Westward Expansion, Native Americans & Farmers

What is the Homestead Act of 1862?

• legislation enacted by Congress to assist in financing colleges and universities

• legislation that granted Americans up to 160 acres of public land for a small filing fee and to live on this land for five years

• A treaty meant to bring peace between Native Americans and new settlers

• legislation that aimed to break up Native American tribal lands and to assimilate Native Americans into mainstream U.S. society by annihilating their cultural and social traditions

What was the Dawes Act of 1887?

• legislation enacted by Congress to assist in financing colleges and universities

• legislation that granted Americans up to 160 acres of public land for a small filing fee and to live on this land for five years

• A treaty meant to bring peace between Native Americans and new settlers

• legislation that aimed to break up Native American tribal lands and to assimilate Native Americans into mainstream U.S. society by annihilating their cultural and social traditions

Which of the following strategies did American farmers use to address economic challenges in the late 1800s?

• The Populist Party was formed to represent the interest of the agricultural sector (farmers)

• The farmers formed the Grange movement in the 1860s-70s to offer farmers education, fellowship, support, and to encourage economic self-sufficiency.

• Rural farmers helped farmers through the Farmers' Alliances, which sprang up in the West and the South in the 1880s.

• The farmers promoted the railroad companies to help them sell strips of land alongside the rail lines to raise cash and to help their companies raise additional money for construction costs.

Why did Populists want to replace the country's gold-based currency system with a bimetal currency system, that was based on silver?

• They believed that the government would have a hands-on approach in resolving railroad charges and interest rate hikes.

• They believed that putting more silver coins into the economy would give farmers more money to pay their debts.

• They believed the railroad barons were working with the federal government to reduce inflation in the economy.

• They believed the Native Americans should receive silver to deal with the challenging conditions on reservations.

What are all the ways that the Grange movement encouraged economic self-sufficiency for farmers?

• It set up cash-only cooperatives, stores where farmers purchased products from each other.

• It gave 160 free acres of land to a settler who paid a filing fee and lived on the land for five years.

• The farmers' stores (cooperatives) charged lower prices than regular stores.

• It established a cash-only policy to remove the risks of buying credit that threatened farmers.

What was bimetallism?

• a system that has the combination of legal, economic, military, and cultural customs

• an economic system based on private ownership control of the means of production and their operation for profit

• is an economic ideology whose goal is common ownership of the means of production the absence of social classes, money and government

• a currency system usually based on silver and gold as the money standard

Which three industry groups raised prices and caused problems for American farmers in the late 1800s?

• railroad companies

• bankers

• miners

• manufacturers

• shipbuilders

What is a laissez-faire economy?

• a type of economy in which government possesses a high degree of control

• a type of economy that encourages participation by all companies, organization, farmers and other workers

• a type of economy that leaves the responsibilities of market up to the private groups and businesses to make decisions and government will have little involvement in the decisions

• an economy that government can stimulate by increasing public spending or by cutting taxes

What is a granger?

• A silver and gold merchant

• A farmer

• A railroad baron

• A miner

• A cowboy

For the election of 1896, who did Democrats nominate to be their candidate for president?

• James B. Weaver

• Grover Cleveland

• William Jennings Bryan

• William McKinley