In 1803 President Jefferson acquired the vast Louisiana Territory from which European nation?
France
✓
Spain
Great Britain
Portugal
Correct Answer
France
France, under Napoleon, sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States in 1803 for about $15 million. Spain had held the territory earlier but had returned it to French control before the sale. Great Britain claimed Canada and the Oregon Country, not Louisiana. Portugal held no territory in North America.
Category: Louisiana Purchase
Question 2
Which event led Napoleon to abandon his plans for a French empire in the Americas, making him willing to sell Louisiana?
The American Revolution
The Haitian Revolution
✓
The War of 1812
The Mexican War of Independence
Correct Answer
The Haitian Revolution
The successful revolt of enslaved people in Saint-Domingue, which became Haiti, destroyed the colony Napoleon had seen as the heart of a French empire in the Americas, so Louisiana lost much of its value to him. The American Revolution ended two decades before the sale. The War of 1812 began nine years after the purchase. The Mexican War of Independence did not begin until 1810.
Category: Louisiana Purchase
Question 3
Sacagawea was valuable to the Corps of Discovery as an interpreter and go-between with which Native nation, whose horses the expedition needed to cross the Rocky Mountains?
Cherokee
Seminole
Shoshone
✓
Blackfeet
Correct Answer
Shoshone
Sacagawea was a Shoshone woman, and her ties to her people helped the expedition obtain horses and guidance for the mountain crossing; her presence also signaled that the party was not a war party. The Cherokee lived in the Southeast, far from the route. The Seminole lived in Florida. The Blackfeet were the nation with whom the corps had a deadly clash on the return trip.
Category: Lewis and Clark
Question 4
Jefferson hoped the Lewis and Clark expedition would find which of the following, which turned out not to exist?
A route for a transcontinental railroad
A Spanish silver mine to seize
A site for a new national capital
An all-water route to the Pacific
✓
Correct Answer
An all-water route to the Pacific
Jefferson hoped the explorers would find a continuous water route across the continent to the Pacific, which would ease trade with Asia, but the Rocky Mountains made such a route impossible. Railroads did not yet exist in 1803, so a railroad route was not a goal. Seizing a Spanish silver mine was never part of the mission. Choosing a new capital site was never part of the mission either; Washington, D.C., had just become the capital.
Category: Lewis and Clark
Question 5
In the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819, Spain gave Florida to the United States. What did the United States give up in return?
Its claim to Texas
✓
Its claim to Oregon
Its trading rights in New Orleans
Its forts on the Great Lakes
Correct Answer
Its claim to Texas
In the treaty, the United States gave up its claim that the Louisiana Purchase included Texas and accepted the Sabine River as its border, which angered many expansionists. It did not give up a claim to Oregon; Spain was the side that gave up claims in the Pacific Northwest. New Orleans already belonged to the United States through the Louisiana Purchase. Forts on the Great Lakes had nothing to do with a treaty with Spain.
Category: Florida and Spain
Question 6
Which American general's 1818 invasion of Spanish Florida, pursuing Seminole and Creek fighters, showed that Spain could not defend the colony?
Zachary Taylor
Andrew Jackson
✓
Winfield Scott
William Henry Harrison
Correct Answer
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson led troops into Spanish Florida in 1818, seized Spanish posts and executed two British subjects, and Spain soon decided to cede Florida. Zachary Taylor became famous in the war with Mexico in the 1840s. Winfield Scott also earned his fame against Mexico, capturing Mexico City in 1847. William Henry Harrison was known for fighting in the Old Northwest, not Florida.
Category: Florida and Spain
Question 7
To keep the number of free and slave states equal in the Senate, the Missouri Compromise paired Missouri's admission with the admission of which free state?
Vermont
Illinois
Maine
✓
Iowa
Correct Answer
Maine
Maine, which had been part of Massachusetts, entered as a free state while Missouri entered as a slave state, keeping the Senate balanced. Vermont had become a state in 1791. Illinois had been admitted in 1818, before the compromise. Iowa did not become a state until 1846.
