About This Quiz
It's history trivia time! American history, that is. How much do you know about the great ol'American frontier? Can you differentiate legislative acts from land ordinances and treaties? So many expansionist trails and so little time for you to identify the correct pathways that made the wild, wild West happen! You won't need a covered wagon (do you know what they were called?) for this quiz, just a computer and your thinking cap!
The American frontier was a crucial time in American history that occurred in several chunks. The first two nuggets are covered in this fun and educational quiz. And speaking of nuggets, what would a drill about the American frontier be without a few sizable lumps about the American gold rush? You'll find that economics played a huge part in motivating folks to brave and carve out the untamed unknown. Religion was also a massive motivator, so was free government land. Then there are the great American pioneers, like Lewis and Clark, whose early nineteenth-century ink fashioned the maps we rely on to this day.Â
All of these facts and more are waiting to be explored just a few scrolls yonder. So slog on to your destiny of truth!
European settlers first began seizing land along the Atlantic coast in the seventeenth century. The western expansion occurred primarily during the nineteenth century.
In 1787, Congress created the Northwest Territory which included the area spanning northwest of the Ohio River, east of the Mississippi River, west of Pennsylvania and south and west of the Great Lakes region. This area was known as the Old Northwest and was the first possession of the United States.
The American frontier expansion occurred west of the civilized Atlantic coast region. Settlers set out with their belongings in wagon trains to brave the wild unknown under threat of death from hostile enemies, dangerous conditions and illness.
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Born in Suffolk, England on January 2, 1647, American planter and colonist Nathaniel Bacon led the rebellion in the Virginia colony in armed protest of unfair English laws and Indian aggression in the frontier. Bacon organized a band of disgruntled frontiersmen in the area.
On May 2, 1803, America purchased the Louisiana territory from France for the price of $15 million. As a result, the size of the country grew by 828,000 square miles.
The first expansion along the Atlantic coast and the second expansion out west were both motivated by an agricultural purpose. Settlers ventured off into unclaimed regions procuring resources, such as timber and precious metals, from the earth. The surplus of raw materials led to the burgeoning of American industry.
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John Mason Peck was a pioneer and Baptist missionary born near Litchfield, Connecticut on October 31, 1789. Peck's main mission for writing the guide was to help build strong communities in the new frontier.
During the nineteenth century, the Cumberland Gap was an extremely important means of access for hunters. In 1775, Daniel Boone and his crew cleared the pathway to the Kentucky River for the Transylvania Company, which accommodated frontiersmen and trade through the Appalachian Range.
John McAdam of Scotland invented the road pavement material in the 18th century. The substance is made of broken uneven greenstone or granite stones in compacted layers durable enough to sustain heavy loads.
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The trail, also called the Oregon-California Trail, was one of several major routes traveled by pioneers who sought to settle in the western territories. Travelers first began to pass through the trail in the early 1840s.
The Santa Fe Trail spanned south from Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico and through El Paso into the Chihuahua towns of Mexico. The completion of the Santa Fe railroad in 1880 stopped usage of the trade route.
The Mexican-American War started in 1846. War sympathizers in the United States Congress believed the war would increase the prospect of slavery in the Southwest region. U.S. disputes with Mexico over the Texas border and Mexican military attacks on U.S. soldiers in the disputed area also caused the war.
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Mormon followers departed Nauvoo, Illinois soon after a mob killed Mormon leader Joseph Smith in 1844. Omaha Indians granted the group permission to cross the Missouri River into Nebraska Territory.
American colonizer and religious leader Brigham Young led Mormon followers to Utah and colonized the region before establishing a government there. Young and his followers perceived the area as a new Zion, or Promised Land, for the Mormon church.
Frederick Jackson Turner was born in Portage, Wisconsin. During his tenure at the University of Wisconsin, he authored several seminal works, including "The Significance of Sections in American History" and "Problems in American History."
