Deck 17: The Development of the West, 1865-1900

Question 1

In attempting to change the sexual division of labor within western Indian tribes, reformers sometimes caused

A) a reduction in the economic independence of Indian women.
B) a feeling of emasculation among Indian males.
C) warfare between tribal factions.
D) a breakdown of the political systems of western tribes.

Answer 1

a reduction in the economic independence of Indian women.

Question 2

The Dawes Severalty Act was based on the belief that

A) Indians should be allowed to participate actively in decisions concerning their future.
B) by establishing reservations as enclaves protected from white encroachment, Indian culture could be preserved.
C) families headed by men were the desired model for all societies.
D) Indians could best be assimilated into mainstream American society by teaching them the skills necessary to become factory workers.

Answer 2

families headed by men were the desired model for all societies.

Question 3

In the 1880s, the American conscience was aroused concerning the treatment of Indians by

A) Looking Backward.
B) A Century of Dishonor.
C) Wings of the Dove.
D) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Answer 3

A Century of Dishonor.

Question 4

In decisions handed down in 1884 and 1886, the Supreme Court held that Indians

A) could have their own independent military force to protect their reservations against white encroachment.
B) could not be relegated to reservations against their will.
C) were protected by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
D) were not citizens of the United States.

Question 5

The economies of all of the western Indian tribes were based to some extent on four activities. Three such activities were trading and raiding; crop growing; and hunting, fishing, and gathering. What was the fourth?

A) Mining
B) Weaving
C) Livestock raising
D) Manufacturing

Question 6

Everyday life for Indians on the Great Plains centered on

A) the buffalo.
B) deer.
C) sheep.
D) horses.

Question 7

Which of the following was a result of the Clapp rider to the Indian appropriations bill of 1906?

A) Many Indians who were declared to be of mixed blood were duped into signing away their land to white speculators.
B) Indian reservations began to establish their own military force.
C) After receiving training in scientific farming, many Indians gained economic independence.
D) The United States Army began to safeguard Indian reservations and Indian treaty rights.

Question 8

Most whites who migrated to the West and the Great Plains did so for which of the following reasons?

A) They wanted to Christianize the native peoples.
B) They were lured there by mining syndicates and lumber companies that promised high-paying jobs.
C) They were desirous of material success.
D) They were supposed to conduct government-financed agricultural research.

Question 9

Life for Indians of the Northwest centered on

A) salmon.
B) trade with whites.
C) sheep.
D) corn.

Question 10

In the Southwest, the Navaho placed great value on

A) deer.
B) buffalo.
C) sheep.
D) elk.

Question 11

Which of the following ended up being the primary beneficiary of the Timber and Stone Act of 1878?

A) Lumber companies
B) Southern freedmen
C) Unemployed miners
D) Recent immigrants

Question 12

Most individual prospectors who discovered veins of precious metal

A) mined their claims by themselves.
B) sold their claims to mining syndicates.
C) mined their claims with a few friends.
D) were denied their claims due to government fraud.

Question 13

Most whites associated with Indian reform groups of the 1880s believed that

A) Indians could never be successfully assimilated into American society.
B) Indian cultures should be protected and preserved.
C) Indians could succeed in American society only if they adopted middle-class values.
D) Indians should be protected from white encroachment by the United States Army.

Question 14

One can conclude from the experience of the Navaho that

A) unity among the Indian tribes of a particular region could prevent white encroachment on Indian lands.
B) the federal government actively attempted to protect Indian cultures from aggressive white settlers.
C) some Indians were able to retain their traditional culture by refusing to trade with whites.
D) the economic power of whites increasingly placed Indians in a dependent and thus weakened position.

Question 15

Which of the following factors was instrumental in ending armed Indian resistance against whites?

A) Weakening of tribal power due to assimilation into white society
B) Relentless pursuit of Indians by U.S. soldiers
C) Large military engagements that decimated the Indian male population
D) The tireless work of white missionaries and teachers

Question 16

The most common crop raised by the western Indian tribes was

A) alfalfa.
B) rye.
C) wheat.
D) corn.

