The conflict with the oppressive Globalist system and the various imvaders are just a new stage in the frontier war, a repeat of haughty Charles II’s acts against the independent colonies. But this time, all Europe is a part of the frontier war. Wining will require the worldly wisdom of the Tidewater Virginian, the tough Backcountryman, the industrious Midwestern, and the Yankee intellect. The North is becoming more Southern from the contact with the Other, and the Europe will become more like America during this coming war.
A good article, and an interesting book. I have long pondered this as well, and have come to different conclusions than most. I don't think we have a single American ethnos. We got very close in places at certain times, but I think we have multiple ethnicities in America. They have all been falling away though, and I think we are closer than ever to a true American ethnos. To me, it has much more to do with family and genetics, family being the key point, for it's familial bonds which create an ethnos more than anything. It's not just about shared origins, national myths, or anything like that, it's a combination of all of these things overlaid onto a kin network. It's truly a familial and genetic thing. Prior to the 1900's, both sides of my families were living in ethnic enclaves. One side was from semi-recent immigration, the other side was "heritage American" and yet both dwelt in clear ethnic enclaves, sided with their local ethnos over other ones in politics, and only broke up in the early 1900's with all the other ones.
My fathers family comes from the frontier folk. My mother's did not, they came much later. One can clearly see differences in ethnic features, and in ethical/political approach with both families. Honestly, my fathers family is more American, in the sense that this article speaks about. My mother's family is more cosmopolitan. I think many Americans alive today can point out similar things. We built a nation, and we tried to build a people, and we got close but I think we are only going to get there due to what we are facing now.
If the Indian Wars created the American ethnos as you say, then this next conflict will enshrine it forever. The blood and soil connection will be stronger than ever for all Americans, regardless of when they got here and what their families did prior to all this.
Very good article. I recently read Louis L’Amour’s book Last of the Breed and the main character is part American Indian (Sioux & Cheyenne) and part Scottish. Is there truth to Scots and Indians interbreeding?
It was rare, but captive women would marry within the tribe and have children. As the push West progressed and the Indian population dwindled, they would've been more likely to intermix with Americans, too.
I just finished a really fascinating book by the author of Albino’s Seed, David Fischer, called Virginia and the Westward Movement. In it, he explained just how internal movements actually started long before the Colonies. It seems many men were already moving around England even in the 13th Century, but the aftermath of Black Death stirred them up even more. (Oddly, there was no mention of the Little Ice Age with failed crops). Enclosure of the commons and the loss of farms for sheep in the wake of Henry VII’s industrial policy of protection for woolen textiles forced many tenant farmers to move to the towns. Those weren’t covered in the book but can illuminate the background to his thesis.
So, with an already active population, it was only natural for the English to move first to Pembrokeshire of Wales (Little England) and then to Ireland. Once America was declared an open frontier outside the Spanish Empire by 1600, men thought of settling there too.
Many colonies were established but it was Virginia under Governor Sir William Beverly who really stamped their personality on the entire British America and the later Republic. Virginia was largely a young male population from Wessex, made of the younger sons of the knightly-merchant houses (the First Families) and the servants. Their culture requires boys to develop a wild and willful character that would then be bend toward hierarchical discipline of being a honorable gentleman and a patrician toward the extended family of kin, servants, and neighbors, even as he pursue a hermitage-type estate far from the neighbors and pursuing his self-improvement in manners and fortune and war.
Since so much of lands was locked up by the First Families, and much was rapidly degraded by bad agricultural practices along with marsh-bound diseases, men became a restless and ambitious and willful people willing to pick up and leave. So many Virginians exploded out of the Old Dominion to settle everywhere from South to North, that many future leaders would traced their lives back to Virginia, including Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln, Sam Houston, Daniel Boone, General Patton, Teddy Roosevelt, and many others. So dominant was Virginia that even New England fell into her orbit. This gave the Colonies the political, commercial, and cultural unity needed to win the Revolution in 1781. John Adams and Ben Franklin were vital, but Virginia was the key to the victory. Virginia also lead in creating the federal union as well. In many ways, America could almost be the Republic of Virginia.
An excellent book, highly recommended, and provided some key corrections to Turner thesis.
