Test Bank for Americas History Value

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Page 1
1. For this question, refer to John Gast's 1872 painting, American Progress.

The sentiments expressed in the painting led most directly to

A) an increase in the internal slave trade.
B) the emergence of the Republican Party in the North and Midwest.
C) environmental transformation of the western region.
D) questions about the status and legal rights of Hispanics and American Indians.

Page 2
Page 3
2. For this question, refer to John Gast's 1872 painting, American Progress.

The ideas expressed in the painting above most directly reflect which of the following
continuities in U.S. history?
A) A sense of unique national mission and a superior cultural identity
B) The challenges faced by migration to and within the United States
C) Debates about the extension of public control over natural resources

Page 4
 D) The opening of new markets through technological innovations

3. Which of the following attributes of American society did the planter aristocracy in the
South value highly in the mid-nineteenth century?
A) Inequality
B) Egalitarian society
C) Professional politicians
D) Universal suffrage

4. Which of the following statements describes the institution of slavery in the nineteenth-
century South?
A) The percentage of white slave-owning families continually increased between 1800
and 1860.
B) Throughout the nineteenth century, most white southerners owned some slaves.
C) Slave gangs proved to be less efficient than those who worked more independently.
D) About 5 percent of southern whites owned 50 percent of the South's slave
population.

5. Smallholding planters in the nineteenth-century South owned about how many slaves,
on average?
A) None
B) One to five
C) Eight to ten
D) Fifteen to twenty

6. Which of the following statements describes the class of propertyless whites living in
the South in the mid-nineteenth century?
A) Propertyless whites directly benefitted from the institution of slavery.
B) They worked hard physical jobs as day laborers and enjoyed little respect from
other whites.
C) Planters courted their loyalty by providing gifts and small favors to their families.
D) Propertyless whites were free but lived in conditions worse than those of many
slaves.

7. Which of these factors created a major economic obstacle for small, family farmers
aiming to improve their lot in the mid-nineteenth-century South?
A) Competition from immigrant labor
B) Export taxes on their products
C) The Cotton Revolution
D) Poor distribution networks

Page 5
 8. Which of these groups accounted for the largest percentage of the white population in
the mid-nineteenth-century Cotton South?
A) Plantation owners
B) Middling planters
C) Yeoman farmers
D) Tenant farmers and day laborers

9. Why did the United States decline to annex Texas in 1837?

A) President Van Buren feared that annexation would spark an American civil war
over the issue of slavery.
B) Texans refused to legalize slavery, which was the only condition on which
southern politicians would accept Texan statehood.
C) President Van Buren could not convince the Whig-dominated Senate to accept the
treaty.
D) The U.S. Congress refused annexation because it did not want to assume Texas's
large Mexican population.

10. What prevented planter elites from exercising complete political dominance over the
Cotton South in the 1830s and 1840s?
A) They lived in a republican society with democratic institutions that elicited input
from all white men.
B) The Cotton Revolution increased resentment on the part of poor whites toward
planters' power and position.
C) Plantation management required so much of their time that many planters had to
refrain from political service.
D) The emergence of a new class of wealthy industrial elites in the South checked
their power.

11. The Alabama Constitution of 1819 did which of the following?

A) Gave all taxpaying white men the right to vote
B) Eliminated the use of the secret ballot
C) Apportioned state legislative seats on the basis of a county's wealth
D) Made county supervisors and sheriffs elected positions

Page 6
12. Which of the following statements describes the relationship between the economies of
the North and the South in the mid-nineteenth century?
A) Both the South and the North had equally strong economies in 1860.
B) The wealth of the industrializing Northeast was increasing more quickly than that
of the South.
C) Southerners' wealth in slaves made the South's economy ten times stronger than the
North's.
D) The economy of the North was stronger and more prosperous than that of the
South.

