MODULE 1: WESTWARD EXPANSION Flashcards
Which of the following statements most accurately characterizes the original Forty-Niners?
They were prospectors who poured into California to mine for surface gold deposits.
In 1859, Henry T.P. Comstock’s discovery of silver touched off a mining frenzy in Nevada and Colorado because silver held intrinsic monetary value as a precious metal. Which of the following statements describes how the copper discovered in Arizona differed in value from silver and gold?
Copper was less glamorous, but had practical technological value.
Barbed wire existed in various forms prior to 1873, when Joseph Glidden patented the design which would become the industry standard. How did barbed wire transform the Western beef industry?
Capitalists began to invest in ranches instead of free-range cattle drives
Nature posed a variety of challenges for small farmers in the West, such as tornadoes, droughts, and locust swarms. Other challenges were man-made. How did the increasing number of migrants to the West create financial problems for small farmers?
Market values for crops declined.
The Great Plains and Midwest—nicknamed the “Great Desert”—challenged settlers to come up with irrigation techniques that did not depend on rainfall. What was the primary method which farmers used to grow corn, wheat, and sorghum in the arid West of the 19th century?
Dry-farming
Western cattlemen turned on each other in the Fence Cutting War in Texas (1883-1884) and the so-called “lynching bee” in Wyoming (1891-1892). What was the root cause of violent confrontations between White ranchers during this time?
Small ranchers were frustrated because large ranchers took all of the good land.
Eastern capitalists did not begin to invest in the Western beef industry until the second half of the 19th century. What historical development triggered the massive cattle drives of the 1860s and 1870s?
New railroads connected Western territories to the East.
In Little House on the Prairie and other books about her childhood in the West, Laura Ingalls Wilder depicted her mother, Caroline Ingalls, as a resourceful frontier woman who played a crucial role in the survival and success of the homestead. Which of the following statements most accurately describes the role of women like Caroline Ingalls in the West?
They were equal partners with their husbands in running homesteads and helped to break through social barriers.
The discovery of precious metals in the West resulted in history repeating itself, as each new mine attracted a flood of prospectors and new towns sprang up with stores, saloons, and prostitution. Going beyond these immediate developments, how did precious metals bring long-term historical change to the West?
Settlers called for federal intervention and statehood.
Thousands of immigrants from Northern Europe and Canada settled in the American West in the second half of the 19th century. Which of the following statements most accurately describes how European immigrants shaped the culture of the West?
Immigrants formed communities similar to their countries of origin.
In 1879, a Black American living in Louisiana wrote to the governor of Kansas, “I am very anxious to reach your state … because of the sacredness of her soil washed by the blood of humanitarians for the cause of black freedom.” Which of the following statements most accurately describes the “exodusters” who migrated into the West in the 1870s?
They fled racial violence in the South to become small farmers in the West.
Columnist John O’Sullivan wrote in 1839 that American history was characterized by the defense of “the oppressed of all nations … the rights of conscience, [and] the rights of personal enfranchisement.” Based on this idealized reading of American history, O’Sullivan and other proponents of Westward expansion argued that Americans were destined to
spread the benefits of democracy and Protestant values across the continent.
The Pacific Railway Act of 1862 commissioned the Union Pacific Railroad and the Central Pacific Railroad companies to build two sets of tracks which converged at Promontory Summit, Utah in 1869. The first transcontinental railroad benefitted Western settlers by
forming the backbone of a vast network of railroad lines throughout the West.
President Lincoln wrote in 1861 of the proposed legislation which became the Homestead Act, “I think it worthy of consideration, and that the wild lands of the country should be distributed so that every man should have the means and opportunity of benefitting his condition.” How did the Civil War give a new impetus to Lincoln’s personal idealism about Western settlement?
Lincoln wanted small farmers, rather than large enslavers, to populate the West.
William Gilpin, an influential explorer from Colorado, delivered an address in the U.S. Senate in March 1846, in which he described Manifest Destiny as the “untransacted destiny” of the American people to “teach old nations a new civilization” and “to perfect science.” Gilpin was expressing a common belief among Americans in the 19th century. What was this belief?
Technology proved the superiority of one civilization over another.
Passage of the Homestead Act in 1862, and completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, opened the West to thousands of new settlers. Prior to these measures, most of the Americans who had struck out in covered wagons on the Oregon Trail were
White, native-born farmers of moderate wealth.
The U.S. Congress passed two legislative acts in 1862 which were intended to stimulate Westward settlement, due to fears that the North might lose the Civil War. Which of the following statements describes the provisions of the Homestead Act?
It allowed male citizens to claim federal lands in the West, make improvements, and gain title deeds.
The Dakota War led to new treaties in the late 1860s which were designed to prevent similar conflicts by putting distance between Native Americans and White settlers. Which of these measures relocated the Comanche people to present-day Oklahoma?
Treaty of Medicine Lodge Creek
