Americans who embraced the idea of manifest destiny in the 1840s believed what?
The nation was meant to spread across the continent
✓
The West should stay reserved for Native nations
Slavery had to be banned in every new territory
The country should avoid gaining new lands
Correct Answer
The nation was meant to spread across the continent
Manifest destiny was the belief, popular in the 1840s, that Providence intended the United States to expand across North America, and it was used to justify taking land from Mexico and from Native nations. The West should stay reserved for Native nations is the opposite; the idea was used to justify taking Native land. Slavery had to be banned in every new territory was the free-soil position, a separate fight that expansion inflamed. The country should avoid gaining new lands runs directly against the belief.
Category: Manifest Destiny and Migration
Question 2
Why did President Lincoln and the wartime Congress pass the Homestead Act and the Pacific Railway Act in 1862?
To reward Union veterans with land
To fill the West with free-soil settlers
✓
To resettle freed people from the South
To repay war loans from European banks
Correct Answer
To fill the West with free-soil settlers
Lincoln hoped that small farmers and railroads would spread free-soil settlement across the West and keep slavery from expanding there. To reward Union veterans with land was not the purpose of the 1862 laws, which were open to ordinary settlers. To resettle freed people from the South was not their aim, since the war was still being fought. To repay war loans from European banks had nothing to do with land grants.
Category: Federal Land and Railroads
Question 3
Why could the poorest Americans rarely take advantage of cheap western land?
Land offices demanded proof of schooling
Western land was reserved for veterans
Moving and starting a farm cost money
✓
Railroads refused to carry poor passengers
Correct Answer
Moving and starting a farm cost money
Even when land itself was nearly free, the trip west plus horses, tools, seed and fencing cost a great deal, so the truly poor usually could not go. Land offices demanded proof of schooling is false; no education test applied. Western land was reserved for veterans is false; the Homestead Act was open to ordinary heads of household. Railroads refused to carry poor passengers is false; the barrier was the overall cost of starting out.
Category: Manifest Destiny and Migration
Question 4
Which two companies built the first transcontinental railroad, completed in 1869?
Northern Pacific and Great Northern
Southern Pacific and Santa Fe
Erie and New York Central
Union Pacific and Central Pacific
✓
Correct Answer
Union Pacific and Central Pacific
Under the Pacific Railway Act, the Union Pacific built west from Omaha, Nebraska, and the Central Pacific built east from Sacramento, California, until the lines met in Utah. Northern Pacific and Great Northern were later northern lines finished in the 1880s and 1890s. Southern Pacific and Santa Fe built southern routes after the first line was done. Erie and New York Central were eastern railroads that never crossed the West.
Category: Federal Land and Railroads
Question 5
Under the credit-ticket system, many Chinese immigrants paid for the voyage to America in which way?
By working off the cost after arriving
✓
By selling land they held in California
By paying a fee to the U.S. government
By trading gold they had mined in China
Correct Answer
By working off the cost after arriving
In the credit-ticket system, a broker or employer advanced the cost of passage and the immigrant repaid it with labor after reaching the United States. By selling land they held in California is wrong; newcomers owned no land there. By paying a fee to the U.S. government is wrong; the debt was owed to private lenders. By trading gold they had mined in China is wrong; the debt for passage was repaid with labor in America.
Category: Chinese and Hispanic Westerners
Question 6
Who were the Buffalo Soldiers who served on the western frontier?
Native American cavalry scouts
All-Black army regiments
✓
Hired guards for the railroads
Hunters who supplied railroad crews
Correct Answer
All-Black army regiments
Buffalo Soldiers were African American soldiers, many of them Civil War veterans, in all-Black cavalry and infantry regiments that protected settlers, built roads and forts, and fought in the Indian Wars. Native American cavalry scouts did serve the army, but they were not the Buffalo Soldiers. Hired guards for the railroads were private employees, not soldiers. Hunters who supplied railroad crews describes bison hunters such as Buffalo Bill Cody.
Category: Manifest Destiny and Migration
Question 7
Why did many Great Plains homesteaders build their first houses from blocks of sod?
Sod kept homes dry in heavy rain
Federal law required that material
Trees and lumber were scarce there
✓
Sod was cheap to ship by railroad
Correct Answer
Trees and lumber were scarce there
The open grasslands had few trees, so settlers cut blocks of root-bound soil to build sod houses, which were cheap but damp and full of vermin. Sod kept homes dry in heavy rain is wrong; sod houses leaked. Federal law required that material is wrong; no law set building materials. Sod was cheap to ship by railroad is wrong; settlers cut it from the ground right where they built.
