Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600–1860 by Richard Slotkin

Playing with cowboys, outlaws, and spacefarers: The remediated American Frontier in video games

“…Just like the frontier had been presented as something nurturing when conquered but castrating when defeated by it, radiation was also discussed as an enabling presence aligned with very specific representations of gender and domesticity that fostered development, but that had the ability to destroy and ravage if misused. Even when misused, however, the potential ruin brought by nuclear energy and radiation is linked to what Slotkin (1973) identifies as a historical narrative of growth and regeneration through destruction that has been part of the frontier myth since its conception. Slotkin asks readers what becomes of the colonizer once the colonizing process is over (556).…”

“…Myths have the power to imagine and build nations. As many scholars and historians have shown (Carter, 2014; Heikkinen & Reunanen, 2015; Kolodny, 1975; McClancy, 2018; Newell & Lamon, 2005; Rabb & Michael Richardson, 2008; Slotkin, 1973, 1998; Triana, 2015; Wark, 2007), the frontier thesis is among the most influential historical discourses shaping national identity in the United States. As a discourse, the frontier thesis does not need to be based on historical facts.…”

The American Frontier as State of Nature

“…Commerce on the early frontier, he writes, “was not a peaceful process; violence was an option both for acquiring goods and for protecting them.” Such violence in trade persisted over the years, and occasionally spilled over into political violence, as the natives alternately sided with the various European factions vying for control of the continent. Other scholars have described frontier violence largely in terms of conquest and resistance; in this sense, even trade, which could often be more coercive than cooperative, was a form of violence by Europeans against natives (Limerick 1987; Slotkin 1973; Taylor 2006).…”