Category: Missouri Crisis
Question 8
The Missouri Compromise barred slavery in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase north of which line?
The Mason-Dixon Line
The 49th parallel
The Ohio River
The 36°30′ parallel
✓
Correct Answer
The 36°30′ parallel
The compromise extended Missouri's southern border, 36°30′ north latitude, west across the Louisiana Purchase; slavery was barred north of it except in Missouri. The Mason-Dixon Line was a colonial survey line between Pennsylvania and Maryland. The 49th parallel later became the Oregon boundary with British Canada. The Ohio River was the line between slavery and freedom set earlier for the Old Northwest.
Category: Missouri Crisis
Question 9
In 1819 New York congressman James Tallmadge proposed an amendment to Missouri's statehood bill that would have done what?
Gradually ended slavery in Missouri
✓
Admitted Missouri as a slave state
Divided Missouri into two states
Banned slavery in every territory
Correct Answer
Gradually ended slavery in Missouri
Tallmadge proposed barring any more enslaved people from being brought into Missouri and freeing children born to enslaved parents there at age 25, a plan of gradual emancipation; the amendment failed. Admitting Missouri as a slave state was what southerners wanted and what the final compromise did. Dividing Missouri into two states was never proposed. Banning slavery in every territory went far beyond his proposal, which applied only to Missouri.
Category: Missouri Crisis
Question 10
In the decades after the Missouri Crisis, many proslavery southerners began to describe slavery not as a necessary evil but as what?
A temporary expedient
A positive good
✓
A dying institution
A northern invention
Correct Answer
A positive good
By the 1830s, defenders of slavery such as John C. Calhoun increasingly called it a positive good, claiming it created wealth and benefited enslaved people, an argument that hardened the sectional divide. Calling it a temporary expedient would have been close to the older necessary-evil view they were abandoning. Calling it a dying institution was a hope of some early critics, not a proslavery claim. Calling it a northern invention was never their argument.
Category: Missouri Crisis
Question 11
Which settler, carrying out a grant his father had won, brought hundreds of American families into Mexican Texas in the 1820s?
Sam Houston
William B. Travis
Stephen F. Austin
✓
Davy Crockett
Correct Answer
Stephen F. Austin
Stephen F. Austin took over the colonization grant his father Moses Austin had obtained and became the best-known empresario in Mexican Texas. Sam Houston arrived later and led the Texan army in 1836. William B. Travis was a commander at the Alamo. Davy Crockett was a former Tennessee congressman who died at the Alamo.
Category: Texas Independence
Question 12
Which Mexican policy alarmed many Anglo-American settlers in Texas, most of whom had come from slave states?
A tax on cotton exports to Britain
The legalization of Protestant churches
The sale of Texas to the United States
The abolition of slavery in 1829
✓
Correct Answer
The abolition of slavery in 1829
Mexico abolished slavery in 1829, and although officials tried to accommodate slaveholders, many settlers feared for their human property and wanted Texas to be a slave state. A tax on cotton exports to Britain was not the policy that caused this conflict. The legalization of Protestant churches never happened, since Mexico required Catholic worship. The sale of Texas to the United States never happened either; Mexico refused to sell.
Category: Texas Independence
Question 13
In early 1836 Santa Anna's army stormed which San Antonio mission, killing William Travis, James Bowie and Davy Crockett?
The Alamo
✓
Goliad
San Jacinto
Gonzales
Correct Answer
The Alamo
The Alamo, a former mission in San Antonio, fell to Santa Anna in March 1836 after a siege, and its defenders were killed. Goliad was a different town, where Texan prisoners were executed weeks later. San Jacinto was the site of Sam Houston's victory that April. Gonzales was the site of the first skirmish of the revolution in 1835.
Category: Texas Independence
Question 14
Why did U.S. leaders hesitate to annex Texas after it won independence in 1836?
