OpenStax US History Chapter 17

Which of the following does not represent a group that participated significantly in westward migration after 1870?

former Southern slaveholders seeking land and new financial opportunities

Which of the following represents an action that the U.S. government took to help Americans fulfill the goal of western expansion?

the passage of the Homestead Act

Why and how did the U.S. government promote western migration in the midst of fighting the Civil War?

During the first two years of the Civil War—when it appeared that the Confederacy was a formidable opponent—President Lincoln grew concerned that a Union defeat could result in the westward expansion of slavery. Thus, he hoped to facilitate the westward movement of white settlers who promoted the concept of free soil, which would populate the region with allies who opposed slavery. To encourage this process, Congress passed the Homestead Act and the Pacific Railway Act in 1862. The government also constructed and maintained forts that assisted in the process of westward expansion.

What specific types of hardships did an average American farmer not face as he built his homestead in the Midwest?

hostile Indian attacks

What accounts for the success of large, commercial “bonanza farms?” What benefits did they enjoy over their smaller family-run counterparts?

Farmers who were able to invest a significant amount of capital in starting up large farms could acquire necessary supplies with ease. They also had access to new, technologically advanced farm machinery, which greatly improved efficiency and output. Such farmers hired migrant farmers to work their huge amounts of land. These “bonanza farms” were often quite successful, whereas family farms—unable to afford the supplies they needed for success, let alone take advantage of the technological innovations that would make their farms competitive—often failed.

How did everyday life in the American West hasten equality for women who settled the land?

Women who settled the West were considered by their husbands to be more equitable partners in the success or failure of the homestead. Because resources were so limited and the area so sparsely settled, women participated in work that was typically done only by men. Due in part to these efforts, women were able to inherit and run farms if they became widowed, rather than passing the farms along to male relations as they would in the East. The first states to begin granting rights to women, including the right to vote, were in the Pacific Northwest and Upper Midwest, where women homesteaders worked side by side with men to tame the land.

Which of the following groups was not impacted by the invention of barbed wire?

illegal prostitutes

The American cowboy owes much of its model to what other culture?

Mexicans

How did mining and cattle ranching transform individual “get rich quick” efforts into “big business” efforts when the nineteenth century came to a close?

In the cases of both mining and cattle ranching, diminishing resources played a key role. In mining, the first prospectors were able to pan for gold with crude and inexpensive materials, and therefore, almost anyone could head west and try his luck. Similarly, the quantity of cattle and the amount of grazing land meant that cowboys and would be cattle barons had ample room to spread out. But as the easiest minerals were stripped away and large-scale ranchers purchased, developed, and fenced off grazing land, opportunities diminished. It took significantly more resources to tunnel down into a mine than it did to pan for gold; instead of individual prospectors, companies would assess a site’s potential and then seek investment to hire workers and drill deep into the earth. Likewise, as the cattle trails were overgrazed, ranchers needed to purchase and privatize large swaths of land to prepare their cattle for market.

Which of the following was not a primary method by which the American government dealt with American Indians during the period of western settlement?

appeasement

What did the Last Arrow pageant symbolize?

the final step in the Americanization process

What brought the majority of Chinese immigrants to the U.S.?

Gold

How were Hispanic citizens deprived of their wealth and land in the course of western settlement?

land seizures

Compare and contrast the treatment of Chinese immigrants and Hispanic citizens to that of Indians during the period of western settlement.

In all three cases, white settlers felt that they were superior to these ethnic groups and morally correct in their exploitation of the groups’ land and labor. Whether mining sacred Sioux reservation lands for gold or forcing Chinese immigrants to pay a special fine to mine for gold, white settlers were confident that their goal of Manifest Destiny gave them the right to do as they wished. Hispanic Americans, unlike Chinese immigrants and Indians, were allowed citizenship rights, although racist laws and corrupt judges severely curtailed these rights. Chinese immigrants were ultimately denied entry to the United States through the Chinese Exclusion Act.