13. What prevented white southerners from working to diversify their economy in the
nineteenth century?
A) Southerners did not want to exploit white workers economically.
B) Wealthy southern investors believed agricultural labor was more virtuous than
industrial labor.
C) Southerners resisted railroad construction because they believed it would divide
large landholdings.
D) Wealthy planters believed that the plantation economy would continue to produce
wealth indefinitely.

14. Which of the following examples embodied the synthesis of African and American
culture that existed in the South in the 1850s?
A) Black evangelical Christianity
B) The success of slave resistance
C) Black and white children playing together
D) Sexual relations between slave women and their masters

15. Which of these concepts became a central tenet of slave Christianity in the South in the
nineteenth century?
A) Predestination
B) Original sin
C) Obedience to authority
D) All people as children of God

16. Many African American slaves who converted to Christianity compared themselves to
which of the following groups?
A) Native Americans
B) Mormons
C) Jews
D) The Irish

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17. Which of these factors contributed to the development of an increasingly homogeneous
African American culture in the rural South in the nineteenth century?
A) Marriage patterns
B) Kinship relations
C) The domestic slave trade
D) The development of the Gullah dialect

18. Which of the following statements characterizes African American marriage customs in
the slave South?
A) Marriage between cousins was very common among plantation slaves.
B) African American marriage customs imitated those of white Christians.
C) Many slaves married and moved into their own cabins without their white owners'
permission.
D) Slave couples often followed the African custom of “jumping the broom” to signify
their union.

19. Children born in slave communities in the nineteenth-century South often shared which
of these characteristics?
A) They were named after family members.
B) Children were removed from their families at age three.
C) They were raised by their grandmothers.
D) Children had few sources of support.

20. Which of the following were core institutions for African American society in the mid-
nineteenth-century South?
A) Marriage and resistance movements
B) Church and family
C) The American Anti-Slavery Society and Christianity
D) Friendships and kinship

21. Under the task system, slaves were required to

A) complete a precisely defined job each day.
B) perform the same repetitive tasks every day.
C) train their children to take over their tasks when they grew up.
D) punish their fellow slaves who did not perform adequately.

Page 8
22. Which of these factors prompted many plantation masters to reduce reliance on violence
and adopt positive incentives to motivate slaves in the 1830s and 1840s?
A) Christian values
B) Domestic ideology
C) Abolitionist scrutiny
D) Frequent mass uprisings

23. Which of the following describes the changes in slaves' living conditions in the early
nineteenth century?
A) Sexual abuse of black women increased because white males on the southwestern
frontier knew the law would not punish them.
B) Blacks lost the few work privileges they had gained in the eighteenth century,
especially in the lowlands of South Carolina.
C) Mutilations of black men increased as whites sought to deter runaways and slave
revolts.
D) As blacks formed stronger social, family, and cultural ties, they resisted the
breakup of families through sale by their owners.

24. Which of the following methods was a highly uncommon form of slave resistance in the
slave South?
A) Feigning illness
B) Large-scale uprisings
C) Running away
D) Individual acts of violence

25. Which of the following statements characterizes blacks' resistance to slavery by the
1820s?
A) Most slaves still clung to the hope of returning to Africa.
B) In their situation, most blacks had no choice but to build the best possible lives for
themselves.
C) The frequency of escape to Spanish Florida and the frontier increased.
D) Many slaves planned or participated in revolts, knowing that some would be
successful.

26. Slaves' practice of “taking root” involved which of the following?

A) Cultivating their own food crops in small yards after their workday
B) Adopting American culture and rejecting African influences
C) Forming fictive kinship relationships for social support
D) Building the best possible lives for themselves as slaves

Page 9
27. Which of these factors made enslaved African Americans reluctant to attempt to escape
to the North?
A) Slaves internalized their inferiority and felt incapable of successful flight.
B) They hesitated to leave their families and communities behind.
C) Slaves' embrace of the Golden Rule led them to treat their masters well.
D) They knew that the civil war and abolitionism would come sooner rather than later.

