WorksheetsHow the West
Total questions: 22
Worksheet time: 11mins
Name
Class
Date
1.
How did Congress support construction of the transcontinental railroad?
a)
By providing vigilantes
b)
By promoting an open-range system
c)
By providing land grants
d)
By passing the Homestead Act
2.
What is the true of the American West from the 1850s onward?
a)
It had the widest diversity of people in the nation.
b)
It had the smallest Chinese immigrant population in the nation.
c)
It had the most plentiful water supply in the nation.
d)
It was the most urbanized part of the nation.
3.
What common trait was shared by different Indian cultures?
a)
They are preferred to live on reservations.
b)
They all depended on the buffalo as a food source.
c)
They all viewed nature as sacred.
d)
They all wanted to adapt to the civilization of the whites.
4.
What did the Dawes General Allotment Act of 1887 provide?
a)
It recognized Native American tribes as independent nations.
b)
It presented land to individual Native American tribes.
c)
It improved conditions on reservations.
d)
It granted each Native American family a 160-acres farmstead.
5.
Government ownership of railroads and regulation of banks was a position taken by which political party?
a)
The Republican Party
b)
The Transcendentalists
c)
The Federalist Party
d)
The Populist Party
6.
"If you strike off into the broad, free West, and make yourself a farm from Uncle Sam's generous domain you will crowd nobody, starve nobody, and neither you nor your children need evermore beg..." -Excerpt from New York Tribune, February 5, 1867. What reality about the American West does the excerpt ignore?
a)
It was not free to settle in the West after 1840.
b)
Many Native Americans inhabited the West in the 1860s.
c)
No farmland was available in the West.
d)
No one wanted to move to the West in 1860s.
7.
Who were the "Exodusters"?
a)
Mexican Americans who fled after the Mexican-American War
b)
African Americans who fled the South after Reconstruction
c)
Chinese Americans who fled the North after the Gold Rush
d)
Native Americans who fled the East after the Battle of Fallen Timbers.
8.
Which of the following factors contributed to the demise of the open-range system?
a)
The use of sod for houses
b)
The invention of barbed wire
c)
The development of railroads
d)
The disappearance of big mining companies
9.
What policy did the government promote to help Native Americans?
a)
Vigilantism
b)
Progressvism
c)
The referendum
d)
Assimilation
10.
The Populist Party supported which goals?
a)
Immigration reform and gold standard
b)
Coinage of silver and government ownership of railroads
c)
Lower crop prices and higher tariffs
d)
Unregulated banks and higher grain storage fees
11.
What was the last armed conflict to take place between the Native Americans and the U.S. Army?
a)
The Battle of Tippecanoe
b)
Sand Creek Massacre
c)
Wounded Knee
d)
The Battle of Little Big Horn
12.
Under the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887, the U.S. broke up Native American reservations and gave Native American families homesteads to farm. Homesteaders were required to live on their land for twenty-five years and were required to give up their Native American traditions. At the end of the twenty-five years, the Native Americans would own the land and would become U.S. Citizens. What is one effect the Dawes Severalty Act had on Native Americans?
a)
The amount of land controlled by Native Americans increased
b)
Many Native Americans established successful farms on their homesteads
c)
Many Native Americans left the U.S. and moved to Canada
d)
Native Americans lost much of the land that they had before the Dawes Act
13.
After the Nez Perce of Oregon were ordered to move to a reservation in Idaho, which tribal leader led an unsuccessful escape attempt to Canada?
a)
Tecumseh
b)
Crazy Horse
c)
Geronimo
d)
Chief Joseph
14.
Which of the following acts of Congress contributed to an increase in settlement in the West by granting free land to individuals after they had lived on it for five years?
a)
the Homestead Act
b)
the Morrill Land Grant Act
c)
the Indian Removal Act
d)
the Dawes Act
15.
Under the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862, public land was set aside for which purpose?
a)
to construct railroads
b)
to create colleges
c)
to build national parks
d)
to establish farms
16.
The discovery of the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, public land was set aside f or which purpose?
a)
ranching
b)
mining
c)
fishing
d)
railroads
17.
During the construction of the first transcontinental railroad, the Central Pacific Railroad started in California and built the railroad east to Promontory Point, Utah, where it was connected with the railroad built from the east by the Union Pacific Railroad. What was the ethnicity of the majority of the workers who built the Central Pacific Railroad?
a)
Chinese
b)
Mexican
c)
French
d)
German
18.
Which book exposed how the Native Americans had been mistreated by the U.S. government?
a)
Henry David Thoreau's Walden
b)
Helen Hunt Jackson's A Century of Dishonor
c)
Harriet Beecher Stowe Uncle Tom's Cabin
d)
James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans
19.
In which Supreme Court decision did the court rule that a state could not regulate railroad rates because the railroad carried freight across state lines?
a)
Wabash b. Illinois
b)
Gibbons v. Ogden
c)
Miranda v. Arizona
d)
Dred Scott v Sandford
20.
"You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."
-William Jennings Bryan
Which statement most accurately explains the excerpt
-William Jennings Bryan
Which statement most accurately explains the excerpt
a)
He was expressing opposition to the gold standard
b)
He was describing the problems of the Greenback party
c)
He was demanding support for Christian education
d)
he was showing support for the Colored Farmers Alliance.
21.
The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 authorized the federal government to regulate the railroad industry. Which group of people was most supportive of government regulation of the railroad industry?
a)
miners
b)
railroad owners
c)
teachers
d)
farmers
22.
What group was formed in the late 1800s to help the interests of farmers?
a)
The Grange
b)
The Knights of Labor
c)
The American Temperance Society
d)
The American Colonization Society
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