The "Conquest of the West"

For Friday-Mon, 2/26-29; Anglo-Indian Conflict in the Trans-Mississippi West: Read 594-604.
1. What was the relationship between the Plains Indians and the buffalo?
2. Was there always conflict on the Plains between whites and Indians? Why was there eventual conflict between the two?
3. Why did the Sioux go to war with the United States in 1876? What was the result? Why did the Sioux and other tribes eventually lose to the United States?
4. What was the Dawes Severalty Act? Who supported it and why? What was the effect on the tribes and on their land?
5. What was the Ghost Dance? Why did Indians follow this new religion? Why is Wounded Knee significant?
6. What was the overall effect of reservations on Indian society and culture?

 For Tues-Wed, 3/1-2; Railroads Open the West & Success and Defeat for the American Farmer: Read pages  604-625.
1. What effect did railroads have on populating the West and promoting the economy there.
2. How did the government enable and support the railroads?
3. How did railroads abuse their clients, investors, and the government?
4. How did the government try to control these abuses? Were they successful?
5. How and why did cattle-raising evolve from the “Long Drive” to an organized “big business?”
6. What were the factors that led farmers to settle the West? How did government laws, the military, railroads, economic and environmental factors impact this movement?
7. Was the Homestead Act successful? Why?
8. What obstacles did the western environment present to farmers? How were they overcome? What problems were not overcome?
9. What was Frederick Jackson Turner’s “frontier thesis?” Was it a realistic and accurate explanation of American history?
10. How and why did farming become an “industrialized” big business? What effect did this have on farmers and farming?
11. How did immigration affect the West? From what countries did immigrants to the West come?
12. Why did so many farmers get caught up in a cycle of debt that they could not get out of?
13. How and why did farmers organize themselves for their benefit?
14. Were the National Grange, the Farmer’s Alliance and the Populists successful? Why?

Reconstruction

Tues/Wed, 2/9-10: The Problems of Peace-Making, 479-485
1. What were the general goals and obstacles to Reconstruction?
2. Describe both Lincoln's and Johnson's Reconstruction plans. What were their different goals, strong points and failings? Why was each opposed by Congress?

Thurs/Fri, 2/11-12:  Radical Reconstruction, 485-492
1. What were the Black Codes and why were they so odious to Northern Congressmen?
 2. Why was there so much conflict between Johnson and Congress?
 3. What is your opinion of Johnson?
4. What is your opinion of the Republican Congressional leaders?

 Monday 2/22: The South in Reconstruction, 492-501
1. What were the successes and failures of the Reconstruction governments in the South?
2. How did Reconstruction change the lives of African-Americans?
3. How did Reconstruction change the lives of white southerners?
4. What methods did white southerners use to keep black southerners in the same economic, social, and political position?
5. How did northern politics and economic issues affect Reconstruction?
6. Did he deserve to be impeached and removed from office?
7. Why was Reconstruction abandoned? Who was responsible for the end of Reconstruction?
8. Was Reconstruction successful? Who was responsible for its successes and failures? Could Reconstruction have fully succeeded?

Know the significance of the following: Lincoln’s 10% Plan; Andrew Johnson; Johnson’s Restoration Plan; “Black Codes”; Radical Republicans; Charles Sumner; William Seward; Thaddeus Stevens; Wade-Davis Bill; Freedman’s Bureau; 13th Amendment; 14th Amendment; 15th Amendment; Military Reconstruction; Tenure of Office Act; Edwin Stanton; Johnson’s impeachment; Scalawags; Carpetbaggers; Ku Klux Klan; White League; sharecropping; crop-lien system; poll tax; literacy tests; President Grant; Horace Greeley; Compromise of 1877; Rutherford B. Hayes; Samuel Tilden