Deck 13: The Continued Move West

Question 1

Why did Mormon leaders advocate a move to the Great Salt Lake?

A) It appeared that no other group wanted to settle there.
B) Brigham Young had read advertisements about land there in various journals, and it appeared that those already there were fairly liberal.
C) The area was technically Mexican property and the U.S. government had no jurisdiction there.
D) The Mexican government had entered into a treaty that stated the Mormons would be left strictly alone.
E) The angel Moroni had shown Brigham Young the route that must be followed.

Answer 1

The area was technically Mexican property and the U.S. government had no jurisdiction there.

Question 2

Texas won its independence from Mexico at the Battle of

A) San Antonio.
B) Horseshoe Bend.
C) the Alamo.
D) San Jacinto.
E) Houston.

Answer 2

San Jacinto.

Question 3

All of the following happened as a result of the discovery of gold in California,except

A) About 80,000 fortune seekers arrived in California in 1849 alone.
B) Half of the migrants to California came from across the globe.
C) Many of the "forty-niners" ended up staying in California even if their searches for gold did not come to fruition.
D) As new settlers, migrants to California formed diplomatic relationships with Native Americans.
E) Most of the booming settlements of the gold rush days later decayed into ghost towns.

Answer 3

As new settlers, migrants to California formed diplomatic relationships with Native Americans.

Question 4

Which of the following is not true about the first phase of Western settlement?

A) The haphazard manner in which westward movement took place forced politicians in the East to bring some form of governing order to the West.
B) Independent-minded settlers did not welcome the imposition of eastern ideals.
C) By taking responsibility for the actions of white settlers, the federal government committed itself to defending their course of westward expansion.
D) Native Americans were victims of American western settlers who liked to take matters into their own hands.
E) Congress took the lead in defining the course of Western expansion prior to the 1840s.

Question 5

Congress set out to organize Oregon into a formal U.S.territory after

A) killing most of the Native Americans there.
B) reading news reports of the minerals to be found there.
C) a group of Cayuse Indians killed 14 settlers, including a doctor who refused to treat Indians.
D) gold was discovered there.
E) the British began to make moves toward leaving.

Question 6

In the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851,the U.S.government

A) agreed to pay cash restitution to the Plains tribes for disruptions to the buffalo grounds.
B) set aside a portion of land for a reservation for the Sioux.
C) relocated the Plains Indians away from a new transportation corridor that had been put in use.
D) wrung an agreement from the Plains Indian tribes to give up a large part of their tribal lands.
E) agreed not to allow white settlers to make war against the Plains tribes.

Question 7

Which of the following was not one of the native tribes of the Western Plains?

A) Arapahoe
B) Blackfoot
C) Cheyenne
D) Sioux
E) Choctaw

Question 8

Which of the following statements was true of the Mormon movement?

A) The founder of the Mormons was Brigham Young.
B) The Mormons spent about five of their early years of development in Commerce, Illinois, which they renamed "Nauvoo."
C) Before their murders, Joseph and Hyrum Smith had advocated a move to the area of the Great Salt Lake.
D) Initially, Joseph Smith and his Mormon followers refused to practice polygamy while developing their sect in Illinois.
E) Despite serious efforts by the Smith brothers and Young, the Mormon congregation grew slowly and failed to prosper for the first few years; only after the Smith murders did people begin to flock to the new faith.

Question 9

Which of these was not a consequence of continued American westward expansion?

A) Native Americans saw their population and landholdings decline.
B) The Market Revolution expanded.
C) Slavery became a major and contentious political issue.
D) Religious tolerance and freedom in the areas of expansion increased.
E) Expansion offered the possibility of upward mobility via land ownership to more people.

Question 10

Which of the following statements is true of the situation with Texas prior to its statehood?

A) Texas became a Mexican colony in 1810 after Mexico declared its independence from Spain.
B) During the 1820s, Americans in Texas grew to outnumber Mexicans there two to one.
C) Although Mexico had previously abolished slavery, Americans brought their slaves with them in defiance of Mexico's wishes.
D) The new American settlers enrolled their children in the local schools so they could learn to speak Spanish fluently.
E) Many Americans in Texas became assimilated into Mexican society.

