Chapter 16-Conquering A Continent 1854-1890

Question 0

What triggered the migration of large numbers of Scandinavians and Germans in the 1870s?

Answer 0

A severe depression in northern Europe

→ A severe depression in northern Europe drove the migration of large numbers of Scandinavians and Germans in the 1870s.

Question 1

What did the United States purchase from Russia in 1868?

Answer 1

Alaska

→ The United States purchased Alaska from Russia in 1868.

Question 2

Which interest group directly shaped Ulysses Grant’s peace policy for the West?

Answer 2

Which interest group directly shaped Ulysses Grant’s peace policy for the West?

Question 3

The nation’s monetary policy between 1865 and 1880 can best be described as deflationary, which means policymakers did what?

Answer 3

Sharply limited the nation’s money supply
→ By putting the United States on the gold standard, Republican policymakers sharply limited the nation’s money supply to the level of available gold.

Question 4

Exodusters were blacks who left which region to seek a better life in the 1870s?

Answer 4

The South

→ Exodusters were blacks who left the southern states to seek a better life in the 1870s.

Question 5

Refer to the map Indian Country in the West, to 1890

to answer the following question. Click the image to view full-size.

Which of the following regions was the last that Native Americans ceded to the United States?

Answer 5

The area of the North Dakota Territory to the east of the Missouri river
→ The Sioux ceded this territory between 1870 and 1890.

Question 6

Giant corporations that dominate whole sectors of the economy through monopoly power are known by what name?

Answer 6

Trusts

→ Giant corporations that dominate whole sectors of the economy through monopoly power are known as trusts.

Question 7

What did the Homestead Act of 1862 do?

Answer 7

It gave 160 acres to applicants who occupied and improved them.
→ The act succeeded in incorporating lands west of the Mississippi. Although the 160-acre parcel provided by the Homestead Act of 1862 was effective in a well-watered and semi-forested environment, in the more arid Great Plains, it failed to be of sufficient size to provide a profit for average farmers in the late 1800s.

Question 8

Which Indian group of California in 1873 rebelled against removal to a reservation?

Answer 8

Modoc

→ In 1873, the Modoc of California rebelled against removal to a reservation.

Question 9

What was one consequence of the shift to steam-powered vessels in the transoceanic trade in the 1850s?

Answer 9

Merchants and the U.S. Navy needed ports where they could refuel.
→ Previous sailing fleets also needed supplies, but did not depend on coal deposits to keep them seaworthy.

Question 10

Technological innovation and the global expansion of export agriculture had what impact on farmers working on the plains in the late 1800s?

Answer 10

A drop in crop prices
→ The result of technological innovation and the global expansion of export agriculture glutted world markets and led to a drop in crop prices, worsening farmers’ income.

Question 11

Which statement describes the motives of Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts in writing the Dawes Severalty Act?

Answer 11

He was eager for reform and hoped to improve the lives of Native Americans.
→ Dawes was a leader of the Indian Rights Association and wanted Indians assimilated into commercial agriculture and property ownership to move past the reservation, which he considered a relic of the past.

Question 12

What was the status of land ownership in New Mexico and Arizona in the late 1800s?

Answer 12

Traditional land claims from Spanish colonial times were rejected in favor of new claims by Anglos.
→ Existing land claims were so complex that Congress eventually set up a special court to rule on land titles. Between 1891 and 1904 the court invalidated most traditional claims, including those of many New Mexico ejidos, or villages owned collectively by their communities. Mexican Americans lost about 64 percent of the contested lands, with Anglos primarily benefiting.

Question 13

What was a major difference between the settlement of the Great Plains and of mining camps and cattle ranches?

Answer 13

There were proportionately more women on the plains.

→ Homesteading was a family affair, and the work of women and children was vital to the farm family’s success.

Question 14

Readers of Frederick Jackson Turner’s essay on the frontier in American history believed that, in contrast to European nations, the United States had avoided what practice?

Answer 14

Imperialism
→ Turner’s audience believed that “peaceful” American expansion was the opposite of a European empires—ignoring the many military and economic similarities.

Question 15

What did the U.S. Supreme Court rule in the case of Munn v. Illinois (1877)?

