Westward Expansion (1865-1900)

Question 1

The railway line completed on May 10, 1869, that connected the Central Pacific and Union Pacific lines, enabling goods to move by railway from the eastern United States all the way to California.

Answer 1

transcontinental railroad

Question 2

A tax or duty on foreign producers of goods coming into or imported into the United States; tariffs gave U.S. manufacturers a competitive advantage in America’s gigantic domestic market.

Answer 2

protective tariff

Question 3

An 1868 treaty that guaranteed the rights of U.S. missionaries in China and set official terms for the emigration of Chinese laborers to work in the United States.

Answer 3

Burlingame Treaty

Question 4

An 1877 Supreme Court case that affirmed that states could regulate key businesses, such as railroads and grain elevators, if those businesses were “clothed in the public interest.”

Answer 4

Munn v. Illinois

Question 5

The practice of backing a country’s currency with its reserves of gold. In 1873 the United States, following Great Britain and other European nations, began converting to the gold standard.

Answer 5

gold standard

Question 6

A term used by those critical of an 1873 law directing the U.S. Treasury to cease minting silver dollars, retire Civil War-era greenbacks, and replace them with notes backed by the gold standard from an expanded system of national banks.

Answer 6

“Crime of 1873”

Question 7

The 1862 act that gave 160 acres of free western land to any applicant who occupied and improved the property. This policy led to the rapid development of the American West after the Civil War; facing arid conditions in the West, however, many homesteaders found themselves unable to live on their land.

Answer 7

Homestead Act

Question 8

Authorized by the Morrill Act of 1862, land-grant colleges were public universities founded to broaden educational opportunities and foster technical and scientific expertise. These universities were funded by the Morrill Act, which authorized the sale of federal lands to raise money for higher education.

Answer 8

land-grant colleges

Question 9

A vein of silver ore discovered in Nevada in 1859, leading to one of the West’s most important mining booms. The lode was so rich that a Confederate expedition tried unsuccessfully to capture it during the Civil War; its output significantly altered the ratio of silver in circulation, leading to changes in monetary policy.

Answer 9

Comstock Lode

Question 10

African Americans who walked or rode out of the Deep South following the Civil War, many settling on farms in Kansas in hopes of finding peace and prosperity.

Answer 10

Exodusters

Question 11

Established in 1872 by Congress, Yellowstone was the United States’s first national park.

Answer 11

Yellowstone

Question 12

A federal bureau established in 1871 that made recommendations to stem the decline in wild fish. Its creation was an important step toward wildlife conservation and management.

Answer 12

U.S. Fisheries Commission

Question 13

The November 29, 1864, massacre of more than a hundred peaceful Cheyennes, largely women and children, by John M. Chivington’s Colorado militia.

Answer 13

Sand Creek massacre

Question 14

A massacre in December 1866 in which 1,500 Sioux warriors lured Captain William Fetterman and 80 soldiers from a Wyoming fort and attacked them. With the Fetterman massacre the Sioux succeeded in closing the Bozeman Trail, the main route into Montana.

Answer 14

Fetterman massacre

Question 15

A 1903 Supreme Court ruling that Congress could make whatever Indian policies it chose, ignoring all existing treaties.

Answer 15

Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock

Question 16

The 1887 law that gave Native Americans severalty (individual ownership of land) by dividing reservations into homesteads. The law was a disaster for Native peoples, resulting over several decades in the loss of 66 percent of lands held by Indians at the time of the law’s passage.

Answer 16

Dawes Severalty Act

Question 17

The 1876 battle begun when American cavalry under George Armstrong Custer attacked an encampment of Sioux, Arapaho, and Cheyenne Indians who were resisting removal to a reservation. Custer’s force was annihilated, but with whites calling for U.S. soldiers to retaliate, the Native American military victory was short-lived.

Answer 17

Battle of Little Big Horn

Question 18

Religion of the late 1880s and early 1890s that combined elements of Christianity and traditional Native American religion. It fostered Plains Indians’ hope that they could, through sacred dances, resurrect the great bison herds and call up a storm to drive whites back across the Atlantic.

Answer 18

Ghost Dance Movement

Question 19

The 1890 massacre of Sioux Indians by American cavalry at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota. Sent to suppress the Ghost Dance, soldiers caught up with fleeing Lakotas and killed as many as three hundred.

Answer 19

Wounded Knee