The Western Frontier The Western Frontier is filled with many frontier-changing experiences. Every significant event plays an important role in the formation of society and how it influenced a new nation. Each author brought a new perspective and thought process to Western experience that contradicted Turner or supported his theories. Frontier ideas that interested me include topics such as the commercial frontier, the agricultural frontier, nationhood and government, and the abandonment of women. Frontiers shaped the West and how settlers approached it. Each different frontier had a different effect on people and how they experienced life. The trading frontier created and established good and bad relationships with the natives. The Norsemen, Vespuccius, Verraconi, Hudson, and John Smith all trafficked furs and other goods to the Native Americans. They trafficked goods from Maine to Georgia, which then led to the opening of riverways to trade farther into the continent. After becoming involved in trade, the power of the natives was undermined by making them dependent on the whites "Turner p.25". Merchants soon turned roads into highways and highways into railroads. The river systems where traders trafficked goods transformed into cities like Albany, Pittsburg, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City. These areas were then all settled by frontiersmen who spearheaded the beginning of the agricultural frontier. The agricultural frontier created a homestead for Western travelers. The important center of attraction for the farmers was the fertile soil, salt springs, mines and military posts. The fertile soil was the main attraction because they could easily start growing produce and sell it as a product to the pioneers or natives. Settlers made individual pilgrimages eastward to the salt springs because they were important for food preservation. Turner's farmers conquered a wilderness and extended what Thomas Jefferson had called an empire of Liberty "White, p.50." They brought livestock, furs, ginseng root, to be exchanged for salt. The agricultural frontier came into force in a series of waves. The pioneer wave depended on the natural growth of vegetation and income from hunting. The next group of immigrants or pioneers purchased land to build roads, houses, orchards, and mills to create towns. Eventually the entrepreneurial wave came to sell out and take advantage of the increase in ownership "Turner p.29". They would purchase land, build on it, and then sell it for a profit.