Deck 16: The Conquest of the West

Question 1

Although the image of the nineteenth century West is of thinly populated, wide-open spaces, by the late 1870s ________ already had almost 250,000 inhabitants.

A) Las Vegas
B) Sante Fe
C) Tucson
D) San Francisco

Answer 1

San Francisco

Question 2

In 1882 Congress passed a law that in effect stopped immigration from

A) China.
B) Russia.
C) Mexico.
D) Poland.

Answer 2

China.

Question 3

Which of the following statements about immigrants in the West in the late 1800s is false?

A) Nearly one-third of all Californians were foreign-born.
B) Many Chinese came to the U.S. to serve as cheap labor on the railroads.
C) There were large populations of Spanish-speaking immigrants in the Southwest.
D) Although a few did live in the West, Irish and German immigrants almost exclusively immigrated to Eastern states.

Answer 3

Although a few did live in the West, Irish and German immigrants almost exclusively immigrated to Eastern states.

Question 4

On the eve of the Civil War, the American Indians in the West

A) were no longer dependent on the buffalo.
B) had almost no contact with American and European culture.
C) still occupied about 50 percent of the United States.
D) were still reluctant to adopt any white technology.

Question 5

_______ were/was essential to the culture, religion, and sustenance of the Plains Indians.

A) Maize
B) Hemp
C) Bison
D) Cattle

Question 6

The United States treated each tribe

A) as a part of a consolidated whole.
B) in accordance with the state laws of the territory that they claimed.
C) as one sovereign nation.
D) as a separate sovereign nation.

Question 7

In 1851, the government negotiated a new policy with the Plains tribes based on a divide-and-conquer strategy. This was known as the "________" policy.

A) reservation
B) concentration
C) removal and resettlement
D) dispersal

Question 8

In its treaties with Native Americans, the American government generally

A) honored only those made after 1860.
B) showed little interest in honoring them.
C) considered them legally binding obligations.
D) honored only those made before 1860.

Question 9

One of the worst massacres committed by white troops in the Indian Wars occurred in 1864 at

A) Medicine Lodge.
B) Sand Creek.
C) Fort Sully.
D) Horse Creek.

Question 10

In 1867, the government tried a new strategy toward the Plains Indians-

A) negotiating with all tribes to achieve a single unified treaty.
B) negotiating with each tribe separately.
C) forcing the reservation Native Americans to become farmers like other Americans.
D) accepting the Indians' rights to practice their own religions.

Question 11

One of the reasons that a relative handful of Indians could hold off the battle-hardened Civil War veterans of the U.S. Army was because the

A) Indians had a highly effective centralized leadership.
B) U.S. Army had fewer than 2,000 soldiers to cover over ten million square miles.
C) Indian leaders were skillful at organizing campaigns.
D) Indians were superb guerilla warriors-the best cavalry soldiers in the world.

Question 12

The government's administration of Indian affairs was notable over the years for its

A) dedicated public servants.
B) careful long-range planning.
C) pursuit of Native American rights.
D) level of corruption.

Question 13

General George A. Custer's greatest mistake at Little Bighorn was that he

A) did not provide his men with sufficient ammunition.
B) grossly underestimated the number of Indians.
C) delayed the attack until nightfall.
D) refused to rest his horses before the attack.

Question 14

The two reasons why fighting on the Plains slackened after Custer's 1876 defeat are

A) epidemic diseases and malnutrition among the tribes.
B) the increased settlement by homesteaders and the formation of territorial governments.
C) the tribes who defeated Custer either fled to Canada or accepted reservation life.
D) the building of the transcontinental railroad and the destruction of the buffalo.

Question 15

The ability of the Plains Indians to resist white expansion was severely damaged by the

A) introduction of the horse.
B) destruction of the buffalo.
C) blizzard of 1873.
D) whites' superior military training.

Question 16

In 1887, Congress passed the Dawes Severalty Act, which was intended to

A) persuade Indians to abandon their traditional tribal cultures.
B) protect tribal life and customs.
C) encourage Native American crafts and trades.
D) place all Native Americans on reservations.

Question 17

Under the _______, Indians who accepted land allotments, lived "separate from any tribe," and "adopted the habits of civilized life" were allowed to become U.S. citizens.

A) Supreme Court ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson
B) Treaty of Fort Laramie
C) Dawes Severalty Act
D) "concentration" policy

Question 18

Partly as a result of the Ghost Dance movement, the army killed some 150 Teton Sioux at ________ in 1890.

A) Wounded Knee, South Dakota
B) Sand Creek, Colorado
C) Washita, Oklahoma
D) Mankato, Minnesota

Question 19

In comparison to its human resources, the natural resources of the nation in the late nineteenth century were

A) even more ruthlessly and thoughtlessly exploited.
B) far better preserved by a growing conservation movement.
C) treated with exactly the same indifference and lack of foresight.
D) even better nurtured and developed.

Question 20

Probably the most famous of all the precious metal strikes in the West, the site of the Comstock Lode and the Big Bonanza, was

A) Virginia City, Nevada.
B) Deadwood, South Dakota.
C) Pike's Peak, Colorado.
D) Butte, Montana.

Question 21

One result of the gold and silver rushes of the late nineteenth century was

A) inflation because of the coining of the new metals.
B) retarded political development in the West.
C) a dramatic decline in the value of the dollar in the world market.
D) an improved financial position for America in world trade.

Question 22

Roughing It (1872) by Mark Twain provides us with our most famous pictures of the

A) last Plains Indian wars.
B) open-range cattle industry.
C) farmers' last frontier.
D) mining frontier.

