Conclusions and Suggestions

Abstract

THE American frontier has become academically unfashionable in recent years both as a subject in its own right and as an integral part of the broader study of the United States. This tendency notwithstanding, a knowledge of the acquisition, disposal, settlement and growth of the lands west of the Appalachians in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is essential to appreciate the scale, rate and significance of the economic development of the country. In acquiring this information the Turner thesis is a central argument which most specialised research and general writing has acknowledged, whether by way of acceptance, dismissal or partial agreement.