The conflict with the oppressive Globalist system and the various imvaders are just a new stage in the frontier war, a repeat of haughty Charles II’s acts against the independent colonies. But this time, all Europe is a part of the frontier war. Wining will require the worldly wisdom of the Tidewater Virginian, the tough Backcountryman, the industrious Midwestern, and the Yankee intellect. The North is becoming more Southern from the contact with the Other, and the Europe will become more like America during this coming war.
A good article, and an interesting book. I have long pondered this as well, and have come to different conclusions than most. I don't think we have a single American ethnos. We got very close in places at certain times, but I think we have multiple ethnicities in America. They have all been falling away though, and I think we are closer than ever to a true American ethnos. To me, it has much more to do with family and genetics, family being the key point, for it's familial bonds which create an ethnos more than anything. It's not just about shared origins, national myths, or anything like that, it's a combination of all of these things overlaid onto a kin network. It's truly a familial and genetic thing. Prior to the 1900's, both sides of my families were living in ethnic enclaves. One side was from semi-recent immigration, the other side was "heritage American" and yet both dwelt in clear ethnic enclaves, sided with their local ethnos over other ones in politics, and only broke up in the early 1900's with all the other ones.
My fathers family comes from the frontier folk. My mother's did not, they came much later. One can clearly see differences in ethnic features, and in ethical/political approach with both families. Honestly, my fathers family is more American, in the sense that this article speaks about. My mother's family is more cosmopolitan. I think many Americans alive today can point out similar things. We built a nation, and we tried to build a people, and we got close but I think we are only going to get there due to what we are facing now.
If the Indian Wars created the American ethnos as you say, then this next conflict will enshrine it forever. The blood and soil connection will be stronger than ever for all Americans, regardless of when they got here and what their families did prior to all this.
Very good article. I recently read Louis L’Amour’s book Last of the Breed and the main character is part American Indian (Sioux & Cheyenne) and part Scottish. Is there truth to Scots and Indians interbreeding?
It was rare, but captive women would marry within the tribe and have children. As the push West progressed and the Indian population dwindled, they would've been more likely to intermix with Americans, too.
Thanks 👍
I just finished a really fascinating book by the author of Albino’s Seed, David Fischer, called Virginia and the Westward Movement. In it, he explained just how internal movements actually started long before the Colonies. It seems many men were already moving around England even in the 13th Century, but the aftermath of Black Death stirred them up even more. (Oddly, there was no mention of the Little Ice Age with failed crops). Enclosure of the commons and the loss of farms for sheep in the wake of Henry VII’s industrial policy of protection for woolen textiles forced many tenant farmers to move to the towns. Those weren’t covered in the book but can illuminate the background to his thesis.
So, with an already active population, it was only natural for the English to move first to Pembrokeshire of Wales (Little England) and then to Ireland. Once America was declared an open frontier outside the Spanish Empire by 1600, men thought of settling there too.
Many colonies were established but it was Virginia under Governor Sir William Beverly who really stamped their personality on the entire British America and the later Republic. Virginia was largely a young male population from Wessex, made of the younger sons of the knightly-merchant houses (the First Families) and the servants. Their culture requires boys to develop a wild and willful character that would then be bend toward hierarchical discipline of being a honorable gentleman and a patrician toward the extended family of kin, servants, and neighbors, even as he pursue a hermitage-type estate far from the neighbors and pursuing his self-improvement in manners and fortune and war.
Since so much of lands was locked up by the First Families, and much was rapidly degraded by bad agricultural practices along with marsh-bound diseases, men became a restless and ambitious and willful people willing to pick up and leave. So many Virginians exploded out of the Old Dominion to settle everywhere from South to North, that many future leaders would traced their lives back to Virginia, including Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln, Sam Houston, Daniel Boone, General Patton, Teddy Roosevelt, and many others. So dominant was Virginia that even New England fell into her orbit. This gave the Colonies the political, commercial, and cultural unity needed to win the Revolution in 1781. John Adams and Ben Franklin were vital, but Virginia was the key to the victory. Virginia also lead in creating the federal union as well. In many ways, America could almost be the Republic of Virginia.
An excellent book, highly recommended, and provided some key corrections to Turner thesis.