U.S. Transcontinental Railroad & Native American Conflicts: 19th Century History

After the Oregon and Mexican treaties of what decade did Congress begin discussing a transcontinental railroad?

1840s

What stalled the transcontinental railroad project before the Civil War?

Sectional disagreement over its location

Rather than building the railroad itself, who did the government induce to build and profit from the line?

Private companies

From whose lands were most of the government "grants" to the railroads made?

Tribal lands

How many acres did Washington reward the railroads with? EC: How many more did the western states contribute?

174 million, 49 million

The total land given to the railroads was an area larger than what state?

Texas

What two types of traffic did the government receive long-term preferential rates for in return?

Postal service and military traffic

Granting land was a "cheap" way to subsidize the railroads because it avoided what?

New taxes

What was the average price per acre the railroads sold their granted land for?

$3 an acre

For each mile of track, how many square miles of land was the Union Pacific granted? EC: In alternating sections of how many acres?

20 square miles, 640 acres

What was the range of the federal loan per mile of track?

$16,000 (flat prairie) to $48,000 (mountains)

In what year did the laying of rails begin in earnest?

1865

What nickname was given to the railroad promoters who made all possible haste?

"Groundhog" promoters

Nearly all of the workers who lost their lives building the railroad were what?

Immigrants

Many of the Paddies were veterans of what army?

Union Army

As many as how many men could teem in these tented towns?

10,000

From what boomtown did the Central Pacific push eastward?

Sacramento

Which member of the Big Four was a burly, energetic lobbyist and competitive entrepreneur?

Collis P. Huntington

What fraction of the Union Pacific workers' pay did the Chinese workers receive?

One-half to one-third

On one record-breaking day, how many miles of track were laid in twelve hours? EC: By about how many workers?

10 miles, 5,000

When the Chinese workers went on strike, what did the Big Four cut off?

Their food supplies

What ceremonial object was driven at the end of the ceremony? EC: What did Stanford clumsily wield?

Golden spike, silver maul

How many miles did the Union Pacific build? EC: The Central Pacific?

1,086 miles, 689 miles

On the shortgrass prairies of the high plains, range-fed cattle rapidly displaced what?

Buffalo

The white pine forests of what three states disappeared into lumber for prairie farmers?

Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota

About how many Native Americans lived in the West in 1860?

340,000

Who drove the Apaches off the central plains in the 18th century? EC: Into what valley?

Comanches, upper Rio Grande valley

What two tribes harried the Cheyenne out of their villages along the upper Mississippi and Missouri Rivers?

Mandans and Chippewas

What region were the Sioux displaced from in the late 18th century?

Great Lakes woodlands

What three tribes did the Sioux prey upon once on the plains?

Crows, Kiowas, Pawnees

What three diseases did white intruders spread among the peoples of the Plains?

Cholera, typhoid, smallpox

An Arikara leader told a U.S. Army officer along what river in 1835 that he was killing his brothers' buffalo?

Platte River

The treaties attempted to separate Native Americans into two great "colonies" north and south of what?

A corridor of white settlement

What defective provisions did corrupt federal agents palm off on Native Americans?

Moth-eaten blankets and spoiled beef

One cheating official on a $1,500 annual salary returned home after four years with estimated "savings" of how much?

$50,000

What fraction of all U.S. Army personnel on the western frontier were African American?

One-fifth

Many army troops were recent immigrants who had ironically fled Europe to avoid what?

Military service

The Bozeman Trail violated what treaty?

1851 Fort Laramie Treaty

Whose command of 81 soldiers and civilians was ambushed with not a single survivor?

Captain William J. Fetterman

In what mountains was Fetterman's command ambushed?

Bighorn Mountains (Wyoming)

One trooper's face was spitted with how many arrows?

105

What rank had Custer been demoted to?

Colonel

In what year did another Treaty of Fort Laramie force the U.S. to abandon the Bozeman Trail?

1868

What three peoples was the Great Sioux Reservation guaranteed to?

Dakota, Lakota, Nakota

Who were the Lakota's allies in the uprising?

Cheyenne and Arapaho

About how many people were in Sitting Bull's camp along the Little Bighorn River?

8,000

What nickname did the Native Americans give Custer?

"White Chief with Yellow Hair"

Why was the year of Custer's defeat ironic?

Nation's Centennial year

What did the name Heinmot Tooyalakekt signify?

"Thunder Rising to Loftier Mountain Heights"

About how many men, women, and children were in Chief Joseph's band?