Category: Homesteading Life
Question 8
What were the "bonanza farms" of the Great Plains?
Small plots granted to Union veterans
Cooperative farms run by Native nations
Government farms that trained settlers
Huge operations run with hired workers
✓
Correct Answer
Huge operations run with hired workers
Bonanza farms were enormous operations, some covering many thousands of acres, owned by investors who hired wage laborers and profited from economies of scale. Small plots granted to Union veterans describes nothing of the kind. Cooperative farms run by Native nations is wrong; these were investor-owned businesses. Government farms that trained settlers is wrong; they were private, profit-seeking enterprises.
Category: Homesteading Life
Question 9
The "forty-niners" were best described as which group?
Prospectors who rushed to California
✓
Settlers who claimed farms in Oregon
Cowboys who drove Texas cattle north
Soldiers in the war against Mexico
Correct Answer
Prospectors who rushed to California
After gold was found at Sutter's Mill in 1848, tens of thousands of prospectors poured into California in 1849, earning the name forty-niners. Settlers who claimed farms in Oregon traveled the Oregon Trail for land, not gold. Cowboys who drove Texas cattle north belong to the cattle drives after the Civil War. Soldiers in the war against Mexico fought from 1846 to 1848, before the rush.
Category: Mining and Ranching
Question 10
Why did western mining shift from lone prospectors to large companies in the 1860s and 1870s?
Federal law banned individual claims
Deep ore required costly machinery
✓
Prospectors moved on to cattle ranching
Railroads bought up every mining claim
Correct Answer
Deep ore required costly machinery
Once the easy surface deposits were gone, reaching ore deep underground took heavy machinery and capital, so corporations backed by investors took over and miners became wage workers. Federal law banned individual claims is false; no such law existed. Prospectors moved on to cattle ranching does not explain the change in who owned the mines. Railroads bought up every mining claim is false; mining companies, not railroads, ran the mines.
Category: Mining and Ranching
Question 11
After the Civil War, why did Texas ranchers drive their cattle hundreds of miles north to towns in Kansas?
To find summer grass in the Rocky Mountains
To escape a Texas tax on livestock
To reach railroads that shipped herds east
✓
To sell herds at markets in Mexico
Correct Answer
To reach railroads that shipped herds east
Cattle worth little in Texas sold for far more in eastern cities, so cowboys drove herds to Kansas railroad towns where the animals were loaded onto trains heading east. To find summer grass in the Rocky Mountains is wrong; the drives ended at rail yards on the plains. To escape a Texas tax on livestock is wrong; the goal was reaching markets. To sell herds at markets in Mexico is wrong; Mexico lay to the south, away from Kansas.
Category: Mining and Ranching
Question 12
How did barbed wire help bring the era of long cattle drives across the open range to a close?
It kept bison herds off railroad tracks
It marked the trails cowboys followed
It let cowboys move herds much faster
It let ranchers cheaply fence large tracts
✓
Correct Answer
It let ranchers cheaply fence large tracts
Barbed wire, patented by Joseph Glidden in the 1870s, made fencing the treeless plains cheap, so ranchers and farmers enclosed land and the open trails closed. It kept bison herds off railroad tracks is not what ended the drives. It marked the trails cowboys followed is wrong; fences blocked trails rather than marking them. It let cowboys move herds much faster is wrong; fences slowed and finally stopped the drives.
Category: Mining and Ranching
Question 13
What did the first Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1851 establish for the Plains tribes?
Tribal boundaries and a reservation system
✓
Statehood for the Wyoming Territory
A railroad route across the Plains
Citizenship for Plains tribal members
Correct Answer
Tribal boundaries and a reservation system
The 1851 treaty set boundaries for each tribe's territory and began the reservation system, in exchange for annual payments that often never arrived because of corruption. Statehood for the Wyoming Territory came much later, in 1890. A railroad route across the Plains was set by the Pacific Railway Act of 1862, not this treaty. Citizenship for Plains tribal members did not come for all Native Americans until 1924.
Category: Wars on the Plains
Question 14
What drew thousands of prospectors into the Black Hills by 1875, onto land a treaty had reserved for the Lakota?
