#16: America’s Frontier West
1. Although the image of the nineteenth century West is of thinly populated, wide-open spaces, by the
late 1870s ________ already had almost 250,000 inhabitants.
A) Las Vegas
B) Sante Fe
C) Tucson
D) San Francisco
2. In 1882 Congress passed a law that in effect stopped immigration from
A) China.
B) Russia.
C) Mexico.
D) Poland.
3. Which of the following statements about immigrants in the West in the late 1800s is false?
A) Nearly one-third of all Californians were foreign-born.
B) Many Chinese came to the United States to serve as cheap labor on the railroads.
C) There were large populations of Spanish-speaking immigrants in the Southwest.
D) Although a few did live in the West, Irish and German immigrants almost exclusively immigrated to
eastern states.
4. On the eve of the Civil War, the American Indians in the West
A) were no longer dependent on the buffalo.
B) had almost no contact with American and European cultures.
C) still occupied about 50 percent of the United States.
D) were still reluctant to adopt any white technology.
5. _______ were essential to the culture, religion, and sustenance of the Plains Indians.
A) Totem poles
B) Horses
C) Bison
D) Tipis
6. Although the ________ became extinct in the Western Hemisphere about 8,000 BC, it became a vital
part of Plains culture after Spanish reintroduction.
A) bison
B) jackalope
C) horse
D) bear
7. The United States treated each tribe
A) as a part of a consolidated whole.
B) in accordance with the state laws of the territory that they claimed.
C) as one sovereign nation.
D) as a separate sovereign nation.
This material is intended solely for educational purpose in conjunction with The American Nation: A History of the United States by Mark C. Carnes and
John A. Garraty. It is for private use only and may not be disseminated, duplicated, sold, or marketed in any manner. Individuals are limited to one copy
to be used exclusively as a classroom academic device and which must be submitted to the course instructor within one week of printing. Any other use
is strictly prohibited. Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458.
8. In 1851, the government negotiated a new policy with the Plains tribes based on a divide-and-conquer
strategy. This was known as the "________" policy.
A) reservation
B) concentration
C) removal and resettlement
D) dispersal
9. In its treaties with Indian tribes, the American government generally
A) honored only those made after 1860.
B) showed little interest in honoring the agreements.
C) considered them legally binding obligations.
D) honored only those made before 1860.
10. One of the worst massacres committed by white militia in the Indian Wars occurred in 1864 at
A) Horse Creek.
B) Fort Phil Kearny.
C) Sand Creek.
D) Medicine Lodge.
11. In 1867, the government tried a new strategy toward the Plains Indians of
A) negotiating with all tribes to achieve a single unified treaty.
B) negotiating with each tribe separately.
C) forcing the reservation Native Americans to become farmers like other Americans.
D) accepting the Indians' rights to practice their own religions.
12. One of the reasons that a relative handful of Indians could hold off the battle-hardened Civil War
soldiers now fighting in the West was because the
A) Indians had a highly effective centralized leadership.
B) Army had fewer than 2,000 soldiers to cover over ten million square miles.
C) Indian leaders were skillful at organizing campaigns.
D) Indians were superb guerilla warriors and some of the best cavalry soldiers in the world.
13. The distinction between "treaty Indians" and "nontreaty Indians"
A) carried special weight in the Southwest.
B) was easily enforced by the army.
C) was based on possession of horses.
D) shifted almost from day to day.
14. The government's administration of Indian affairs was notable over the years for its
A) dedicated public servants.
B) careful long-range planning.
C) pursuit of Native American rights.
D) level of corruption.
15. General George Armstrong Custer's greatest mistake at Little Bighorn was that he
A) did not provide his men with sufficient ammunition.
B) grossly underestimated the number of Indians.
C) delayed the attack until nightfall.
D) refused to rest his horses before the attack.
This material is intended solely for educational purpose in conjunction with The American Nation: A History of the United States by Mark C. Carnes and
John A. Garraty. It is for private use only and may not be disseminated, duplicated, sold, or marketed in any manner. Individuals are limited to one copy
to be used exclusively as a classroom academic device and which must be submitted to the course instructor within one week of printing. Any other use
is strictly prohibited. Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458.
16. The two reasons why fighting on the Plains slackened after Custer's 1876 defeat are
A) epidemic diseases and malnutrition among the tribes.
B) the increased settlement by homesteaders and the formation of territorial governments.
C) the tribes who defeated Custer either fled to Canada or accepted reservation life.
D) the building of the transcontinental railroad and the destruction of the buffalo.
17. The ability of the Plains Indians to resist white expansion was severely damaged by the
A) whites' superior military training.
B) destruction of the buffalo.
C) blizzard of 1873.
D) introduction of the horse.