Question 17

Canada's management of Indian affairs differed from that of the United States in that

A) the Royal Mounted Police adopted a more aggressive stance against Indian resistance to acculturation.
B) Canada granted Indians the rights of British subjects and proceeded more slowly in attempting to acculturate Indians.
C) the Canadian government treated Indian tribes as foreign nations.
D) Canada outlawed intermarriage between whites and Indians.

Question 18

In 1890, agents of the federal government attempted to

A) suppress traditional Indian religions such as the Ghost Dance.
B) encourage factory and railroad construction near Indian reservations.
C) make Indians responsible for educating their own children.
D) deal with Indians through their tribes rather than as individuals.

Question 19

Which of the following was a consequence of the reservation policy of the U.S. government?

A) It led to the assimilation of most western Indians into mainstream American culture.
B) It weakened just about every aspect of Indian life.
C) It allowed Indians the independence they needed to protect and preserve their way of life.
D) It increased the possibility of unity among Indians and thus of violence against whites.

Question 20

Prior to the 1880s the federal government believed that Indians could best be civilized by

A) Christianizing them.
B) relegating them to reservations.
C) democratizing tribal government.
D) teaching them the concepts of capitalism.

Question 21

Which of the following is true of women in the West?

A) Through the home mission movement many women helped sustain family and community life.
B) Virtually all of the women who moved to the West in the late nineteenth century were prostitutes.
C) They were usually single and moved to the West to establish their own economic independence.
D) Like most males, women who moved to the West were individual prospectors and received financial backing from eastern banks.

Question 22

Which of the following was true of the Exodusters who migrated from the South to Kansas in the late 1870s?

A) They were white sharecroppers who were recruited to move to Kansas by the Kansas Farmers' Alliance.
B) Their move was subsidized by southern state governments, which were encouraging African Americans to leave the South.
C) Many of them were former slaves and received aid from the Kansas Freedmen's Relief Association.
D) They were drawn to Kansas by promises of jobs in the construction of the transcontinental railroad.

Question 23

Which of the following was the primary purpose of laws against miscegenation passed by western state legislatures?

A) To prevent white males from marrying Indian women
B) To prevent intermarriage between white women and Indian men
C) To prevent intermarriage between white women and men of Asian descent
D) To prevent white males from marrying Hispanic women

Question 24

The isolation of western farmers was lessened by

A) long drives and declining prices for beef.
B) the use of barbed wire and the expansion of the railroads.
C) a high ratio of women to men and the wide use of machinery.
D) the expansion of mail-order companies and the availability of Rural Free Delivery.

Question 25

Provisions of the Newlands Reclamation Act provide evidence of which of the following?

A) The federal government was more interested in conserving the nation's natural resources than in maintaining control over those resources.
B) The federal government attempted to impose the principle of riparian rights on individuals who purchased western public lands.
C) The federal government was unwilling to assume the power to regulate water development in the West, thus leaving such power to the states.
D) The federal government actively aided the agricultural development of the West.

Question 26

The rapid development of railroads in the United States was accomplished

A) in large measure through the investment of European banking firms.
B) exclusively through the support of large numbers of small investors.
C) with the help of some of the largest government subsidies ever granted.
D) almost totally through the investment of a handful of shrewd millionaires.

Question 27

California became the nation's leader in irrigated acreage largely as a result of

A) skills learned by white settlers from Native Americans.
B) the creation of water divisions that regulated water rights.
C) a state law that allowed farmers to organize irrigation districts.
D) a law declaring the rivers of the state to be public property subject to state supervision.

Question 28

As a result of the Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902,

A) farmers in the West were allowed to organize into irrigation districts and operate irrigation projects.
B) proceeds from the sale of western public lands would be used to finance irrigation projects.
C) the federal government transferred all of its public-domain lands in California to the state.
D) western farmers intending an economically productive use of river water were given the right to appropriation.

Question 29

In 1883, four standard time zones for the nation were established by

A) the president.
B) the railroads.
C) the army.
D) Congress.

Question 30

The ideas associated with prior appropriation fostered the attitude that

A) natural resources exist to serve human needs and advance profits.
B) water, unlike other natural resources, may not be held and used as private property.
C) only people who live along the banks of rivers and streams may appropriate from the water's flow.
D) the natural beauty of the rivers and streams must be protected from corporate greed.

