Type
The document under analysis includes a set of guidelines regarding the coordination of Fort Hall as one of the essential trading posts at the time.
Title
The regulation in question is titled N. J. Wyeth’s instructions for Robert Evans at the Fort Hall Trading Post (1834).
Author
As the title suggests, the rules listed in the guide were compiled by the leaders of N. J. Wyeth, which was a powerful organization producing pharmaceutics.
Period
The title of the paper suggests that it was written in 1834. In other words, the identified document was created during the era of Jacksonian democracy.
Summary
As stressed above, the document served as the means of controlling the transactions carried out at the Fort Hall after N. J. Wyeth had left. With other people at the helm, the trading post might lose a significant amount of resources, including the financial ones, which meant that some ground rules had to be established. According to the Instructions to Robert Evans, there had to be complete accountability of the actions taken by the person in charge. Furthermore, the post need not be left unattended even for the shortest amount of time possible. To prevent instances in which no supervision was possible, the guidelines suggested that a rigid schedule system had to be implemented. Last but not least, the standards instructed that Native Americans should not be allowed to come near the fort. Thus, the ground principles for further expansion were set with the help of the document I question.
Reason
The document was written during the trappers’ penetration into the West and their acquisition of the land. Therefore, it can be assumed that the instructions allowed regulating the process more efficiently. In retrospect, one must admit that the creation of the paper had a lot to do with Manifest Destiny and the expansion into the west. In other words, the document set the standards for economic and political interactions between the parties. Allowing the members of Fort Hall to record every transaction that occurred in the given time slot, the regulation created prerequisites for an orderly analysis of the economic and financial interactions.
Questions
The source raises a few questions, the primary one concerning the significance of the frontier. To be more accurate, one may wonder what would have happened to the evolution of the American society and the development of its foundational principles unless the Frontier had been established in a manner as rigid and uncompromising as it was. Moreover, the document makes one wonder whether the economic and the political factors often go hand in hand when a state-wide change in the environment of a particular country is set in motion.
Frame of Reference
The issues associated with cross-cultural communication are evidently among the frames of reference to be considered in the case under analysis. Wyeth views Native Americans as enemies that are not to be trusted or accepted. Nowadays, the specified concept will doubtlessly be interpreted as barbaric and narrow-minded. However, at the time when Manifest Destiny was set in motion, the specified idea was, unfortunately, part and parcel of the settlers’ worldview.
The Most Powerful Line
As stressed above, the rigid standards that the guide sets are the crucial characteristic of N. J. Wyeth’s Instructions. Therefore, the following line seems to be the most impressive one: “You will give no credit to anyone” (Holitz 183). The necessity to meet the harsh guidelines truly defines the era in which the document was released. Therefore, while being very simple, the line is nonetheless powerful.
Work Cited
Holitz, John. Thinking Through the Past. Vol. 1. Stanford, CT: Cengage Learning, 2014.