Texas voters rejected joining the United States
Annexation risked war with Mexico and a new fight over slavery
✓
Britain had already claimed Texas as a colony
The Constitution barred adding new states
Correct Answer
Annexation risked war with Mexico and a new fight over slavery
Taking in Texas would likely provoke war with Mexico, which had not accepted Texan independence, and adding a large slave state would reopen the sectional dispute of the Missouri Crisis. Texas voters had actually approved annexation in 1836. Britain recognized Texas as an independent republic but never claimed it as a colony. The Constitution expressly allows Congress to admit new states.
Category: Texas Independence
Question 15
Journalist John O'Sullivan coined which phrase in 1845 for the belief that the United States was meant to spread across the continent?
Popular sovereignty
American System
Manifest Destiny
✓
Monroe Doctrine
Correct Answer
Manifest Destiny
O'Sullivan wrote that the nation's Manifest Destiny was to overspread the continent, a phrase that captured the expansionist spirit behind Texas annexation and the war with Mexico. Popular sovereignty was the idea that settlers of a territory should decide on slavery. The American System was Henry Clay's economic program of tariffs, a bank and internal improvements. The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 warned Europe against new colonization in the Americas.
Category: Mexican-American War
Question 16
Mexico held that the southern border of Texas was the Nueces River. Which river did the United States claim as the border?
The Sabine River
The Red River
The Mississippi River
The Rio Grande
✓
Correct Answer
The Rio Grande
The United States claimed the Rio Grande, farther south and west, and fighting in the disputed strip between the two rivers in 1846 led to war. The Sabine River was the eastern boundary of Texas with Louisiana. The Red River lies along the northern edge of Texas. The Mississippi River lies far to the east and was never the Texas border.
Category: Mexican-American War
Question 17
Which Illinois Whig congressman introduced resolutions demanding that President Polk name the exact spot where American blood had been shed?
Abraham Lincoln
✓
Henry Clay
Daniel Webster
David Wilmot
Correct Answer
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln, a first-term Whig from Illinois, introduced the Spot Resolutions to challenge Polk's claim that Mexico had shed American blood on American soil. Henry Clay was a Kentucky Whig who was not serving in Congress at the time. Daniel Webster was a Massachusetts Whig senator. David Wilmot was a Pennsylvania Democrat known for his proviso on slavery in the new lands.
Category: Mexican-American War
Question 18
Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, the United States paid Mexico $15 million and gained what?
The Oregon Country north of California
California and most of the present-day Southwest
✓
Spanish Florida and the Gulf Coast
The Louisiana Territory west of the Mississippi
Correct Answer
California and most of the present-day Southwest
The treaty transferred the Mexican Cession, a vast share of Mexico's northern territory, including present-day California, Nevada and Utah and parts of several other states. The Oregon Country was divided with Britain by a separate 1846 treaty. Spanish Florida came from Spain in 1819. The Louisiana Territory was bought from France in 1803.
Category: Mexican-American War
Question 19
What did the Wilmot Proviso of 1846 propose?
Annexing all of Mexico after the war
Letting settlers vote on slavery
Banning slavery in any land gained from Mexico
✓
Paying Mexico for the disputed strip
Correct Answer
Banning slavery in any land gained from Mexico
David Wilmot proposed that slavery be barred from all territory acquired from Mexico; it passed the House but failed in the Senate and inflamed sectional tensions. Annexing all of Mexico was an idea of some expansionists, not of Wilmot. Letting settlers vote on slavery was popular sovereignty, the alternative favored by Lewis Cass. Paying Mexico for the disputed strip was not the subject of the proviso.
Category: Slavery in the West
Question 20
Which measure was part of the Compromise of 1850?
A ban on slavery in all territories
Admission of Kansas as a slave state
Repeal of the 36°30′ line
A stricter federal fugitive slave law
✓
Correct Answer
A stricter federal fugitive slave law
The compromise included a tougher fugitive slave law that penalized people who helped freedom seekers, along with California's admission as a free state and an end to the slave trade in Washington, D.C. A ban on slavery in all territories was never passed. Kansas was not admitted until 1861, and as a free state. The 36°30′ line was repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, not in 1850.
Category: Slavery in the West