18. ________ led the Nez Percé of Oregon and Idaho on a thousand-mile campaign, outwitting federal
troops, before being forced to surrender.
A) Sitting Bull
B) Geronimo
C) Red Cloud
D) Chief Joseph
19. In 1887, Congress passed the Dawes Severalty Act, which was intended to
A) persuade Indians to abandon their traditional tribal cultures.
B) protect tribal life and customs.
C) encourage Native American crafts and trades.
D) place all Native Americans on reservations.
20. Under the _______, Indians who accepted land allotments, lived "separate from any tribe," and
"adopted the habits of civilized life" were allowed to become United States citizens.
A) Supreme Court ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson
B) Treaty of Fort Laramie
C) Dawes Severalty Act
D) "concentration" policy
21. Partly as a result of the Ghost Dance movement, 200+ Sioux and soldiers were killed in a confused
action at ________ in 1890.
A) Washita, Oklahoma
B) Sand Creek, Colorado
C) Wounded Knee, South Dakota
D) Mankato, Minnesota
22. In comparison to its human resources, the natural resources of the nation in the late 1800s were
A) even more ruthlessly and thoughtlessly exploited.
B) far better preserved by a growing conservation movement.
C) treated with exactly the same indifference and lack of foresight.
D) even better nurtured and developed.
This material is intended solely for educational purpose in conjunction with The American Nation: A History of the United States by Mark C. Carnes and
John A. Garraty. It is for private use only and may not be disseminated, duplicated, sold, or marketed in any manner. Individuals are limited to one copy
to be used exclusively as a classroom academic device and which must be submitted to the course instructor within one week of printing. Any other use
is strictly prohibited. Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458.
23. Probably the most famous of all the precious metal strikes in the West, the site of the Comstock Lode
and the Big Bonanza, was
A) Virginia City, Nevada.
B) Deadwood, South Dakota.
C) Pike's Peak, Colorado.
D) Butte, Montana.
24. Most of the wealth from the many mines in the West was gained by the
A) original prospectors.
B) large mining corporations.
C) gamblers and desperadoes.
D) regional railroads.
25. One result of the gold and silver rushes of the late nineteenth century was
A) inflation because of the coining of the new metals.
B) retarded political development in the West.
C) dramatic decline in the value of the dollar in the world market.
D) improved financial position for America in world trade.
26. The Homestead Act of 1862
A) failed to fill the West with 160-acre family farms because most landless Americans were simply too
poor to become farmers.
B) succeeded admirably in planting 160-acre family farms throughout the West.
C) did not immediately lead to a West with 160-acre family farms due to Native American defense of
their homelands.
D) was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in Munn v. Illinois.
27. Roughing It by Mark Twain, published in 1872, provides us with our most famous pictures of the
A) Plains Indian Wars.
B) open-range cattle industry.
C) farmers' last frontier.
D) mining frontier.
28. The gigantic corporation-controlled farms that were created to take advantage of the newly available
acreage in the South and West were known as
A) new-age plantations.
B) reservation plots.
C) bonanza farms.
D) agribusinesses.
29. In the decades following the Civil War, the ________ became known as the "breadbasket" of
America.
A) Plains states west of the Mississippi
B) Deep South
C) North
D) states of the Pacific Northwest
This material is intended solely for educational purpose in conjunction with The American Nation: A History of the United States by Mark C. Carnes and
John A. Garraty. It is for private use only and may not be disseminated, duplicated, sold, or marketed in any manner. Individuals are limited to one copy
to be used exclusively as a classroom academic device and which must be submitted to the course instructor within one week of printing. Any other use
is strictly prohibited. Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458.
30. Which of the following is true of the frontier farmers of the 1870s and 1880s?
A) Only the "bonanza" farmers survived the drought of the late 1880s.
B) They farmed the land with little knowledge or concern for preventing erosion or preserving fertility.
C) Cultivating the prairie grasslands was quite similar to their experience in Ohio and Illinois.
D) Farmers who diversified their crops were most likely to fail.
31. Which of the following was not one of Ben Cartwright's three famous sons at the Ponderosa Ranch
near Virginia City, Nevada?
A) Hoss.
B) Mitch.
C) Little Joe.
D) Adam.
32. The Pacific Railway Act of 1862 set the pattern for government land grants by giving the builders of
the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads
A) five square miles of public land on each side of their right-of-way for every mile of track laid.
B) a ten-year exemption from state taxes.
C) a 20-year exemption from government regulation.
D) the right to import an unlimited supply of Chinese labor.
33. Transcontinental railroads used their zone of "indemnity" lands to prevent
A) military confiscation of lands for forts.
B) state taxation of railroad property.
