the United States and Canadian peoples to settleand not simply
exploittheirhinterlandsand the relativepowerlessnessof the native peo-
ples to preventit,meantfirmand permanentcontroloverthefrontier. Their
controlwas inhibitedonly by lack of caution in dealing with unfamiliar
and delicateenvironments such as the High Plains and Great Basin of the
UnitedStatesor thenorthern prairiesofCanada. In late nineteenth-century
Brazil,theunoccupiedarea was so utterly vastthateven theheadlongthrusts
of coffeeculturethree-hundred to five-hundredmilesinland got the Euro-
peans less than halfwayto the Andes. FortunatelyforBrazil, no powerful
enemy with expansionistdesignslurkedon the Pacific coast, threatening
to crossthe mountainsintothe Brazilian Far West. (None threatenedthe
United Stateseither.)The New World frontier countriesdid not compete
with each other,having enough to do withintheirown boundaries.
12As Mexico gave way politicallyin Texas in 1836.

13Hennessy, The Frontier, 66-67.
1" Hennessy, TheFrontier, 65. Also, James R. Scobie, Revolution
onthePampas:A Social
HistoryofArgentine Wheat,1860-1910 (Austin, 1964), 39.
15 See, forexample,James Gump, "The
SubjugationoftheZulus and Sioux: A Com-
parative Study," Western HistoricalQuarterly,
19 (January 1988), 21-36.
16 On New Zealand and
the reductionof the Maori, see AlfredW. Crosby, Ecological
Imperialism: TheBiologicalExpansionofEurope,900-1900 (Cambridge, 1986), 172-73, 265-66.
In Africa,however,competition amongtheEuropeanpowersweakened
the gripof all of them,thoughtheydid not seem weak to the native peo-
ples. Occasionally the European transplanttook root, at least fora time,
as was the case withthe Danish coffeefarmer(and writer)Isak Dinesen
in.Kenya.17The Frenchin West Africamingledwell enoughto leave more
thanjust a residue of language, culture,and even genes, more than did
the British.But thentheFrenchenjoyedmuchbetterrelationswithnative
peoplesin NorthAmericain theseventeenthand eighteenthcenturiesthan
theBritishdid, and theygotalong betterthantheBritishdid in nineteenth-
centuryAfricatoo. Since 1945, however,the European presence every-
where in Africa,thoughoftendogged, has been retreating.The sole re-
mainingEuropean-stockregime,South Africa,holds itselfin controlof a
large indigenousmajorityby force,so farpreventinga takeoverby native
peoples, such as happened in Zimbabwe in 1979.
Frontiersdifferedfrom each other, not just geographically,but
demographicallyand culturally.WithintheUnited States,many frontiers
appeared and disappearedover timeand space. They have been classified
in variousways. One simpletypology,restingon grossdemographiccon-
trasts,separatesfrontierswithinthe United States. It may also assist in
comparingthem with frontiersin otherNew World countriesand with
empire-buildingin Africaand Asia. This typologyincludes two categor-
ies, whichmay be labeled, neutrally,I and II. Type I consistsof farming
frontiers.They appeared in the Virginia Piedmontand westernNew En-
gland early in the eighteenthcentury.They kept reappearingacross the
Appalachians,theMississippi,and theMissouri,untilall theland thatwas
trulycheap and arablehad been occupiedon theHigh Plains and theCana-
dian prairiesearlyin thetwentieth century.The people ofthefarmingfron-
tierswere the colorlessmany. Type II includes miningcamps and cattle
towns,as farback as the tobacco plantationsof the seventeenth-century
Chesapeake, beforeits populationbecame self-sustaining. Its people were
thecolorfulfew:cowboys,forty-niners, prostitutes,
gunfighters, and moun-
tain men. They were transientson the make, most of them male. Type
I frontiers
includedwomenand children;Type II frontiers rarelydid. The
myths and symbols of frontiers
and the West in American culturederive
largelyfrom events that on
happened Type II frontiers.
Farm frontierspeople
weretoo busytryingto raise familiesand eke out a livingto become legen-
dary. Yet the settlementof the interiorof the United States (and Ontario
17 Isak Dinesen, Out ofAfrica,repr. ed. New York, 1952).
and westernCanada), i.e. thetransformation