Answer 15

States had the right to regulate businesses with a public purpose.
→ In Munn v. Illinois, the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged that states had the right to regulate those businesses that served important public purposes, such as railroads and grain elevators, but they did not want excessive local regulations to prevent the integration of the national marketplace.

Question 16

Who were the Exodusters?

Answer 16

African Americans who migrated to Kansas in the late 1870s
→ Thousands of African Americans––known as the Exodusters––moved to Kansas in 1879, fleeing mostly from Louisiana and Mississippi after the end of Reconstruction and the withdrawal of federal protection.

Question 17

Why did Indian agents and missionaries create Indian schools off the reservations as part of the effort to solve what was seen as the “Indian problem”?

Answer 17

They did not think they could re-educate Indian children when still living with their families.
→ Missionaries and other reformers believed that the adoption of white customs was difficult for children if they lived at home, so they created off-reservation schools and then exhorted, bullied, and bribed Native American parents into sending their children to these schools.

Question 18

What role did trade and industrial development play in the adoption of the gold standard by the U.S. government in 1873?

Answer 18

What role did trade and industrial development play in the adoption of the gold standard by the U.S. government in 1873?

Question 19

Which church allowed for the controversial practice of polygamy in the 1800s?

Answer 19

Mormon

→ The Mormon Church allowed for the controversial practice of polygamy in the 1800s.

Question 20

What event highlighted federal incompetence in regard to Indian relations in 1870, early in Ulysses S. Grant’s presidency?

Answer 20

U.S. troops killed over 170 Blackfoot Indians in Montana.
→ The mass killing of over 170 Blackfoot Indians in January 1870 on the Marias River in Montana by an army detachment highlighted the disarray and incompetence in the federal approach to native tribes, as the Blackfoot had been peaceful and done nothing to provoke the attack.

Question 21

Why did the United States switch from a bimetallic standard to a gold standard in 1873?

Answer 21

The discovery of immense silver deposits in the West
→ The United States switched to the gold standard in part because treasury officials and financiers were watching developments out West. There, geologists accurately predicted the discovery of immense lodes of silver without similarly rich gold strikes. A massive influx of silver would clearly upset the long-standing ratio of silver to gold in the currency base.

Question 22

What was the purpose of the Long Drive?

Answer 22

To bring cattle from Texas to railroad towns so they could be shipped east for food
→ In 1865, the Missouri Pacific Railroad reached Sedalia, Missouri, far enough west to be accessible as Texas re-entered the Union. A longhorn worth $3 in Texas might command $40 at Sedalia. With this incentive, ranchers inaugurated the Long Drive, hiring cowboys to herd cattle hundreds of miles north to the new rail lines, on which they were shipped east to be slaughtered for beef.

Question 23

Why were the children of the Dakotas Sioux close to starvation in the late 1850s?

Answer 23

Minnesota’s territorial governor and Indian agents stole their provisions.
→ In 1858, the year Minnesota secured statehood, the Dakotas had agreed to settle on a strip of land reserved by the government, in exchange for receiving regular payments and supplies. But Indian agents, contractors, and even Minnesota’s territorial governor pocketed most of the funds.

Question 24

Unlike most European countries, the United States decided to finance railroads through

Answer 24

private investors.
→ Unlike most European countries, the United States decided to finance railroads through private investors rather than direct government construction.

Question 25

What problem plagued homesteaders of the Great Plains in the 1880s?

Answer 25

Lack of rain
→ Over the long term, homesteaders discovered that the western grasslands did not receive enough rain to grow wheat and other grains. As the cycle of rainfall shifted from wet to dry, farmers as well as ranchers suffered.

Question 26

Which issue distinguished homesteading in the plains from pioneer farming in Iowa or Oregon in the antebellum years?

Answer 26

Land speculation
→ Taming the plains differed from “pioneering” in antebellum Oregon or Iowa as farmers increasingly focused on profits from cash crops. Land speculation, new technologies, and borrowed money became common features of commercial farming on the plains.

Question 27

Which issue distinguished homesteading in the plains from pioneer farming in Iowa or Oregon in the antebellum years?