28. Which statement characterizes the typical relationship between slaves and their masters
in the 1850s?
A) Slaves were investments and therefore were generally provided with clothes,
shelter, and enough food to keep them healthy.
B) White women felt so guilty about their husbands' transgressions with female slaves
that they treated those slave women with extra kindness.
C) Accounts of sexual contact between masters and their slaves were greatly
exaggerated and rarely occurred.
D) Tobacco planters in Virginia usually treated their slaves more harshly than
Mississippi cotton planters.

29. What did nineteenth-century American expansionists mean by the term Manifest
Destiny?
A) Americans were culturally equal to the Native and Hispanic populations to the
west.
B) The western boundaries of the United States should stop at the Rocky Mountains.
C) Protestantism and the American form of government should be established in
Mexico.
D) The citizens of the United States had a God-given right to conquer the land to the
Pacific Ocean.

30. From 1818 until the early 1840s, the Oregon Territory was administered under which of
the following arrangements?
A) The Oregon Territory was a British protectorate.
B) It was a no man's land not formally claimed by any government.
C) Russia controlled the territory as part of its Alaska claim.
D) Great Britain and the United States controlled it jointly.

31. Which of the following made the Oregon Territory so appealing to Americans in the
mid-1800s?
A) Its proximity to California
B) Its mild climate and rich soil
C) The absence of Native Americans in the area
D) The transcontinental railroad terminus there

Page 10
32. Americans who migrated to the Oregon Territory in the 1840s settled in which of these
regions?
A) Puget Sound
B) Columbia River Valley
C) Willamette Valley
D) The city of Independence

33. Which of the following statements characterizes American settlement in California

before the mid-1840s?
A) American settlement in California was fairly sparse in this period.
B) Most Americans who went to California settled near the San Francisco Bay.
C) Most Americans who went to California in the 1840s were prospecting for gold.
D) Americans who settled in California often adopted mestizo culture.

34. By the 1830s, which of the following was the dominant Indian tribe on the central and
northern plains?
A) Apaches
B) Arapahos
C) Lakota
D) Kiowas

35. What feature of the Lakota Sioux society protected it from the epidemics that decimated
other Native American groups in the nineteenth century?
A) A knowledge of herbal medicines
B) A protein-rich diet of buffalo meat
C) Its small groups and nomadic lifestyle
D) Ritual bathing practices

36. How did Oregon fever affect national politics in the United States in 1844?
A) Enthusiasm for settlement in Oregon nearly led to war with England.
B) The idea of expansion into Oregon split both the Whig and the Democratic Parties.
C) Talk of expansion led to talk of the spread of slavery, which Congress prevented
with a gag rule.
D) The possibility of expansion into Texas became a major issue in the presidential
election.

Page 11
37. The popular 1844 phrase “Fifty-four forty or fight!” served as
A) a push for American control of the entire Oregon territory.
B) the battle cry for the Mexican War.
C) the charge of people involved in the gold rush.
D) a political slogan for Martin Van Buren.

38. How did pro-annexation Democrats engineer the annexation of Texas in 1845?
A) They bribed several major figures in the Mexican government to support
annexation.
B) The Democrats promised Whig congressmen that they would fund internal
improvements in exchange for Whig votes.
C) They arranged for the measure to come to a vote in the Senate when several anti-
annexation senators were absent.
D) The party approved it through a joint resolution, which required only a majority
vote in both houses of Congress.

39. Which man who sought the presidency in 1844 is matched with the correct description?
A) James Birney—proslavery Whig president who unsuccessfully tried to win the
Democratic Party's nomination
B) Henry Clay—former Democratic president who unsuccessfully tried to win his
party's nomination
C) James Polk—expansionist, dark-horse candidate of the Democratic Party who won
the election
D) John Tyler—Whig candidate who eventually supported the annexation of Texas
and narrowly lost the election

Page 12
40. For this question, refer to the following two excerpts.

Texas is now ours. . . . The independence of Texas was complete and absolute. It was an
independence, not only in fact, but of right. . . . What then can be more preposterous
than all this clamor by Mexico and the Mexican interest, against Annexation, as a
violation of any rights of hers. . . ?