ofmillionsofacresfromwilder-
nessto farmland,resultedfromtheType I frontier
repeatingitselfforseveral
generationsin new settings.The major differencesare as follows:
Type I Type II
farming,farm-building mining,cattle, other extraction
families,usually nuclear individuals
balanced sex distribution 80% to 90% (or more) male
many children absence of children
a fewover 45 almost none over 45
high birthrate low birthrate
relativelypermanent transient
peaceful violent
colonizing imperialist,exploitative
The Overland Trail illustratesboth types. In the 1840s and 1850s,
over three-hundred thousandpeople trekkedfromsettledareas and clos-
ing frontiers east of the Mississippito pointson the Missouri River, at or
beyondtheedge offarmsettlement, and followedtheOverlandTrail across
futureNebraska and Wyomingtowarddestinationsto thewest. Until the
late 1840s, virtuallyall overlandersheaded forOregon's WillametteVal-
ley. But beginningin 1847, Mormons followedthe trail formuch of its
lengthuntilcrossingthe continentaldivide. Then, instead of proceeding
northwestward towardOregon, theyturnedsouthwestuntiltheyreached
theland betweentheGreat Salt Lake and thewesternslope oftheWasatch
Range. A thirdgroup of overlanders,quite distinctfromeitherthe Ore-
gon settlersor the Mormons, and much largerthan either,followedthe
trailin the foursummersfrom1849 through1852, passing throughMor-
mon countryand on westto the Sierrasand the gold fieldsof California.
By 1850 the Overland Trail thus could lead to Oregon, Utah, or
California--threeverydifferent frontiers.
The United StatesCensus countedheads in all threeareas forthefirst
time in 1850. The age and sex structuresof the areas were not the same:
Area'8 Population Male Age:0-14 15-44 Over44

Oregon 13,000 62% 38% 54% 8%
Utah 11,000 55% 45% 55% neglig.
California 93,000 92% 6% 91% 3%
Oregonshowssex and age distributionsnormalforfarming (Type I) frontiers

in theirearly stages. The male proportiondeclines in later years, gradu-
ally approachingparitywithfemales,firstwhen young men who had ar-
rivedin Oregon by themselvesfoundplaces and thensentforbrides, and
18 U.S. Bureau of the Census, HistoricalStatistics

oftheUnitedStates,ColonialTimesto
1970 (Washington,
D.C., 1975),SeriesA195-209,1:25-36.
later as childrenand grandchildrenreplaced the pioneers. Utah exhibits

an unusuallybalancedsex ratiofora frontier,and morechildrenthanusual:
evidencethattheMormonsemigratedas families,and thattheycontinued
theirprocreativeduty. California,in contrastto both, was a classic Type
II frontier.
A similarcontrastappeared in the 1860 census in two neighboring
territoriesfarthereast. By 1860 thewesternline ofagriculturalsettlement,
the"frontier line" (reallythe"Type I frontier
line"), had penetratedeastern
Kansas. At the same time the Front Range of the Rockies, fromPike's
Peak to Denver, was the targetof a gold rush, with the usual Type II
characteristics:
Area19 Population Male Age: 0-14 15-44 Over44

Kansas 107,000 55% 42% 57% 1%
Colorado 34,000 97% 3% 94% 3%
In theType I cases (Oregon and Utah in 1850, Kansas in 1860), themales

