Westward Expansion — Answer Key
Part A: Multiple Choice
Circle the best answer for each question.
1. What was the main purpose of the Indian Removal Act of 1830?
A) To give Native Americans voting rights
B) To move eastern tribes to lands west of the Mississippi River
C) To build schools for Native American children
D) To create national parks on tribal land
The correct answer is B) To move eastern tribes to lands west of the Mississippi River. What was the main purpose of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 — the answer is To move eastern tribes to lands west of the Mississippi River.
2. How did the near-extinction of the buffalo affect Plains tribes?
A) It helped them grow more crops
B) It had no effect on their daily lives
C) It destroyed their main source of food, clothing, and shelter
D) It encouraged them to build railroads
The correct answer is C) It destroyed their main source of food, clothing, and shelter. How did the near-extinction of the buffalo affect Plains tribes — the answer is It destroyed their main source of food, clothing, and shelter.
3. Which Native American leader resisted removal and fought to keep Seminole lands in Florida?
A) Sitting Bull
B) Sacagawea
C) Geronimo
D) Osceola
The correct answer is D) Osceola. Which Native American leader resisted removal and fought to keep Seminole lands in Florida — the answer is Osceola.
4. What happened at Wounded Knee in 1890?
A) Gold was discovered on Lakota land
B) The Transcontinental Railroad was completed
C) U.S. soldiers killed hundreds of Lakota men, women, and children
D) Native Americans and settlers signed a lasting peace treaty
The correct answer is C) U.S. soldiers killed hundreds of Lakota men, women, and children. What happened at Wounded Knee in 1890 — the answer is U.S. soldiers killed hundreds of Lakota men, women, and children.
Part B: Fill in the Blank
Write the correct answer on each line.
1. About 4,000 Cherokee died on the forced march known as the Trail of Tears.
The answer is "Tears." The Trail of Tears was the forced relocation of Cherokee people from their homeland to Indian Territory in the late 1830s, during which roughly 4,000 died from cold, disease, and starvation.
2. Sitting Bull was a Lakota leader who resisted U.S. expansion into the Black Hills.
The answer is "Bull." Sitting Bull was a respected Lakota chief who refused to give up the sacred Black Hills and helped lead his people to victory at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876.
3. The Dawes Act of 1887 broke up tribal lands and gave plots to individual families.
The answer is "individual." The Dawes Act split communal tribal land into small individual plots, aiming to force Native Americans into farming and weaken tribal communities.
4. Native Americans were forced onto reservations where they had little freedom to live as they wished.
The answer is "reservations." The U.S. government confined Native Americans to reservations, small areas of land that were often far from their homelands and lacked the resources they needed to survive.
5. The Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876 was a major victory for the Lakota and their allies.
The answer is "Bighorn." At the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876, Lakota and Cheyenne warriors defeated Lt. Col. George Custer's forces, marking the biggest Native American victory during the Plains wars.