Nor is there any just foundation for the charge that Annexation is a great pro-slavery
measure—calculated to increase and perpetuate that institution. Slavery had nothing to
do with it. . . . That it will tend to facilitate and hasten the disappearance of Slavery from
all the northern tier of the present Slave States, cannot surely admit of serious question.
The greater value in Texas of the slave labor now employed in those States, must soon
produce the effect of draining off that labor southwardly. . . .

California will, probably, next fall away. . . . Already the advance guard of the
irresistible army of Anglo-Saxon emigration has begun to pour down upon it, armed
with the plough and the rifle, and marking its trail with schools and colleges, courts and
representative halls, mills and meeting-houses. A population will soon be in actual
occupation of California. . . . And they will have a right to independence—to self-
government . . . a better and a truer right than the artificial title of sovereignty in
Mexico, a thousand miles distant, inheriting from Spain a title good only against those
who have none better.

John L. O'Sullivan, Editor, “Manifest Destiny,” from United States Magazine and
Democratic Review, July 1845

If we regard Texas as a province of Mexico, its boundaries must be sought in the

geography of that republic. If we regard it as an independent State, they must be
determined by the extent of jurisdiction which the State was able to maintain. Now it
seems clear that the river Nueces was always recognized by Mexico as the western
boundary; and it is undisputed that the State of Texas, since its Declaration of
Independence, never exercised any jurisdiction beyond the Nueces. . . .

In the month of January, 1846, the President of the United States directed the troops
under General Taylor, called the Army of Occupation, to take possession of this region
[west of the Nueces River]. Here was an act of aggression. As might have been
expected, it produced collision. The Mexicans, aroused in self-defence, sought to repel
the invaders. . . .

Here the question occurs, What was the duty of Congress in this emergency? Clearly to
withhold all sanction to unjust war,—to aggression upon a neighboring Republic. . . .
The American forces should have been directed to retreat, not from any human force,
but from wrongdoing; and this would have been a true victory.

Alas! This was not the mood of Congress. With wicked speed a bill was introduced,
furnishing large and unusual supplies of men and money. . . . This was adopted by a

Page 13
vote of 123 to 67; and the bill then leaped forth, fully armed, as a measure of open and
active hostility against Mexico.

Charles Sumner, Conscience Whig and future Republican Senator from Massachusetts,
Letter to Robert Winthrop, a Whig Congressman from Massachusetts, October 25, 1846

The two excerpts above are best understood in the context of the
A) end of the Second Party System and the emergence of sectional parties.
B) new economic opportunities sought by Asian, African American, and white
peoples in the West.
C) failure of repeated attempts made at compromise to calm tensions over slavery.
D) assertion of U.S. power and expansionism in the Western Hemisphere.

Page 14
41. For this question, refer to the following two excerpts.

Texas is now ours. . . . The independence of Texas was complete and absolute. It was an
independence, not only in fact, but of right. . . . What then can be more preposterous
than all this clamor by Mexico and the Mexican interest, against Annexation, as a
violation of any rights of hers. . . ?

Nor is there any just foundation for the charge that Annexation is a great pro-slavery
measure—calculated to increase and perpetuate that institution. Slavery had nothing to
do with it. . . . That it will tend to facilitate and hasten the disappearance of Slavery from
all the northern tier of the present Slave States, cannot surely admit of serious question.
The greater value in Texas of the slave labor now employed in those States, must soon
produce the effect of draining off that labor southwardly. . . .

California will, probably, next fall away. . . . Already the advance guard of the
irresistible army of Anglo-Saxon emigration has begun to pour down upon it, armed
with the plough and the rifle, and marking its trail with schools and colleges, courts and
representative halls, mills and meeting-houses. A population will soon be in actual
occupation of California. . . . And they will have a right to independence—to self-
government . . . a better and a truer right than the artificial title of sovereignty in
Mexico, a thousand miles distant, inheriting from Spain a title good only against those
who have none better.

