erick Jackson Turner, thus relegated the Indian to a mere component part of the great "wilderness" that was the stimulus for America's unique development. The Indian ways into which the lonely frontiersman fits himself represent the natural way to live in the wilderness in this account. But overcoming the Indians was not treated as possessing much more importance than overcoming any of the other natural perils the pioneers faced. Like many other historians Turner was convinced that the Darwinian law of natural selection was the operative force as white Americans adapted to the wilderness around them. The triumph of the Europeans was, therefore, not in doubt nor, more significantly, was it unjustified. The Indians, being part of the wilderness, were cleared away like the forests.
It was the rare historian who recognized the fallacy at work in American history writing. Bernard DeVoto said that "most American History has been written as if history were a function solely of white culture -- in spite of the fact that till well into the nineteen
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