were in the majority,but onlyslightly,and childrenaccountedfora large
partofthepopulation.Most oftherestwerewomenand men in theirtwen-
tiesand thirties.The Type I frontier,in short,was a land ofyoungpeople,
forming familiessimultaneously withfarms-thedemographicand economic
sides of the same coin. The Type II frontiers of 1850 Californiaand 1860
Colorado wereverydifferent, lands ofyoungmen in theirlate teens,twen-
ties, or thirties.Women were absent and, therefore,so were children.
The social consequencesofthesedemographicdifferences have never
been quantified,but theyseem incontestable.Vigilantes,shoot-outs,homi-
cides,rapes,fightsoverminingclaimsand grazingrights,prostitution, and
othersocial ills forwhich the early AmericanWest is so famous (overly
so) were the productsof the relativelyfew,the young males, who popu-
lated Type II frontiers.The Type I majorityof frontierspeople were oc-
cupied more productively,and the femalecomponentmade substantive
contributions to community buildingand stability.One finaldifference needs
to be noted. Type II frontierswerenotoriouslyunstable;theycould disap-
pear as quicklyas theyformed.If thesilveror gold playedout or ifa closer
railheadopenedforshippingthecattleeast,theyoungmen movedon. Type
I frontierswereby no means perfectly stable. People climbingthe agricul-
tural ladder moved fairlyoften.But landowning,once achieved, usually
meant roots.
This simpletypologyis about frontiers, i.e. areas in theirinitialyears
of whitesettlement.It has much less to offerabout mostof the twentieth-
centuryWest, wherefarm-family frontiershave disappeared or never ex-
isted in the firstplace, yetwheresex ratioshave become normal and the
19 Ibid.
age distributionmuchbroader. Furthermore,some agriculturalfrontiers,

in the United States and in Latin America, do not easily fitType I, and
fitType II onlywithstrain.For the period before1920, however,Types
I and II appear to encompassmostofthefrontier activity,farmand other-
wise, withinthe United States.
So too withCanada.20 From the 1830s untilcheap land was gone in
the 1860s, Ontario was a Type I farmfrontierquite similar to the area
of the United States fromLake Ontario westwardto the Mississippi. But
the Canadian search forfarmlandwas divertedto the United States for
the next thirtyyears by the Canadian Shield, thatvast unplowable land
of graniteand muskegbetweencentralOntario and Winnipeg. Because
of thatbarrier,Canada lost more people than she gained frommigration
between1870 and 1900. After1901, however,thanksto theCanadian Pa-
cificRailroad, active recruitment of farmfamiliesby the railroad and by
an
governments, enlightened homestead policy,and favorablegrainprices,
the prairieprovincesjoined adjacent partsof the United States in becom-
ing thelast greatType I frontier.Canadian development,in otherwords,
included expansive Type I frontieractivityforabout a centuryprior to
the 1920s,exceptfor1870-1900.Canada also had Type II frontiers, in fact
predominantly so ifone classifies
the furtrade as such. Certainlythe 1859
Fraser River gold rushand the Yukon rush of the late 1890s qualify.Be-
cause of the early presence of governmentalauthority(especially the
MountedPolice), Canadian frontiers escaped theviolencethatmarredsome
oftheAmericanones. The Canadian experienceshowsthatthesocialpathol-
ogies oftheUnited States's Type II frontiers werenot an inevitableconse-
quence of the demography.21
In Brazil and Argentina,thetypologyhas to be revisedconsiderably.
In bothcountries,thelinesofsettlement movedrapidlywestwardor north-
westwardfromthe 1870sor 1880sto 1914or beyond.European immigrants
20 French Canada excepted; whatever"frontier" it had was filledbefore 1850, and

as was true of settled,rural New England, its excess population migratednot to western
farms,but to nearby cities, oftenones in the United States.
21 Helpful studiesof Canadian population,migration,and frontiers include Yolande
Lavoie, L 'migrationdesCanadiensauxEtats-Unisavant1930: Misuredu Phinomene (Montreal,
1972); Warren E. Kalbach and Wayne W. McVey, TheDemographic BasesofCanadianSociety,
2d ed. (Toronto, 1979); R.H. Coats and M.C. Maclean, TheAmerican-Born in Canada: A
Statistical (Toronto, 1943); Leon E. Truesdell, The CanadianBornin theUnited
Interpretation
States:AnAnalysisoftheStatistics
oftheCanadianElementin thePopulation
oftheUnitedStates1850
to1930 (New Haven, 1943); ChesterMartin, 'DominionLands' Policy(Toronto, 1973); Ger-
ald Friesen, TheCanadianPrairies:A History
(Lincoln, 1984). Martin's book does forCanada
whatPaul W. Gates's History ofPublicLand Law Development (Washington,D.C., 1968) does
forthe United States public domain. Friesen's book is a finelycrafted,readable, compre-
hensive historyof the prairie provinces.
arrivedin largenumbers.Bothcountriesearnedprominentplaces in world