John L. O'Sullivan, Editor, “Manifest Destiny,” from United States Magazine and
Democratic Review, July 1845

If we regard Texas as a province of Mexico, its boundaries must be sought in the

geography of that republic. If we regard it as an independent State, they must be
determined by the extent of jurisdiction which the State was able to maintain. Now it
seems clear that the river Nueces was always recognized by Mexico as the western
boundary; and it is undisputed that the State of Texas, since its Declaration of
Independence, never exercised any jurisdiction beyond the Nueces. . . .

In the month of January, 1846, the President of the United States directed the troops
under General Taylor, called the Army of Occupation, to take possession of this region
[west of the Nueces River]. Here was an act of aggression. As might have been
expected, it produced collision. The Mexicans, aroused in self-defence, sought to repel
the invaders. . . .

Here the question occurs, What was the duty of Congress in this emergency? Clearly to
withhold all sanction to unjust war,—to aggression upon a neighboring Republic. . . .
The American forces should have been directed to retreat, not from any human force,
but from wrongdoing; and this would have been a true victory.

Alas! This was not the mood of Congress. With wicked speed a bill was introduced,
furnishing large and unusual supplies of men and money. . . . This was adopted by a

Page 15
vote of 123 to 67; and the bill then leaped forth, fully armed, as a measure of open and
active hostility against Mexico.

Charles Sumner, Conscience Whig and future Republican Senator from Massachusetts,
Letter to Robert Winthrop, a Whig Congressman from Massachusetts, October 25, 1846

The two excerpts quoted above would be most useful to historians analyzing
A) the attempts of the U.S. federal government to assert authority over the states.
B) U.S. government interaction and conflict with Hispanics.
C) the heated controversy generated by the acquisition of new territory in the West.
D) the variety of proposals made to resolve the issue of slavery in the territories.

Page 16
42. For this question, refer to the following two excerpts.

Texas is now ours. . . . The independence of Texas was complete and absolute. It was an
independence, not only in fact, but of right. . . . What then can be more preposterous
than all this clamor by Mexico and the Mexican interest, against Annexation, as a
violation of any rights of hers. . . ?

Nor is there any just foundation for the charge that Annexation is a great pro-slavery
measure—calculated to increase and perpetuate that institution. Slavery had nothing to
do with it. . . . That it will tend to facilitate and hasten the disappearance of Slavery from
all the northern tier of the present Slave States, cannot surely admit of serious question.
The greater value in Texas of the slave labor now employed in those States, must soon
produce the effect of draining off that labor southwardly. . . .

California will, probably, next fall away. . . . Already the advance guard of the
irresistible army of Anglo-Saxon emigration has begun to pour down upon it, armed
with the plough and the rifle, and marking its trail with schools and colleges, courts and
representative halls, mills and meeting-houses. A population will soon be in actual
occupation of California. . . . And they will have a right to independence—to self-
government . . . a better and a truer right than the artificial title of sovereignty in
Mexico, a thousand miles distant, inheriting from Spain a title good only against those
who have none better.

John L. O'Sullivan, Editor, “Manifest Destiny,” from United States Magazine and
Democratic Review, July 1845

If we regard Texas as a province of Mexico, its boundaries must be sought in the

geography of that republic. If we regard it as an independent State, they must be
determined by the extent of jurisdiction which the State was able to maintain. Now it
seems clear that the river Nueces was always recognized by Mexico as the western
boundary; and it is undisputed that the State of Texas, since its Declaration of
Independence, never exercised any jurisdiction beyond the Nueces. . . .

In the month of January, 1846, the President of the United States directed the troops
under General Taylor, called the Army of Occupation, to take possession of this region
[west of the Nueces River]. Here was an act of aggression. As might have been
expected, it produced collision. The Mexicans, aroused in self-defence, sought to repel
the invaders. . . .

