Unit 5 Test 1

Question 1

Santa Fe Trail

Answer 1

The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century transportation route through central North America that connected Franklin, Missouri with Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Question 2

Oregon Trail

Answer 2

A 2,200-mile historic east-west large wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon.

Question 3

Tejanos

Answer 3

A term used to identify a Texan of Criollo Spanish or Mexican heritage.

Question 4

Empresarios

Answer 4

A person who had been granted the right to settle on Mexican land in exchange for recruiting and taking responsibility for new settlers. The word is Spanish for entrepreneur.

Question 5

Alamo

Answer 5

a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution. Following a 13-day siege, Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna launched an assault on the Alamo Mission near San Antonio de Béxar (modern-day San Antonio, Texas), killing all of the Texan defenders. Santa Anna’s cruelty during the battle inspired many Texans—both Texas settlers and adventurers from the United States—to join the Texan Army.

Question 6

Mexican-American War

Answer 6

An armed conflict between the United States and the Centralist Republic of Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It followed in the wake of the 1845 U.S. annexation of Texas, which Mexico considered part of its territory, despite the 1836 Texas Revolution.

Question 7

49ers

Answer 7

A participant in the 1849 California Gold Rush

Question 8

Wilmot’s Provisio

Answer 8

One of the major events leading to the American Civil War, would have banned slavery in any territory to be acquired from Mexico in the Mexican War or in the future, including the area later known as the Mexican Cession.

Question 9

Popular Sovereignty

Answer 9

The principle that the authority of the government is created and sustained by the consent of its people, through their elected representatives (Rule by the People), who are the source of all political power.

Question 10

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Answer 10

a series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, and Senator Stephen Douglas. Lincoln and Douglas were trying to win control of the Illinois legislature. The debates previewed the issues that Lincoln would face in the aftermath of his victory in the 1860 presidential election. The main issue discussed in all seven debates was slavery.

Question 11

Compromise of 1850

Answer 11

A package of five separate bills passed in the United States in September 1850, which defused a four-year confrontation between the slave states of the South and the free states of the North regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican-American War.

Question 12

Fugitive Slave Law

Answer 12

Law-enforcement officials everywhere were required to arrest persons suspected of being a runaway slave on as little as a claimant’s sworn testimony of ownership. The suspected slave could not ask for a jury trial or testify on his or her own behalf. In addition, any person aiding a runaway slave by providing food or shelter was subject to six months’ imprisonment and a $1,000 fine.

Question 13

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Answer 13

In the new bill the territory of Nebraska was extended north all the way to the 49th parallel, and any decisions on slavery were to be made when admitted as a state or states, the said territory, or any portion of the same, shall be received into the Union, with or without slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission.

Question 14

Know-Nothings

Answer 14

It promised to purify American politics by limiting or ending the influence of Irish Catholics and other immigrants, thus reflecting nativism and anti-Catholic sentiment.

Question 15

Republican Party

Answer 15

One of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States; the other being the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery activists in 1854.

Question 16

Bleeding Kansas

Answer 16

A series of violent political confrontations in the United States involving anti-slavery Free-Staters and pro-slavery “Border Ruffian” elements, that took place in the Kansas Territory and the neighboring towns of the state of Missouri between 1854 and 1861.

Question 17

Dred Scott v. Sandford

Answer 17

A landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court held that African Americans, whether enslaved or free, could not be American citizens and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court, and that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the federal territories acquired after the creation of the United States.

Question 18

Lecompton Constitution

Answer 18

The document was written in response to the anti-slavery position of the 1855 Topeka Constitution of James H. Lane and other free-state advocates. The territorial legislature, consisting mostly of slave-owners, met at the designated capital of Lecompton in September 1857 to produce a rival document. Free-state supporters, who comprised a large majority of actual settlers, boycotted the vote.

Question 19

Panic of 1857

Answer 19

A financial panic in the United States caused by the declining international economy and over-expansion of the domestic economy

Question 20

John Brown’s Raid

Answer 20

In 1859, Brown led an unsuccessful raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry that ended with his capture. Brown’s trial resulted in his conviction and a sentence of death by hanging. He was tried for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, the murder of five men and inciting a slave insurrection. He was found guilty on all counts and was hanged.

Question 21

Constitutional Union Party

Answer 21

A political party in the United States created in 1860. It was made up of conservative former Whigs who wanted to avoid secessionism over the slavery issue. These former Whigs (some of whom had been under the banner of the Opposition Party in 1854–58) teamed up with former Know-Nothings and a few Southern Democrats who were against secessionism to form the Constitutional Union Party.