Question 23

The Homestead Act of 1862

A) failed to fill the West with 160-acre family farms because most landless Americans were simply too poor to become farmers.
B) succeeded admirably in planting 160-acre family farms throughout the West.
C) did not immediately lead to a West with 160-acre family farms due to Native American defense of their homelands.
D) was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in Munn v. Illinois.

Question 24

The gigantic corporation-controlled farms that were created to take advantage of the newly available acreage in the South and West were known as

A) bread-basket farms.
B) reservation plots.
C) bonanza farms.
D) agribusinesses.

Question 25

In the decades following the Civil War, which area of the country became known as the "breadbasket" of America?

A) the Plains states west of the Mississippi
B) the Deep South
C) the North
D) the states bordering the eastern side of the Mississippi

Question 26

Which of the following is true of the frontier farmers of the 1870s and 1880s?

A) Only the "bonanza" farmers survived the drought of the late eighties.
B) They farmed the land with little knowledge or concern for preventing erosion or preserving fertility.
C) Cultivating the prairie grasslands was quite similar to their experience in Ohio and Illinois.
D) Farmers who diversified their crops were most likely to fail.

Question 27

The first federal land grant to a railroad was allotted in 1850 to the

A) Central Pacific.
B) Illinois Central.
C) Rock Island Line.
D) Baltimore and Ohio.

Question 28

The Pacific Railway Act of 1862 set the pattern for government land grants by giving the builders of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads

A) five square miles of public land on each side of their right-of-way for every mile of track laid.
B) a ten-year exemption from state taxes.
C) a twenty-year exemption from government regulation.
D) the right to import an unlimited supply of Chinese labor.

Question 29

Transcontinental railroads used their zone of "indemnity" lands to prevent

A) military confiscation of lands for forts.
B) state taxation of railroad property.
C) sale of federal land along the right-of-way.
D) homesteading along the railroad.

Question 30

The ability to finance the building of the railroad with money received from federal land grants

A) allowed the rail operators to come through an economic depression without bankruptcy.
B) caused the operators to be extravagant and sometimes even corrupt.
C) meant that the railway operators could pay their workers much higher average wages.
D) made the rail lines be conservative with operating costs.

Question 31

The two railroads joined in 1869 to form the first transcontinental railroad were the

A) Great Northern and the Northern Pacific.
B) Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy and the New York Central.
C) Kansas Pacific and the Chesapeake and Ohio.
D) Central Pacific and the Union Pacific.

Question 32

The only transcontinental railroad built without land grants was the

A) Southern Pacific.
B) Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe.
C) Union Pacific.
D) Great Northern.

Question 33

Cattle herds were driven across the unsettled grasslands of the ________ Trail on their way to the railroad at Abilene, Kansas.

A) Pecos
B) Goodnight-Loving
C) Chisholm
D) Oregon

Question 34

The discovery that cattle could feed on the prairie grasses of the public domain of the northern plains led to the development of

A) bonanza farms.
B) open-range ranching.
C) refrigerated railroad cars.
D) sharecropping.

Question 35

Open-range ranching in the late nineteenth century required

A) miles of fences.
B) large land holdings.
C) control of a stable water supply.
D) special permits issued by state legislatures.

Question 36

________ was a former slave who became famous as the cowboy nicknamed "Deadwood Dick."

A) Jim Beckwourth
B) Nat Love
C) Emanuel Stance
D) Blanche K. Bruce

Question 37

What accounted for the profitability of open-range ranching?

A) high demand and cheap transportation
B) strict governmental regulation driving up prices
C) overproduction
D) corrupt farming practices

Question 38

The future director of the United States Geological Service, ________, advocated a system for dealing with the semiarid conditions of western lands.

A) John Wesley Powell
B) Othniel C. Marsh
C) Mark Hopkins
D) Thomas Fitzpatrick

Question 39

Major John Wesley Powell believed that western lands should be divided into three classes. Which of the following is NOT one of these classes?

A) irrigable land
B) timber land
C) prairie land
D) pasturage land

Question 40

Barbed wire was invented by

A) Joseph F. Glidden.
B) Joseph G. McCoy.
C) Walter Prescott Webb.
D) S. D. Butcher.

Question 41

Barbed wire destroyed the open-range cattle industry because it

A) cost so much to fence an entire ranch.
B) mangled large numbers of animals.
C) prevented the free movement of cattle.
D) was too expensive to maintain.

Question 42

Open-range cattle raising was virtually ended by the

A) importation of cheap beef from Argentina.
B) completion of the transcontinental railroad.
C) registration of cattle brands and improvements in scientific breeding.
D) combination of the drought of 1886 and the blizzards of 1886-1887.

Question 43

The "conquest of the frontier" was

A) mythical because Americans were always finding new frontiers.
B) by and large invisible to Americans of the day and never really captured the imagination of Americans.
C) a way to evade the destructive consequences of national policies by making them seem to be an expression of human progress.
D) one of the most brutal examples of imperialism in world history.

Question 44

Because they epitomized freedom and self-reliance, the Plains Indians seldom adopted the products of white culture.

Question 45

General George Custer's greatest mistake at Little Bighorn was grossly underestimating the number of Native Americans.

Question 46

Sitting Bull was the leader of the Apaches when they finally surrendered in 1886.

Question 47

The long-term results of the Dawes Act for Native Americans were disastrous because it almost totally shattered their cultures.

Question 48

Miners in the West were motivated by a desire to achieve sudden prosperity.

Question 49

Bonanza farms were huge corporation-controlled farms in the plains in the early 1880s.

Question 50

Summarize the characteristics that many Native American tribes on the Great Plains shared.

Question 51

Describe how Indians defended their homelands against white expansion.

Question 52

Explain how and why the government tried to destroy tribal cultures in the late nineteenth century.

Question 53

What role did big business play in the West in mining, railroads, and land use?

Question 54

What is the definition of the following key term:
-Comstock Lode :