<P> The Frontier Thesis or Turner Thesis, is the argument advanced by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893 that American democracy was formed by the American frontier . He stressed the process--the moving frontier line--and the impact it had on pioneers going through the process . He also stressed results; especially that American democracy was the primary result, along with egalitarianism, a lack of interest in high culture, and violence . "American democracy was born of no theorist's dream; it was not carried in the Susan Constant to Virginia, nor in the Mayflower to Plymouth . It came out of the American forest, and it gained new strength each time it touched a new frontier," said Turner . </P> <P> In the thesis, the American frontier established liberty by releasing Americans from European mindsets and eroding old, dysfunctional customs . The frontier had no need for standing armies, established churches, aristocrats or nobles, nor for landed gentry who controlled most of the land and charged heavy rents . Frontier land was free for the taking . Turner first announced his thesis in a paper entitled "The Significance of the Frontier in American History", delivered to the American Historical Association in 1893 in Chicago . He won wide acclaim among historians and intellectuals . Turner elaborated on the theme in his advanced history lectures and in a series of essays published over the next 25 years, published along with his initial paper as The Frontier in American History . </P> <P> Turner's emphasis on the importance of the frontier in shaping American character influenced the interpretation found in thousands of scholarly histories . By the time Turner died in 1932, 60% of the leading history departments in the U.S. were teaching courses in frontier history along Turnerian lines . </P> <P> Turner set up an evolutionary model (he had studied evolution with a leading geologist, Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin), using the time dimension of American history, and the geographical space of the land that became the United States . The first settlers who arrived on the east coast in the 17th century acted and thought like Europeans . They adapted to the new physical, economic and political environment in certain ways--the cumulative effect of these adaptations was Americanization . </P>

What does the following quote mean with regard to western migration