A new railroad line
The discovery of gold
✓
A federal homestead grant
The discovery of oil
Correct Answer
The discovery of gold
After Custer's 1874 army expedition reported gold in the Black Hills, prospectors poured in despite the treaty, and the government tried to buy the land and then ordered the tribes onto reservations, leading to war in 1876. A new railroad line did not cause the rush. A federal homestead grant did not apply to treaty land. The discovery of oil belongs to later history and other places.
Category: Wars on the Plains
Question 15
What did the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 do?
Granted all Native Americans citizenship
Moved southeastern tribes to Oklahoma
Divided tribal land into family allotments
✓
Closed government boarding schools
Correct Answer
Divided tribal land into family allotments
The Dawes Act broke up reservations into individual allotments, typically 160 acres of farmland per family head, and sold the leftover land to White settlers, so Native land holdings shrank sharply. Granted all Native Americans citizenship happened in 1924. Moved southeastern tribes to Oklahoma happened under the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Closed government boarding schools is wrong; boarding schools expanded in the same era.
Category: Assimilation Policy
Question 16
Army alarm over which religious movement, spreading among the Lakota, led to the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee, South Dakota?
The Sun Dance
The Longhouse religion
The Native American Church
The Ghost Dance
✓
Correct Answer
The Ghost Dance
The Ghost Dance began with the Paiute prophet Wovoka in Nevada and spread to the Lakota, promising the return of the old way of life, and officials feared it would spark resistance. After Sitting Bull was killed, the 7th Cavalry intercepted a band of Lakota Ghost Dancers at Wounded Knee Creek, and an attempt to disarm them ended in a massacre. The Sun Dance is an older Plains ceremony, not the movement that alarmed officials in 1890. The Longhouse religion arose among the Haudenosaunee of the Northeast. The Native American Church was organized in the twentieth century.
Category: Wars on the Plains
Question 17
Government boarding schools for Native American children in the late 1800s were designed to do what?
Erase tribal languages and customs
✓
Train leaders in tribal law
Preserve traditional religions
Prepare students for army service
Correct Answer
Erase tribal languages and customs
Reformers saw schooling as a path to assimilation, so the schools separated children from their families, required English and Christian worship, and banned Native dress and customs. Train leaders in tribal law is the opposite of the schools' purpose. Preserve traditional religions is wrong; the schools pushed Christianity. Prepare students for army service is wrong; boys learned trades and girls learned domestic work.
Category: Assimilation Policy
Question 18
What did Congress do in 1882 in response to West Coast hostility toward immigrants from China?
Placed a tax on foreign miners
Suspended Chinese labor immigration
✓
Banned Chinese merchants from trade
Granted citizenship to residents
Correct Answer
Suspended Chinese labor immigration
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 suspended the immigration of Chinese laborers for ten years while exempting groups such as merchants, students and diplomats, and later extensions kept exclusion in place until its repeal in 1943. Placed a tax on foreign miners describes earlier California state taxes, not the 1882 federal law. Banned Chinese merchants from trade is wrong; merchants were among the groups the law exempted. Granted citizenship to residents is wrong; the act barred Chinese immigrants from naturalization.
Category: Chinese and Hispanic Westerners
Question 19
What happened to many Californios, Mexican-descended ranchers in California, in the decades after 1848?
They received new federal land grants
They were deported to Mexico by Congress
They lost much of their land to White settlers
✓
They took control of the state courts
Correct Answer
They lost much of their land to White settlers
Although the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo promised to protect their property, Californios lost land to squatters, force and long, costly court fights that often left them penniless. They received new federal land grants is wrong; they lost land rather than gaining it. They were deported to Mexico by Congress is wrong; they became U.S. citizens. They took control of the state courts is wrong; the courts often worked against them.
Category: Chinese and Hispanic Westerners
Question 20
Las Gorras Blancas, active in New Mexico in 1889 and 1890, organized for what purpose?
To win statehood for New Mexico
To recruit vaqueros for cattle drives
To expel Chinese miners from the region
To resist seizures of Hispanic land
✓
Correct Answer
To resist seizures of Hispanic land
Las Gorras Blancas, the White Caps, were Mexican Americans who cut fences and burned the property of White settlers to fight the takeover of Hispanic land, though arrests and backlash ended the movement. To win statehood for New Mexico was not their goal; statehood came in 1912. To recruit vaqueros for cattle drives has nothing to do with the group. To expel Chinese miners from the region was not their aim.
Category: Chinese and Hispanic Westerners