C) sale of federal land along the right-of-way.
D) homesteading along the railroad.
34. Available evidence seems to indicate that as far as railroad profits made from selling their land grants
are concerned,
A) only the Union Pacific made great profits.
B) no railroad made great profits.
C) nearly all railroads waxed fat.
D) most railroads suffered drastic losses.
35. The ability to finance the building of the railroad with money received from federal land grants
A) allowed the rail operators to come through an economic depression without bankruptcy.
B) caused the operators to be extravagant and sometimes even corrupt.
C) meant that the railway operators could pay their workers much higher average wages.
D) made the rail lines be conservative with operating costs.
36. The two railroads which joined in 1869 to form the first transcontinental railroad were the
A) Great Northern and the Southern Pacific.
B) New York Central and the B & O.
C) Illinois Central and the Erie.
D) Central Pacific and the Union Pacific.
This material is intended solely for educational purpose in conjunction with The American Nation: A History of the United States by Mark C. Carnes and
John A. Garraty. It is for private use only and may not be disseminated, duplicated, sold, or marketed in any manner. Individuals are limited to one copy
to be used exclusively as a classroom academic device and which must be submitted to the course instructor within one week of printing. Any other use
is strictly prohibited. Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458.
37. The only transcontinental railroad built without land grants was the
A) Southern Pacific.
B) Burlington.
C) Union Pacific.
D) Great Northern.
38. ________ brought the first cattle to the Western Hemisphere.
A) The Pilgrims
B) Columbus
C) The initial Bering Strait travelers
D) Cortez
39. Cattle herds were driven across the unsettled grasslands of the ________ Trail on their way to the
railroad at Abilene, Kansas.
A) Pecos
B) Goodnight-Loving
C) Chisholm
D) Oregon
40. The discovery that cattle could feed on the prairie grasses of the public domain of the northern plains
led to the development of
A) bonanza farms.
B) open-range ranching.
C) refrigerated railroad cars.
D) sharecropping.
41. Open-range ranching in the late nineteenth century required
A) miles of fences.
B) large land holdings.
C) control of a stable water supply.
D) special permits issued by state legislatures.
42. ________ was a former slave who became famous as the cowboy nicknamed "Deadwood Dick."
A) Jim Beckwourth
B) Nat Love
C) Joseph McCoy
D) Charles Ingalls
43. ________ accounted for the profitability of open-range ranching.
A) high demand and cheap transportation
B) strict governmental regulation driving up prices
C) overproduction
D) corrupt farming practices
44. The future President involved in open-range ranching was
A) Rutherford B. Hayes.
B) Theodore Roosevelt.
C) William Howard Taft.
D) Barak Obama.
This material is intended solely for educational purpose in conjunction with The American Nation: A History of the United States by Mark C. Carnes and
John A. Garraty. It is for private use only and may not be disseminated, duplicated, sold, or marketed in any manner. Individuals are limited to one copy
to be used exclusively as a classroom academic device and which must be submitted to the course instructor within one week of printing. Any other use
is strictly prohibited. Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458.
45. The future director of the United States Geological Service, ________, advocated a system for
dealing with the semiarid conditions of western lands.
A) John Wesley Powell
B) Othniel Charles Marsh
C) Mark Hopkins
D) Thomas Fitzpatrick
46. Major John Wesley Powell believed that western lands should be divided into all of the following
classes except ________ land.
A) irrigable
B) timber
C) prairie
D) pasturage
47. Barbed wire was invented by
A) Y. R. Fence.
B) Joseph Glidden.
C) Abner Doubleday.
D) John Deere.
48. Barbed wire destroyed the open-range cattle industry because it
A) cost so much to fence an entire ranch.
B) mangled large numbers of animals.
C) prevented the free movement of cattle.
D) was too expensive to maintain.
49. Open-range cattle raising was virtually ended by the
A) importation of cheap beef from Argentina.
B) completion of the transcontinental railroad.
C) registration of cattle brands and improvements in scientific breeding.
D) combination of drought in 1886 and blizzards during 1886-1887.
50. The "conquest of the frontier" was
A) mythical because Americans were always finding new frontiers.
B) generally invisible to Americans of the day and never really captured the imagination of Americans.
C) used as a way to evade the destructive consequences of national policies by making them seem to be
an expression of human progress.
D) one of the most brutal examples of imperialism in world history.
This material is intended solely for educational purpose in conjunction with The American Nation: A History of the United States by Mark C. Carnes and
John A. Garraty. It is for private use only and may not be disseminated, duplicated, sold, or marketed in any manner. Individuals are limited to one copy
to be used exclusively as a classroom academic device and which must be submitted to the course instructor within one week of printing. Any other use
is strictly prohibited. Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458.