agriculturalmarkets-Brazil withcoffee,Argentinawithbeefand wheat.
Vast areas were opened to productivesettlement,indeed settlement(by
Europeans)ofany kind,proddedby railroad-building. Brazil's frontier
tra-
dition,however,had includedsugarplantationsin theNortheast,and more
recentlycoffeeplantationsin the Southeast,togetherwithminingforgold
and preciousmetalsin Minas Gerais.Sugar and coffeeproductiondepended
on Africanslaves as theirlabor sourceuntilslaverywas abolished in a se-
ries of stepscompletedin 1888. At thatpoint the coffeeplanters,backed
by thestateofSa'o Paulo, whichtheycontrolledpolitically,recruitedfami-
lies ofimmigrants(chieflynorthernItalians) as a new labor force.Evalua-
tionsofthesituationofthesecolonos vary.Some say theirlot was miserable,
othersthatitwas "enviable" comparedto slavesor Mexican peons. Nearly
all scholarsagree, however,thatunless the familyof colonosarrivedwith
some wherewithal,theywerenotlikelyto become landownersin theirown
generation.It was possibleto climbthe agriculturalladder, but verydiffi-
cult. The distinctivefeatureof most migrationfromsouthernEurope to
Brazil was itsfamilycharacter.Yet thosefamiliesable to stepintoindepen-
dentlandholdingwere a small minority,withtherestfunctioningin some
kind of sharecroppingor tenantcontract.22
In Argentinanew arrivalson the pampas after1880 were also likely
to be northernItalians, but in the early years at least, single men who
migratedback and forthseasonally,ratherthanfamilies.Fromfarmlaborers
theyrose in manycases-with familiesby thatpoint-to tenants,owning
theirimplements,but not theirland. The Argentineladder to indepen-
dentfamilyfarmownershipwas easier to climbthanthe Brazilian, harder
than the NorthAmerican. From the standpointof the small farmer,nei-
therArgentinanor Brazil had much of a Type I frontier.Neithercountry
enactedeffective homesteadlegislationor conducteda land surveyto pro-
vide secure title.Independentlandowning,thoughpossible, was the ex-
ception.The movingfrontier line of young,large families,so common in
22
Usefulworkson Braziliandemography,migration,and frontiers includePaul Hugon,
Demografia Brasileira:Ensaio de Demoeconomia Brasileira(Sio Paulo, 1977); Lucy MaffeiHut-
ter,ImigraiaoItalianaemSiaoPaulo (1880-1889): Os Primeiros Contactos
do Imigrantecomo Brasil
(Sao Paulo, 1972); Thomas Lynn Smith,Brazil:PeopleandInstitutions, 4th ed. (Baton Rouge,
1972); Thomas William Merrickand Douglas H. Graham, Population andEconomic Develop-
mentinBrazil: 1800 tothePresent (Baltimore, 1979); WarrenDean, Rio Claro:A BrazilianPlan-
tation
System, 1820-1920(Stanford,1976); Thomas H. Holloway, Immigrants ontheLand: Coffee
and Societyin SiaoPaulo, 1886-1934 (Chapel Hill, 1980); Manual Diegues Junior,
Populac&io
e Propriedadeda Terrano Brasil(Washington, D.C., 1959).
the United States and Canada, was just not there.Land was available in
Argentinaand Brazil,indeedan almostendlesssupply;but not 'free'land.23
Brazilhad a frontier
In thebandeirante, tradition.As theBrazilianwriter
Vianna Moog describeshim, theoriginalbandeirante of colonial Brazil was
an "emigrant... [who] came to Brazil withouthis wife,withouthis chil-
"
dren,withouthis possessions,in searchofwealthand adventure, and with
"the intentionof gettingrichquicklyand returningeven more quickly."
"
The bandeirantes"were initiallyconquistadors,notcolonizers. ClearlyType
II men. The NorthAmericanarchetype,Moog says, contrastedgreatly.
He was the "pioneer," the "colonizer,notconqueror," theman who with
wifeand childrenbuilta farmout ofvirginsoil.24ClearlyType I. The large
coffeeplantersin Brazilresembleantebellumsouthernplantersmoreclosely
than eitherType I or II frontierspeople, and the estancierosof the pampas
withtheirhorses,cattle,and thousandsof hectaresof land resemblethe
greatranchersofTexas and thenorthernplains. Overlookingmanyqualifi-
cationsand local variants,then,itcan be said thattheopeningofthepampas
and thecoffeeregionafter1870did notinvolvesmallholders as in theUnited
States and Canada's Type I frontier.Instead, one findslarge landowners
usinga heavilyimmigrant labor forceundervarioustenancycontracts.One
could wedge some oftheseimmigrants undertheumbrellaofType I, since
some did achieve the equivalent of homesteads. But not many did.
The landowner-tenant arrangementso commonin Brazil and Argen-
tina does have a parallelin theUnited States. It is not exact, but is sugges-
tive. Large-scaleirrigatedagriculture, typicalofCalifornia'sCentralValley
in the twentiethcentury,and also present in Washington, Arizona,
Colorado, and otherwesternstates,involvesownershipby a familyor a
corporationof substantialacreage, using migrantwage laborers to work
it. This is notType I homesteading,althoughit could be consideredType
II entrepreneuring. The migrantfarmworkersoflate nineteenth-or early
twentieth-century California (Chinese,Japanese,Filipino,Punjabi) exhibited
theskewedage and sexdistributions ofType II frontiers, whilelatermigrants
(Okie-Arkie,Black, Mexican) did not. Large-scale agricultureusing mi-
grantlabor goes on. Eitherat some yetunspecifiedpointthe frontiergave
way to moderncapitalism(as applied to agriculture),or the frontierstill
23 For Argentinemigrationand frontiers,some of the best worksare Ezequiel Gallo,

