The Westward expansion 1860s to 1870s

Question 1

Reason for Westward expansion in the 1860s to 1870s

Answer 1

1) Demography
2) A deliberate policy by the federal government during and after the Civil War (Imperialism)
3) A special mission to bring the benefits of the American way of life

Question 2

Westward expansion before the Civil War 1865

- Reason

Answer 2

1) The West seemed to offer the possibility of starting anew and better life together with cheap and fertile land.
2) The discovery of gold in California in 1848 brought some 300,000 people to the area.

Question 3

What is the Manifest Destiny

Answer 3

The belief that God had chosen them to populate the lands from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean.

Question 4

The creation of federal territories in 1860

Answer 4

When the population reached 60,000 the inhabitants could apply to become a state, which gave them the right to some degree of self-determination
* in order to secure control of the lands

Question 5

The Homestead Act 1862

Answer 5

This released land available to farmers for free on the basis that they would farm the land for five years.

By 1865, 20,000 homesteaders had settled on the Plains.

Question 6

How was the Manifest Destiny manipulated?

Answer 6

1) To justify white American expropriation of Native American land, as it was clearly a racial doctrine of white supremacy.
2) To justify the expansion of the USA in the 1840s and 1850s especially into Texas and California
3) Deployed in the US’s imperial ventures in the 1890s that led to US possession or control of Hawaii and the Philippine Islands.

Question 7

The expansion of railroads

Answer 7

The government was keen to encourage railroad expansion to the West, which would lead to more migration

Question 8

The expansion of railroads

• The Pacific Railroad Act 1862

Answer 8

Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act authorising two companies to build a transcontinental railroad

Question 9

How did the expansion of railroad neglected the Native Americans?

Answer 9

The Native Americans were not consulted even though the railroad would run through the railroad would run through their lands.

The trains disturbed the buffalo herds and brought more settlers to the Plains