Answer 27

Land speculation
→ Taming the plains differed from “pioneering” in antebellum Oregon or Iowa as farmers increasingly focused on profits from cash crops. Land speculation, new technologies, and borrowed money became common features of commercial farming on the plains.

Question 28

How did the United States persuade the Japanese to open trade relations?

Answer 28

By wielding naval power to persuade the Japanese to sign a treaty
→ Prior to the Civil War, Commodore Matthew Perry had forced the Japanese through gunboat diplomacy to sign a treaty in 1854 opening two ports for U.S. ships to refuel. Americans wanted open trade for missionary purposes as well, which they received in 1858.

Question 29

Before it became heavily settled, how were the Great Plains characterized?

Answer 29

The Great American Desert
→ Before farmers would settle the western plains, they had to be persuaded that crops would grow there. Powerful railroad, mining, and agricultural interests worked hard to overcome the popular idea that the grassland was the Great American Desert.

Question 30

Which two languages became the primary languages spoken in parts of Minnesota and the Dakotas by the mid-1880s?

Answer 30

Norwegian and Swedish
→ When a severe depression hit northern Europe in the 1870s, Norwegians and Swedes joined German emigrants in large numbers to America. At the peak of “America fever” in 1882, over 100,000 Scandinavians left for the United States. Swedish and Norwegian became the primary languages in parts of Minnesota and the Dakotas.

Question 31

Exodusters were blacks who left which region to seek a better life in the 1870s?

Answer 31

The South

→ Exodusters were blacks who left the southern states to seek a better life in the 1870s.

Question 32

What explains the popularity of the Ghost Dance movement in the 1880s?

Answer 32

Its promise of Indian resurrection
→ The Ghost Dance fostered the hope that native peoples could, through sacred dances, resurrect the bison and create a great storm that would drive whites back across the Atlantic. The Ghost Dance drew on significant Christian and native religious elements.

Question 33

What prompted the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890?

Answer 33

White efforts to suppress the Ghost Dance
→ In 1890 when a group of Lakota Sioux Ghost Dancers left their South Dakota reservation, they were pursued by the U.S. Army, who feared that further spread of the religion would provoke war. On December 29, at Wounded Knee, the Seventh Cavalry caught up with fleeing Lakota and killed at least 150—perhaps as many as 300.

Question 34

The purposeful destruction of which of the following opened the Great Plains to settlement?

Answer 34

Bison

→ The purposeful destruction of the bison opened the Great Plains to settlement.

Question 35

What federal department did Congress create in 1862 to conduct research and provide advice to farmers?

Answer 35

The Department of Agriculture

→ In 1862, Congress created the federal Department of Agriculture to conduct research and provide advice to farmers.

Question 36

Which mode of transportation helped integrate the national economy after the Civil War?

Answer 36

Railroad

→ Railroads helped integrate the national economy and covered the entire nation by 1900.

Question 37

What was the purpose of the U.S. Fisheries Commission, created in 1871?

Answer 37

To prevent the further decline of wild fish populations in the American West
→ The U.S. Fisheries Commission made recommendations to stem the decline in wild fish and, by the 1930s, had merged with other federal wildlife bureaus to become the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Question 38

Refer to the image Little Plume and Yellow Kidney

to answer the following question. Click the image to view full-size.

What might have been the purpose behind this photo taken by Edward S. Curtis of Piegan (Blackfeet) warriors Little Plume and his son Yellow Kidney?

Answer 38

The photographer wanted to portray their distinctly different culture.
→ Curtis went out of his way to remove items from his images that connected Native Americans to white culture and the modern economy. In this picture, for example, he touched up the photograph to eliminate a clock to the left of Little Plume’s right forearm (note the circular “shadow”).

Question 39

Technological innovation and the global expansion of export agriculture had what impact on farmers working on the plains in the late 1800s?

Answer 39

A drop in crop prices
→ The result of technological innovation and the global expansion of export agriculture glutted world markets and led to a drop in crop prices, worsening farmers’ income.

Question 40

Why did Great Britain agree to pay the United States $15.5 million in damages after the Civil War?