La PampaGringa:La Colonizaci6n
AgricolaenSantaFe (1870-1895) (Buenos Aires, 1982); Roberto
Cortes Conde, El Progreso 1880-1914 (Buenos Aires, 1979); James R. Scobie, Revo-
Argentino
lution
onthePampas:A SocialHistory
ofArgentineWheat,1860-1910(Austin,1964); and-excellent
forexplicitcomparisons--CarlE. Solberg, ThePrairiesandthePampas:Agrarian Policyin Canada
and Argentina,1880-1930 (Stanford, 1987).
24 Clodomir Vianna Moog, Bandeirantes and Pioneers(New York, 1964), 92, 103.
continues.25 More likely,theType I frontier concludedwiththeend ofcheap

arable land, while the Type II frontierstillcontinues,withoutthe demo-
graphicdistinctiveness it once had. In thetransatlantic context,among the
fourmajor frontiernationsof 1870-1914,the Type I homesteadingfron-
tierbecomes theanomaly-a greatattractionas long as it lasted. Without
it, and it never was reallypresentin Argentinaor Brazil, migrantwage
labor became thenormin pan-Americanagricultureas it had been forcen-
turiesin European. To simplify evenfurther: In Type I frontiersthefarmer
owned the land, the means of production;in Type II, some tenants(in
Argentina,occasionallyBrazil) ownedimplements,whichwerealso means
ofproduction;in Type II, past and presentmigrantwage-laborersown(ed)
essentiallyno means ofproduction.This last groupincludesnot onlyfarm
workers,but also hard-rockminers,lumberworkers,and othermigrants,
single or not.
What, finally,of empires?In an extendedsense theytoo are Type
II frontiers.They combinedthedemographicweaknessesand theeconomic
exploitativenessof older Type II frontiers, as well as the landlord-tenant,
capitalist-workerrelationships,which are continuingversions.Demographic
examples include the British Raj, Rhodesia, South Africa, the Belgian
Congo, FrancophoneWest Africa,and Indo-China. In these important
Asian and Africancases a small European population,disproportionately
male (partlybecause much of it was military)superimposeditselfon an
indigenouspopulationthathad existedforcenturiesor longerand had pos-
sessedeveryqualityofa self-replenishing population,includingnormalsex
and age distributions.26
Europeans had been colonistsearlier,of course, creatingthe nations
of the New World duringthe nearlyfour-hundred yearssince Columbus.
The apparentsuccessof frontier-making, especiallyby the United States,
in factencouragedEuropean empire-building.27 With obvious exceptions
25 In his excellentcomparativehistoryofwhitesettlement in six SouthernHemisphere