Here the question occurs, What was the duty of Congress in this emergency? Clearly to
withhold all sanction to unjust war,—to aggression upon a neighboring Republic. . . .
The American forces should have been directed to retreat, not from any human force,
but from wrongdoing; and this would have been a true victory.

Alas! This was not the mood of Congress. With wicked speed a bill was introduced,

Page 17
 furnishing large and unusual supplies of men and money. . . . This was adopted by a
vote of 123 to 67; and the bill then leaped forth, fully armed, as a measure of open and
active hostility against Mexico.

Charles Sumner, Conscience Whig and future Republican Senator from Massachusetts,
Letter to Robert Winthrop, a Whig Congressman from Massachusetts, October 25, 1846

Which of the following ideas and debates from the nineteenth and/or twentieth centuries
compares most closely with those described in the two excerpts?
A) Corruption in government energizing the public to demand increased reform of
governments and the capitalist system in the 1900s and 1910s
B) Arguments between interventionists and isolationists in the 1930s
C) The debates over policies and methods designed to root out communists within the
United States in the 1950s and 1960s
D) Debates between imperialists and anti-imperialists in the 1890s and 1900s

43. Which of the following was the critical issue facing political parties in the late 1840s?
A) Expansion of slavery
B) Fate of Native Americans in the West
C) Acquisition of Oregon
D) Annexation of Texas

44. The 1845 annexation of Texas provoked

A) Polk's electoral victory.
B) the U.S.-Mexico War.
C) President Van Buren's resignation.
D) rebellion in the former Lone Star Republic.

45. Which action did President Polk take in 1845 as part of his California strategy?
A) He arranged a secret treaty with Britain to divide California in return for British
naval support against Mexico.
B) Polk sent orders to the U.S. Navy in the Pacific to seize San Francisco Bay and
other California ports in the event of war with Mexico.
C) President Polk sent troops under Zachary Taylor into northern California as armed
“explorers.”
D) He informed the U.S. consul in Monterey that the United States would not
welcome California's declaration of independence.

Page 18
46. Which of the following statements describes the Slidell mission to Mexico in December
1845?
A) It was a success, resulting in Mexico's acknowledgment of the U.S. annexation of
Texas.
B) It failed because Mexico had suspended diplomatic relations with the United States
and refused to even see Slidell.
C) The mission prompted Mexico to offer to sell New Mexico and California for $30
million.
D) The mission failed because Slidell was assassinated in Veracruz before he could
reach the Mexican capital.

47. In 1845, Texans claimed that their boundary extended

A) as far north as Oregon.
B) to the Nueces River on the south and west.
C) to the Rio Grande on the south and west.
D) as far west as the Pacific Ocean.

48. James K. Polk's declaration that American blood had been shed “upon American soil”
was his call for
A) war with Mexico.
B) revolution in California.
C) war for Oregon.
D) an end to the fighting in Kansas.

49. Which of the following statements describes the American invasion of Mexico in 1846?
A) American forces quickly conquered most of central and northern Mexico.
B) The Americans captured Matamoros, Monterrey, Tampico, and most of
northeastern Mexico.
C) Mexican troops routed the Americans at the Battle of Monterrey and forced their
retreat.
D) Mexico held the line against American land forces, but U.S. naval forces had quick
success.

50. Despite stiff Mexican resistance, American forces also secured control of which future
state in 1847?
A) California
B) Oregon
C) South Dakota
D) Idaho

Page 19
Answer Key
1. C
2. A
3. A
4. D
5. B
6. B
7. C
8. D
9. A
10. A
11. D
12. B
13. D
14. A
15. D
16. C
17. C
18. D
19. A
20. B
21. A
22. C
23. D
24. B
25. B
26. D
27. B
28. A
29. D
30. D
31. B
32. C
33. A
34. C
35. C
36. D
37. A
38. D
39. C
40. D
41. C
42. D
43. A
44. B

Page 20
45. B
46. B
47. C
48. A
49. B
50. A

Page 21