700

How long was the Nez Perce trek across the Continental Divide? EC: How many months?

1,700 miles, three months

What country were the Nez Perce heading toward? EC: To rendezvous with whom?

Canada, Sitting Bull

The Nez Perce were instead sent to a dusty reservation in what state? EC: What percent perished from disease?

Kansas, 40%

Where were the Nez Perce survivors eventually allowed to return?

Idaho

The powerful Apache tribes came from what two territories?

Arizona and New Mexico

Geronimo spent years evading pursuers on both sides of what border?

U.S.-Mexico border

The Apache warriors were finally persuaded to surrender after the Apache women were exiled to where?

Florida

Whose inauguration parade did Geronimo later appear in? EC: What year?

Theodore Roosevelt's, 1905

What did early Spaniards describe the bison as?

"Hunchback cows"

What was dried bison dung, used for fuel, called?

Buffalo chips

In 1868, how long did a Kansas Pacific locomotive have to wait for a herd to cross the tracks?

Eight hours

Bison hides could be turned into commercial leather for what?

Machine belting

What were the gold-seekers who rushed to Colorado called?

"Fifty-niners" or "Pikes Peakers"

What slogan was inscribed on their covered wagons? EC: What was added on the way back east?

"Pikes Peak or Bust," "Busted, by Gosh"

How much gold and silver did the "Kings of the Comstock" extract from 1860 to 1890?

More than $340 million

In what year was Nevada prematurely railroaded into the Union? EC: Partly to provide what?

1864, three electoral votes for Lincoln

What district in Canada's British Columbia also drew gold-seekers?

Fraser River district

What was the adulterated liquor miners swilled in saloons called?

"Rotgut"

What two things preserved a crude semblance of order in mining towns?

Lynch law and vigilante justice

What did miners import to smash gold-bearing quartz once the surface gold was gone?

Ore-breaking machinery

Who replaced the dishpan-wielding, bewhiskered miners?

Corporations

What three other places gave women the vote long before the East? (with years)

Utah (1870), Colorado (1893), Idaho (1896)

In what year did the outpouring of silver and gold enable the Treasury to resume specie payments?

1879

What were the senators representing the thinly peopled "acreage states" of the West called?

"Silver Senators"

Whose writings colorfully show how the mining frontier added to American folklore?

Bret Harte and Mark Twain

How long could the horns of Texas longhorn cattle measure from tip to tip?

Eight feet

What were longhorns originally killed primarily for?

Their hides

Long Drive herds numbered from how many head?

1,000 to 10,000

What hand was Hickok holding when he was shot in 1876? EC: What cards?

"Dead man's hand," black aces and black eights

How many steers were driven north from Texas from 1866 to 1888?

Over 4 million

About how many cowboys were Black migrants?

5,000

How long did the classic cowboy era last?

Scarcely a quarter-century

What two "intruders" did the railroads bring out who built barbed-wire fences on the open range?

Homesteader and sheepherder

What association virtually controlled the state of Wyoming and its legislature in the 1880s?

Wyoming Stock-Growers' Association

Who were the "beef barons" who consolidated the cattle industry?

Swifts and Armours

What two cities had the sprawling and stinking stockyards?

Kansas City and Chicago

What newly perfected cars shipped fresh beef to the East Coast?

Refrigerator cars

What 1862 act allowed settlers to acquire as much as 160 acres of land?

Homestead Act

To qualify for a homestead, settlers had to have never done what?

"Borne arms against the government of the United States"

What was the filing fee for a homestead? EC: What was the nominal fee per acre to take title?

$10, $1.25 an acre

How many years did a homesteader have to live on and improve the land?

Five years

What was 160 acres of land known as?

A quarter-section

Before the Homestead Act, public land had been sold primarily for what?

Revenue

About how many families took advantage of the Homestead Act in the forty years after its passage? EC: How many times that number purchased their land instead?

Half a million, five times

About how many homesteaders were forced to give up the struggle against drought?

Two out of three

What county in western Oklahoma inspired a folk song about starving on a government claim?

Greer County

How much more of the public domain wound up with land-grabbing promoters than with small farmers?

Ten times more

What did corporations use to grab the best properties? EC: Often bribed with what?

Dummy homesteaders, cash or a bottle of beer

Settlers' "twelve by fourteen" dwellings turned out to be measured in what?

Inches

About how many paid agents did the Northern Pacific Railroad have in Europe?

Nearly 1,000