Westward Expansion

What economic development attracted people to the West?

• Irrigated land for farming.

• Plenty of bison were available.

• An abundance of natural resources for the mining industry.

• Reservations for Native Americans.

What new technologies helped ranchers and farmers to survive on the Great Plains?

• barbed wire, steel plow, and windmill

• sod houses, barbed wire, and steel plow

• wheat farming, steel plows, and sod houses

• windmills, cattle raising, and transcontinental railroad

Which group was recruited to help build the Transcontinental Railroad from the west to the east?

• Irish

• Asians/Chinese

• Native Americans

• African Americans

How were the beliefs about land ownership different for settlers and Native Americans?

• Settlers believed the land belonged to everyone.

• Settlers believed the community should share the land.

• Native Americans believed the individuals should own the land.

• Native Americans believed the land belonged to the group, not the individual.

How did many settlers know the trails to use to travel West?

• They hired Chinese immigrants to show them.

• They followed trails first traveled by Native Americans.

• They used the Mississippi River to guid them.

• They used a compass and the North star.

Read the excerpt of a letter written by a pioneer. What is the author describing that made traveling west difficult?

• terrain

• climate

• vegetation

• river

Use the passage to answer the following question. What was the result of the action being described in the passage?

• Many Native Americans moved to Eastern cities to work in factories.

• Most Native Americans were granted farmland under the Homestead Act.

• Many Native Americans migrated to Canada to find new ways to earn a living.

• The disappearance of the bison helped drive Native Americans onto reservations.

What were the four main obstacle to westward migration?

• lakes, forests, rivers, bison

• Native Americans, climate, mountains, guidebooks

• trails, buffalo, mountains, deserts

• rivers, climate/weather, mountain ranges, plains/deserts

Why did migrants skip the Great Plains at first, to settle on the West coast?

• They had family on the West coast.

• There was gold in Oregon.

• They didn't understand how to farm on the Great Plains.

• They couldn't plant peach trees in the Painted Desert.

What were the two main ways people could make money by settling in the west?

• Settle permanently to farm/ranch OR Use available resources and move on.

• Live in a gold mine for a short period of time OR Rent wagons to pioneers.

• Grow and sell apples OR Invent the steel plow.

• Dig holes for wells OR Sell shovels to miners.