American West factual test

Answer the following questions without looking at your notes/books etc

  1. Where did the first whites settle in America?
  1. When did the USA become independent from the UK?
  1. What huge area, stretching West from the Mississippi to the Rocky mountains and containing the Great Plains did the USA purchase from France in 1803?
  1. Why were the Great Plains often known as the ‘GreatAmericanDesert’?
  1. What name is given to the belief of many white Americans that they had the right to settle all land west of the Mississippi and to ‘civilise’ the Native Americans living in the ‘Indian territory’ they had previously ‘given’ to them?
  1. Name one Plains Indian nation
  1. What was counting coup?
  1. What kind of warfare was practiced by the Plains Indians?
  1. How was Plains Indians attitude to the land different to the whites?
  1. What animal was central to the Plains Indians way of life?
  1. Who were the mountain men?
  1. Why did many of these men become trailblazers after 1840?
  1. Name the two most important trails blazed west by mountain men in the early 1840’s
  1. Why were many whites eager to move west across the Great Plains after 1840?
  1. What discovery in California in 1848 led to a great increase in people wanting to go west?
  1. What improvement in communications between East and West in 1869 led to increased development of the West by helping farmers, cattle ranchers and the growth of towns?
  1. How did this affect the lives of the Plains Indians?
  1. What was the ‘Long Drive’?
  1. When did the government pass the Homestead Act in order to encourage more people to settle and farm on the Great Plains?
  1. How did it encourage people?
  1. What problems did Homesteaders face from cattle ranching?
  1. What invention of 1874 solved this and also ended the open range?
  1. Name ONE other problem faced by the homesteaders and the solution they found

Remember to bring your answers on Tuesday for marking.

Past exam questions

TIME LIMIT: 20 mins

Source A: Thomas Allen Bunting describes his mother’s life in Kansas. The family moved to Kansas in 1855.

I have often wondered how my mother stood it with a family of children and no one to help her but my oldest sister. We used candles which my mother made by pouring melted wax into moulds. We used soap my mother made by dripping water slowly through a barrel of wood ash to get the alkali and potash.

Source B: A woman recalls the effect of heavy rain on a sod house in the 1860s.

Sometimes the water would drip on the stove while I was cooking and I would have to keep a lid on the pans to prevent mud falling into the food. With my dress pinned up, I waded around until the clouds rolled by.

Source C: A drawing published in 1868 showing ploughing in Kansas.

1.(a)Study Sources A, B and C.

What can you learn from these sources about the problems faced by the early homesteaders?

(5)

(b)Use your own knowledge to explain why people began farming the Plains in the early 1860s in spite of the difficulties they faced.

(8)

(Total 13 marks)

TIME LIMIT:23 mins

Was the growth of railroads the main reason why so many people moved west in the USA after the end of the Civil War in 1865? Explain your answer.

You could include the following in your answer and any other information of your own.

The Oregon Trail was a popular route west.
1869 The first trans-continental railroad was opened.
The belief in Manifest Destiny.

(Total 15 marks)