Western Expansion Quiz

The Homestead Act granted official title to 160 acre plots of land after how many years of settlement?

• One year

• Two years

• Five years

• Seven years

What economic opportunity drew the most migrants to the West?

• Railroad work

• Gold mining

• Military work as Indian fighters

• Access to land for agriculture

The Dakota Uprising of 1862 began with what event?

• Civil War Era reforms to western Indian policy

• The death of five white settlers at the hands of four young Santee men

• A Sioux ambush at Redwood Ferry

• Governor Alexander Ramsay’s new use of the militia to disarm Sioux hunters

How did President Lincoln respond to the Sioux Uprising?

• Attempted to commute the sentences of captured Indians in order to maintain peace

• Ordered the execution of 303 by hanging

• Demanded the surrender of Sioux territory in Minnesota

• Create a new alliance with Taoyateduta (known to Americans as Little Crow) in order to eliminate future conflicts

How was the transcontinental railroad funded?

• Wealthy private business owners

• Public stock offerings

• Grants and loans from the federal government

• Bonds soiled to foreign investors

Which group received more land from the government?

• Homesteading families

• Railroad companies

• Both received nearly equal an equal amount

• Neither group received land from the government

What was the purpose of the Dawes General Allotment Act?

• Splintered vast Native American reservations into individual family homesteads

• Determined the amount of land that would be given to each major railroad company

• Modified the original Homestead Act to increase land available to private settlers

• All of the above

Approximately what percent of early rodeo contestants were women?

• There are no indications of women participating in rodeos prior to 1928

• 1%

• 5%

• 10%

What was Frederick Jackson Turner’s “Frontier Thesis?”

• An argument that European socialism had created an opportunity for the United States to create an international empire

• American culture was forged by the struggle between civilized settlers and savage frontier life, giving it a democratic and hardworking spirit

• The belief that Manifest Destiny was an immoral reading of scripture

• All of the above

Name 2 ways westward expansion impacted WOMEN in the late 1800s.