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American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark are regarded as heroes of the American frontier. President Thomas Jefferson commissioned the two-man team to survey and chart the American wilderness and carve a path to the Pacific Ocean.
John Jacob Astor was born in Waldorf, Germany on July 17, 1763. He first arrived at Baltimore, Maryland in March 1784 before purchasing furs in west New York. John Jacob Astor built his fur empire from the ground up and named it "American Fur Company." The fur industry exploded during the American expansion.
Through the Homestead Act of 1862, the government greatly encouraged the migration of settlers into the West by offering 160 acres of public land to them. In return, the settlers were urged to inhabit and cultivate the awarded land.
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William Becknell was a commercial trader as well as a successful pioneer. Becknell cleared the Santa Fe Trail, which greatly increased trade in the new frontier. He led an impressive expedition that included over 20 frontiersmen and many supplies.
Manifest Destiny is the belief that American settlers were preordained by God to expand and conquer the land and inhabitants of the West. Journalist John L. O'Sullivan coined the term in 1845.
Andrew Jackson served as president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. He also served as senator and congressman prior to his presidency.
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The core belief of Manifest Destiny frontier doctrine is that God prescribed that the United States should take any means necessary to dominate the American West. Newspaper editor and journalist John L. O'Sullivan coined the ideology, which a great many people supported.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 was a last-ditch effort to settle the issue of whether slavery should be allowed in the western territories. The principle of "popular sovereignty" was conjured as a result of this legislation which further fanned the flames of discord between pro-slavery and anti-slavery advocates.
The Trail of Tears was sanctioned by the U.S. government to re-appropriate land in the Southeast region of the United States. Indigenous people were herded into Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River.
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Popular sovereignty, also termed Squatter Sovereignty by dissenters, promoted the idea that settlers in federal territories should alone decide whether their territories would join the Union as free or slave states. The political principle was first evoked during the establishment of New Mexico and Utah territories in 1850.
President Andrew Jackson fiercely promoted the Indian Removal Act of 1830 to accommodate settlers in the more desired territories. The United States resorted to violence in order to win the compliance of indigenous people who were less amenable to America's expansionist policies.
The American gold rush occurred in spurts during the American expansion. The first substantial gold discovery took place in the late 1820s in Dahlonega, Georgia, an event that precipitated the Trail of Tears campaign.
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Born around the year 1831. Sitting Bull, or Tatanka Iyotake, joined his first expansion-resistance effort at age fourteen. Sitting Bull was a valiant crusader and led the formidable Strong Heart warrior society.
The Wounded Knee Massacre took place on December 29, 1890 at Wounded Knee Creek in southwestern South Dakota. Anxious U.S. soldiers, commissioned to secure confiscated land, descended upon a group of Plains Indians who had gathered to engage in a Ghost Dance, which is a spiritual ceremony of song and dance.
The Northwest Ordinances, or Ordinances of 1784, 1785, and 1787, were several statutes that the United States Congress ratified in order to systematically admit frontier territories north of the Ohio River, south of the Great Lakes, west of Pennsylvania, and east of the Mississippi River.
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During the early 19th century, many New England Congregationalists ventured west on missionary expeditions. Congregationalists joined forces with Presbyterians to adopt a Plan of Union in 1801 for combined missionary activity in the western regions of the Americas.
Laura Ingalls Wilder's series of "Little House" children's books were adopted for American television in the 1970s and 1980s. Her first book, "Little House in the Big Woods," was published in 1932.
James Fenimore Cooper's 1826 book is more popularly called "The Last of the Mohicans." It's a tale about the French and Indian War, and %0D takes place during the year 1757.
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Frontier painter Albert Bierstadt joined several expeditions of the American western expansion. A few of Bierstadt's paintings include "Yosemite Valley, Yosemite Park" (c. 1868) and "Mount Adams, Washington" (1875).
Mountain men were adventurous pioneers who ventured to the North American Rocky Mountain west in search of economic prosperity as fur trappers. These groups eventually settled and cultivated much of the region.