countries,Donald Denoon definescaptialism in a way that covers agriculture,as well as
miningand manufacturing:"Here it is takenas a mode of productionin whichthe means
ofproductionare privatelyowned, and labour is performedby workerswho sell theirlabour
forwages." Donald Denoon, Settler Capitalism:TheDynamicsofDependent Development in the
SouthernHemisphere (New York, 1983), 8.
26 Though birthand death rateswere veryhigh compared to a late twentieth-century
industrializedsociety.On themale-skewedness ofFrenchWestAfrica,see William B. Cohen,
RulersofEmpire.:The FrenchColonialServicein Africa(Stanford, 1971), 23: "Because of the
deplorablehealthconditionstheadministrators could notbringtheirfamilieswiththemand
few men were willing to accept a career involvingnearly lifetimeseparation fromtheir
families."
27 Raymond F. Betts,"Immense Dimensions: The Impact of the American West on
Late Nineteenth-Century European Thoughtabout Expansion," Western HistoricalQuarterly,
10 (April 1979), 149-66, esp. 150, 152, 154.
such as Puritans and Mennonites, the initial motives for that older
colonization-by theSpanish in Mexico and Peru, thePortuguesein Bra-
zil, the Englishin Virginia-had been largelyeconomic. In the 1870s and
1880s, withfewexceptions(such as theGerman coloniesin East and West
Africa,the resultmoreofnationalisticpolicythan ofany populationpres-
sure), European empire-buildingwas exploitative.28
It was also frequent.When the 1880s opened, as indigeneswere sup-
pressedon the pampas and the Great Plains and as railroadsand settlers
quicklyappropriatedtheland theyvacated, the Britishwere at war in Af-
ghanistan,France annexed Tahiti, and the Boers defeateda Britishforce
at Majuba Hill (February1881). In 1882 theBritishdefeatedArabs at Tel-
el-Kebir and occupied Egypt and the Sudan. In 1883 the French began
"protecting" Annam and Tonkin. Germanyoccupied SouthwestAfrica,
Togo, and Kamerun in 1884, while Britainestablishedprotectoratesin
Basutoland,theSomaliCoast, Nigeria,and New Guinea. In 1885theMahdi
overran "Chinese" Gordon at Khartoum, but Germany annexed Tan-
ganyikaand Zanzibar, whileLeopold II of Belgiumbecame proprietorof
the Congo. From thenuntil 1890, Burma, Zululand, Baluchistan,much
of Borneo, Uganda, and Sikkimwentto the British;meanwhileGermany
occupiedpartsofOceania, includingtheBismarckArchipelago,reaffirmed
itstreatyrightsin Samoa, and steppedtowarda base at Kiaochow in north
China. FrancebeganrulingDahomeyin 1892. Froma latetwentieth-century
standpointtheoutwardthrustofEurope is astonishingforitsreach,as well
as its rapidity-and the completenessof its reversal.Of all these places,
only Tahiti remainsconnectedpoliticallyto Europe.
New World frontier-making, in contrast,involvedmanymorepeople
and, consequently, remained a reality.The Type I frontierended, often
painfully, withtheover-farming oftheHigh Plainsin theDakotas, theFront
Range states,Oregon, Saskatchewan,and Alberta. Tens of thousandsof
homesteaderspoured into those areas from1901 to about 1915 (and into
northwestern Albertaand Saskatchewanintothe 1920s), and tensofthou-
sands withdrewfrommanypartsoftheGreat Plains and Great Basin after
28 For a recentdiscussionof German policy, see Klaus J. Bade, "Imperial

Germany
and West Africa: Colonial Movement, Business Interests,and Bismarck's 'Colonial Poli-
"
cies,' in Bismarck, EuropeandAfrica:TheBerlinConference1884-1885 andtheOnsetofPartition,
ed. by StigFoerster,WolfgangJ.Mommsen,and Ronald Robinson(London, 1988), 121-47.
For a summaryof motivesforimperialism,see WinfriedBaumgart, Imperialism:The Idea
and RealityofBritishand FrenchColonialExpansion,1880-1914 (New York, 1982), 39-46. A
typologyofimperialismwithexamples fromthenineteenthcenturyand also theveryrecent
past is Tony Smith, The Pattern ofImperialism:The UnitedStates,GreatBritainand theLate-
IndustrializingWorldsince1815 (New York, 1981). V. G. Kiernan, FromConquest to Collapse:
EuropeanEmpires from1815-1960 (New York, 1982), is a handy narrativesurveyof Euro-
pean conquests.
1920, defeatedby low crop prices,drought,and otherproblems.The cul-

