Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
to the present.' People on the Western frontier, as they pushed into what they
saw as a 'wilderness' and 'free-land', had 'borrowed most of their cultural values ...
from Europe and older settlements back east' . They reshaped nature and themselves.
They also, of course, imposed a new landscape on the old. Through
conquest, the original owners were removed and corralled. New stories
and mythologies emerged to give greater justification to these acts. One
set of ideas about a landscape was replaced by another. 44
The pioneering frontier historian, Frederick Jackson Turner, though
promoting many ideas and views long since shown to be wrong and
even downright racist, rightly indicated that the frontier repeated itself. 45
The frontier, where shaping of nature and self-shaping of societies are
combined with a destruction of existing relationships and cultures,
expands today at a pace beyond the appreciation of the majority. Most
shaping does not bring benefits to us all, as the interwoven rug of nature
and people is steadily pulled from beneath our feet. I am not concerned
here with defining exactly what is a frontier or, indeed, where frontiers
exist. Its use as an idea lies in the notion that one set of values about a
land comes rapidly to be imposed upon another. In modern times, the
frontier is characterized both by the expansion of modern industrialized
agriculture, or by the loss of local associations and connectivity to the
land. The problem is that those pushing out the frontier see it as progress;
those exposed to the invasion see mainly destruction and loss. Of course,
this applies, too, to the contemporary expansion of sustainable agriculture.
When William Bradford stepped off the Mayflower , he saw a 'hideous and
desolate wilderness' . 46 The pioneers at the frontier were not only carving out
new lives, but battling it out with the wild country for survival. As Nash
put it:
Countless diaries, addresses and memorials of the frontier period represented
wilderness as an 'enemy' which had to be 'conquered', 'subdued' and 'vanquished' by
a 'pioneer army'. The same phraseology persisted into the present century. 47
In practice, of course, there is always mingling at the frontier, and what
we see is a function of both sides' capacity to shape and reshape. Those
coming along to the frontier bring connections to old cultures, but also
new ideas about how to make improvements. Recipients at the frontier
find new opportunities to trade, interact and learn. Out of these new
connections can come new forms of cross-cultural dialogue. In the early
north-east US, for example, where the received story is one of misunder-
standing and conquest, the British and French learnt Iroquois languages,
protocols and metaphors in order to aid trust and trading. 48 But it is also
true that, in the end, there are clear winners and losers. As land beyond
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