Answer 40

British shipyards had built Confederate raiding vessels such as CSS Alabama.
→ Britain had permitted Confederate raiding vessels like the Alabama to be built in its shipyards and agreed afterward to pay the United States $15.5 million in damages after an arbitration process.

Question 41

The major silver discovery made in Nevada in 1859 was known by what name?

Answer 41

Report this questionGreat job! The correct answer is
The Comstock Lode
→ The major silver discovery in Nevada was known as the Comstock Lode.

Question 42

During the 1870s, what decimated the vast herds of buffalo that had roamed the Great Plains?

Answer 42

Animal diseases and overhunting by whites
→ Overhunting and European animal afflictions, like the bacterial disease brucellosis, decimated herds. In the 1870s, hide hunters finished them off so thoroughly that fewer than a hundred bison remained. Hunters left the meat to rot.

Question 43

What idea from Frederick Jackson Turner’s “frontier thesis” do historians reject today?

Answer 43

White settlers claimed empty land.
→ Historians reject Turner’s depiction of Indian “savagery” and his contradictory idea that white pioneers in the West claimed empty “free land.” Many scholars have noted that frontier conquest was both violent and incomplete.

Question 44

Who was the expansionist secretary of state during the 1860s that negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia?

Answer 44

William Seward
→ The expansionist secretary of state during the 1860s was William Seward. He negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia and urged the annexation of Hawaii.

Question 45

What did the Homestead Act of 1862 do?

Answer 45

It gave 160 acres to applicants who occupied and improved them.
→ The act succeeded in incorporating lands west of the Mississippi. Although the 160-acre parcel provided by the Homestead Act of 1862 was effective in a well-watered and semi-forested environment, in the more arid Great Plains, it failed to be of sufficient size to provide a profit for average farmers in the late 1800s.

Question 46

Republicans in the 1880s were staunch advocates of what economic policy?

Answer 46

High tariffs
→ For protectionist Republicans, high tariffs were akin to the abolition of slavery: They protected the most vulnerable workers and made the economy more just.

Question 47

What was the significance of the Battle of the Little Big Horn?

Answer 47

The battle overshadowed the white massacre of Indians at Sand Creek.
→ The killing of George A. Custer and his men in battle was used by Americans to justify the white conquest of the West. This justification remained long after Americans forgot about the massacres of Cheyenne women and children at Sand Creek and Piegan people on the Marias River.

Question 48

Why was John Wesley Powell’s advice about promoting water management and dry farming in the Great Plains ignored in Congress?

Answer 48

Members of Congress clung to the dream of homesteading.
→ Critics accused Powell of playing into the hands of large ranching corporations; boosters were not yet willing to give up the dream of small homesteads.

Question 49

What was one consequence of the shift to steam-powered vessels in the transoceanic trade in the 1850s?

Answer 49

Merchants and the U.S. Navy needed ports where they could refuel.
→ Previous sailing fleets also needed supplies, but did not depend on coal deposits to keep them seaworthy.

Question 50

With which country did the United States begin to trade in 1858?

Answer 50

Japan
→ In 1854, Commodore Matthew Perry succeeded in getting Japanese officials to sign the Treaty of Kanagawa, allowing U.S. ships to refuel at two ports. By 1858, America and Japan had commenced trade, and a U.S. consul took up residence in Japan’s capital, Edo (now known as Tokyo).

Question 51

What did the U.S. Supreme Court rule in the case of Munn v. Illinois (1877)?

Answer 51

States had the right to regulate businesses with a public purpose.
→ In Munn v. Illinois, the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged that states had the right to regulate those businesses that served important public purposes, such as railroads and grain elevators, but they did not want excessive local regulations to prevent the integration of the national marketplace.

Question 52

Why did Mormon women argue that giving them the right to vote in Utah Territory would benefit the Mormon community?

Answer 52

Because they would outvote non-Mormon miners
→ In 1870, due in part to organized pressure from Emmeline Wells and other Mormon women, the Utah legislature granted full voting rights to women, becoming the second U.S. territory to do so. The measure increased Mormon control of the territory, since most Utah women were Mormons, while non-Mormons in mining camps were predominantly male.