turalmomentumoftwo-hundred yearsofType I frontiering,
it seems,car-
riedmanywould-besettlersfarther thantheyshouldhave gone. Miserable
and tragicas homesteadfailureswere, however,theypale in comparison
to the carnage involved in the creationof the European empires and in
theirlater collapse.
And theypale in comparisonto thepermanentharmdone to indigenous
peoples, as all such cross-culturalcontacthad done since 1492. If the cul-
tures coming into contactwere different in substancebut about equally
complex,as was trueof the British-Hinduor French-Annamesecontacts,
and iftheysharedthe same diseases and immunities,then the European
incursiondid not last beyondabout 1950. If the Europeans carriedmore
diseases and theindigenousculturelacked immunities,thenthe indigenes
wereusuallydestroyedor, at best,made permanentlydependent.Accord-
ing to William H. McNeill, land was "free" or "open" because culture
combined withbiologyto the greatdisadvantageof the indigenes: "The
'empty' frontierTurner spoke of arose fromthe destructionof Amerin-
dian populationsby infectionsimportedfromtheOld World, sporadically
reinforcedby resortto armed force," as well as superiorskillsin agricul-
ture, warfare,administrationor somethingelse."9 In South and North
America, much of this destructiontook place on Type II frontiers.
The years from1870 to 1914 were especiallymarkedby the expan-
sion of European empiresand of European-stockfrontiers.Except forthe
numbers of Europeans involved-few with the empires, many with the
frontiers-thelinesbetweenthetwothrustscannotbe drawnsharply.Both
resultedfromsimilarimpulsesincludinggain, self-improvement, conquest,
greed, missions and others-and withoutmuch consideration
civilizatrices,
forthe indigenouspeople and culture,primitiveor advanced. Such was
theworldofa centuryago. Perhaps one ofitslessonsis thatenduringcon-
quests (or defenses)are demographic.

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Frontiers and Empires in the Late Nineteenth Century

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n thelate nineteenthcentury,Europeansand theircolonialdescendants

Walter Nugent is AndrewV. Tackes Professorof Historyat the Universityof Notre

centurytransformed European expansivenessinto a mass movement.Ad-

in Germanyand theUnited States.5Not so different in populationsize at

migratingto farmsteadsin easternPennsylvaniaand northernVirginia.

9 Mitchell,EuropeanHistorical 135. The per-decadetotalsofmigrantsleaving

borders.The second group includedthe most powerfulEuropean states:

" Comparativefrontiershave receivedmanyenlighteningdiscussionsin recentyears.

and Apache of Texas and the desertSouthwestbroughtthe Spanish to a

12As Mexico gave way politicallyin Texas in 1836.

17 Isak Dinesen, Out ofAfrica,repr. ed. New York, 1952).

and westernCanada), i.e. thetransformation

Area'8 Population Male Age:0-14 15-44 Over44

Oregonshowssex and age distributionsnormalforfarming (Type I) frontiers

18 U.S. Bureau of the Census, HistoricalStatistics

later as childrenand grandchildrenreplaced the pioneers. Utah exhibits

Area19 Population Male Age: 0-14 15-44 Over44

In theType I cases (Oregon and Utah in 1850, Kansas in 1860), themales

age distributionmuchbroader. Furthermore,some agriculturalfrontiers,

20 French Canada excepted; whatever"frontier" it had was filledbefore 1850, and

arrivedin largenumbers.Bothcountriesearnedprominentplaces in world

23 For Argentinemigrationand frontiers,some of the best worksare Ezequiel Gallo,

continues.25 More likely,theType I frontier concludedwiththeend ofcheap

25 In his excellentcomparativehistoryofwhitesettlement in six SouthernHemisphere

28 For a recentdiscussionof German policy, see Klaus J. Bade, "Imperial

1920, defeatedby low crop prices,drought,and otherproblems.The cul-

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