Question 11

As Americans relentlessly moved westward across the continent:

A) Native Americans prospered as they assimilated to Anglo American society.
B) western migrants found refuge from the market revolution.
C) the frontier kept alive the democratic promise of making it on their own.
D) Americans were able to avoid the issue of slavery in national politics.
E) they convinced their neighbors and Native American tribes of their peaceful intentions and anti-imperialist principles.

Question 12

The Liberty Party was formed by people who

A) supported the annexation of Texas.
B) were supporters of Henry Clay for president.
C) had become disillusioned by the Whig Party.
D) wanted James G. Birney to become president.
E) opposed the annexation of Texas or any other slave state.

Question 13

In response to the admission of Texas as an American state

A) Britain withdrew from the Oregon territory.
B) Californians staged the Bear Flag revolt.
C) the Whig party officially renamed itself the Republican party.
D) Mexico broke off diplomatic relations with the United States.
E) the United States declared war on Mexico.

Question 14

Mexico tried in several ways to halt American immigration into Texas,because the Mexicans were so unhappy about

A) the arrival of large numbers of non-Catholics.
B) the refusal of the immigrants to speak Spanish.
C) the unwillingness of the settlers to fight alongside Mexicans whenever the need arose.
D) the settlers' continued use of slavery.
E) the Americans' attitudes of cultural superiority.

Question 15

Which of these peoples never had a territorial claim on the Oregon Territory?

A) The British
B) The Dutch
C) The Spanish
D) The Americans
E) The Russians

Question 16

During the 1840s,it became apparent that

A) many Americans opposed the idea of taking on new territories.
B) slavery was uppermost in the minds of all those pushing for expansion.
C) the federal government was not anxious to expand American territory, but would try to carry out the will of the people.
D) many American voters strongly supported the idea of expansion.
E) the West was destined to belong to the United States.

Question 17

The British slowly began to withdraw from the Oregon Territory after

A) the United States demonstrated its willingness to fight for the area.
B) the beaver population declined in that region.
C) several Native American tribes went on the warpath.
D) many more Americans settled in the area.
E) the French showed a renewed interest in the region.

Question 18

As was so often the case during the first half of the 1800s,whatever the issue,the main problem with admitting Texas to the Union came down to concern about

A) independence.
B) sovereignty.
C) representation.
D) voting rights.
E) slavery.

Question 19

The commander-in-chief of the newly-created Texas army was

A) Sam Houston.
B) William B. Travis.
C) Jim Bowie.
D) Davy Crockett.
E) Stephen F. Austin.

Question 20

Mountain men

A) worked as miners.
B) knew how to farm the steep slopes of the Sierra Nevada and Northern Rocky Mountains.
C) used mountain meadows for grazing cattle.
D) were notorious for highway robbery of western settlers.
E) worked as trappers, explorers, and scouts for the U.S. Army.

Question 21

The Buchanan-Pakenham Treaty:

A) accepted the 49th parallel as the division between America and Britain in the West.
B) ended the war with Mexico.
C) granted the United States rights to the Gadsden Purchase.
D) legalized slavery in California.
E) organized Oregon as a free state.

Question 22

The last city captured to end the war in Mexico was

A) Havana.
B) Juarez.
C) Vera Cruz.
D) Hidalgo.
E) Mexico City.

Question 23

It would be accurate to say that the early movement of Americans across the country to the West,and early settlement there,was at best haphazard.

Question 24

"Fifty-four Forty or Fight!" referred to

A) Tyler's decision to try to wait until 1854 to annex Texas.
B) Polk's campaign promise to gain exclusive title to the Oregon Territory.
C) the margin by which Tyler hoped to gain reelection.
D) Britain's determination to stay in the fight for the Oregon Territory.
E) a popular chant during the war against Mexico.

Question 25

Why did President Polk want a war with Mexico? How did he go about getting what he wanted? What were the results?