Question 31

Which of the following was true of life on the Plains?

A) Railroad expansion crippled farming in the region by using up all of the best and most fertile land.
B) Settlers in the Plains found that wells were cheap to dig once machinery was introduced into the region.
C) The pattern of settlement meant that settlers often suffered social isolation.
D) Pioneer farm families had little water but an abundance of timber.

Question 32

Between 1870 and 1910, the possibility of profiting from commercial farming in the Plains region became more favorable because

A) railroad expansion and the construction of grain elevators made it possible to meet the increasing demand for farm products.
B) low interest rates on property-acquisition loans made it possible to acquire more productive farmland.
C) federally subsidized irrigation projects cut the cost of making formerly arid land productive.
D) the establishment of parity prices for basic commodities substantially increased per capita farm income.

Question 33

Nationwide standardization of time became a necessity for which of the following reasons?

A) In the event of a national emergency, the military needed to be assured of a regularity of time from place to place.
B) Railroad scheduling required that there be a regularity of time from place to place.
C) Monetary transactions undertaken by the nation's leading financial institutions required a regularity of time from place to place.
D) The transfer of raw materials to factories and finished products to consumers requires a regularity of time from place to place.

Question 34

For which of the following reasons did the federal government refuse to transfer public domain lands to the states?

A) Such transfers were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
B) Such transfers would raise the question of who would regulate waterways that ran through more than one state.
C) Such transfers would deny the federal government the power to control water and land conservation.
D) The federal government feared that such transfers would lead to ecological problems associated with practices such as strip mining.

Question 35

White settlers in the frontier communities of the West made which of the following a distinguishing social characteristic?

A) Race
B) Education
C) Marital status
D) Religion

Question 36

Which of the following was the key to the granting of statehood to Utah in 1896?

A) The army won a final decisive victory over hostile Indians.
B) Democratic congressmen realized that Utah's voters were solidly in their camp.
C) Non-Mormons gained control of the state.
D) The Mormons agreed to give up polygamy.

Question 37

This person was a leading figure in the early conservation movement and advocated that Congress give President Harrison the authority to create forest reserves.

A) Moses E. Clapp
B) Helen Hunt Jackson
C) Johnny Ringo
D) John Muir

Question 38

Which of the following is true of the early conservation movement?

A) The early conservation movement met little opposition in the West because the people there felt close to nature.
B) Because the need for conservation was so clear, the movement met little opposition in any part of the nation.
C) The movement and its leaders were subjected to nationwide ridicule.
D) Opposition to the movement was strongest in the West.

Question 39

Which of the following was the first national park in the United States?

A) Yosemite National Park
B) Yellowstone National Park
C) Crater Lake National Park
D) Glacier National Park

Question 40

The first Americans of northern European ancestry to practice extensive irrigation were

A) the Vikings.
B) the Mormons.
C) the Puritans.
D) the Quakers.

Question 41

Which of the following is true concerning the struggle for supremacy between cattle ranchers and sheepherders?

A) Sheepherders claimed that cattle ruined the grazing land.
B) Both groups typically used the land illegally.
C) Sheepherders claimed that cattle left the land with a foul smell.
D) Sheepherders were generally peaceful, whereas ranchers were disposed to settle differences violently.

Question 42

Which of the following was a feature of open-range ranching?

A) The rounding up of wild cattle roaming free on the range
B) The slaughtering and butchering of cattle on the range
C) The purchase of thousands of acres of land for grazing
D) The grazing of cattle on public land

Question 43

The Hatch Act of 1887 encouraged the advancement of farming science and technology by

A) providing grants of land to every state for the establishment of agricultural colleges.
B) providing low-interest government loans to farmers for the purchase of farm machines.
C) providing for agricultural experiment stations in every state.
D) providing subsidies to support all scientific research related to agriculture.

Question 44

Cattle raising became increasingly profitable in the 1860s and gave rise to the lucrative cattle industry because of

A) a decline in beef imported from Europe.
B) court decisions that allowed livestock to be moved freely across state lines.
C) railroad expansion and population growth.
D) investment funds made available by the discovery of mineral deposits in the West.