Question 26

What was Polk's hidden agenda as the war with Mexico waged on?

A) To crush the Mexican Amy and take control of all of Mexico.
B) To seize California and New Mexico.
C) To take Mexican territory without paying for any of it.
D) To perpetuate slavery all the way to the Pacific.
E) None of these choices.

Question 27

America's "mountain men" became so well-known that their lives became entwined with the folklore of the nation,making them often seem to have been "bigger than life."

Question 28

How did the religion of Mormonism arise? What problems did Mormons have with their neighbors? Describe the way in which they came to settle in Utah.

Question 29

Concerning the war with Mexico,leading intellectuals such as Henry David Thoreau,William Lloyd Garrison,and Frederick Douglass

A) opposed the war on the grounds that it would perpetuate slavery.
B) supported the war because they thought America would lose and support for slavery in America would slowly die out.
C) supported the war because they thought that America needed the land, but they feared that slavery would expand even further.
D) opposed the war on strategic, political grounds.
E) opposed the war because they believed the United States did not have the economic resources to sustain such a war.

Question 30

What did Polk hope to get from provoking a war with Mexico?

A) Full and certain ownership of Texas
B) Control of much of Mexico's territory throughout the Southwest
C) A morale boost by defeating the Mexicans handily
D) Recognition from other major nations of the world
E) Control of California, where gold had recently been discovered

Question 31

What were the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo?

A) Mexico ceded parts of Texas and Utah but retained its other territories in the West.
B) The Mexico-U.S. border was set at the Nueces River.
C) The U.S. promised to vacate all of the territories it had occupied during the war.
D) The U.S. acquired Utah, Nevada, California and parts of Arizona and New Mexico for $15 million.
E) Mexico would become part of the United States.

Question 32

Manifest destiny

A) was the idea that America was destined by God to possess North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
B) originated as a political slogan of Jacksonian democrats.
C) described the shared beliefs of the Second Great Awakening.
D) was a Native American term that described their commitment to resistance against Anglo-American settlers.
E) referred to the fortunes gold seekers discovered in California.

Question 33

Mormonism became a new religious community during the Second Great Awakening.

Question 34

The person who coined the term "manifest destiny" was

A) newspaperman William Randolph Hearst.
B) author Mark Twain.
C) President James K. Polk.
D) Senator Henry Clay.
E) journalist John O'Sullivan.

Question 35

After gaining independence from Mexico,Texans fought hard to maintain their independence from the United States.

Question 36

Most of the early mining camp settlements went on to become major California towns and cities after the Gold Rush ended.

Question 37

How did Texas transform from a Mexican province to a U.S.state? Who advocated annexation,who opposed it,and why?

Question 38

Discuss the changes in the territorial boundaries of the United States.Why and how did these changes occur?

Question 39

How did Americans manage to wrest tribal lands away from the Plains Indians?

Question 40

One of the most contentious issues that was debated diplomatically between the Americans and the Mexicans before the outbreak of the Mexican War was

A) whether Texas could legally separate from Mexico.
B) what geographical landmark should serve as the true border between Mexico and Texas.
C) whether Mexico would allow Texas to be annexed by the United States.
D) whether Texas was worth fighting for.
E) how much the United States should pay Mexico for the loss of its Texas territory.

Question 41

The Mexican cession to America at the end of the Mexican War enlarged the United States by about 500,000 square miles.

Question 42

If the warhawks in the Democratic party had been successful in persuading President Polk to force Britain to agree to the northern boundary where they wanted it established,Vancouver,British Columbia,today would have been part of the state of Washington.

Question 43

Manifest destiny reflected a much older American belief that God meant for them to dominate the North American continent,bringing civilization to that great land.

Question 44

The armed expedition into California during the Mexican War,known as the Bear Flag Revolt,was led by General Zachary Taylor.

Question 45

Britain initially balked at settling on the 49ᵗʰ parallel as the northern border of the United States because it wanted to control the Columbia River that lay two hundred miles to the south.