Foundations of American History Test Bank
Course Introduction
Foundations of American History explores the key events, people, and ideas that shaped the United States from its earliest beginnings through the end of the 19th century. This course covers indigenous cultures, European colonization, the American Revolution, the formation of the Constitution, westward expansion, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. Emphasis is placed on social, political, and economic developments, as well as the evolving concepts of freedom, citizenship, and national identity. Students will analyze primary and secondary sources to better understand the complexities of Americas past and its enduring impact on the present.
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American Pageant Volume 1 16th Edition by David M. Kennedy
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Chapter 1: New World Beginnings, 33,000
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Q1) Before the middle of the fifteenth century, sub-Saharan Africa had remained remote and mysterious to Europeans because
A) there was little of value for them there.
B) sea travel down the African coast had been virtually impossible.
C) Islamic societies prevented Europe from making inroads there.
D) they did not know that it existed.
E) they feared the people who lived there.
Answer: B
Q2) ____ England
Answer: 5
Q3) Which of these statements does NOT describe mestizos?
A) They were the offspring of Spanish conquistadores who married Indian women.
B) They were the pagan slaves of Cortes' soldiers.
C) They formed a cultural and biological bridge between Latin America's European and Indian peoples.
D) They were considered a "new race."
E) All of these
Answer: B
Q4) ____ Spain
Answer: 6
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Chapter 2: The Planting of English America, 1500-1733
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Q1) Of the four hundred settlers who managed to make it to Virginia, only sixty survived the "starving time" winter of
A) 1601-1602.
B) 1609-1610.
C) 1621-1622.
D) 1634-1635.
E) 1645-1646.
Answer: B
Q2) Originally, the Virginia Company intended to
A) find a passage through America to the Indies.
B) grow rice as a cash crop.
C) guarantee its settlers the same rights as other English citizens.
D) realize a quick profit from its investment.
E) search for gold.
Answer: A, C, D, E
Q3) ____ Chesapeake Bay
Answer: 9
Q4) ____ Pennsylvania
Answer: 1
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Chapter 3: Settling the Northern Colonies, 1619-1700
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Q1) The Pequot War of 1637 resulted in
A) the abolition of Indian "praying towns."
B) the virtual annihilation of the Pequots.
C) four decades of uneasy peace between the Puritans and the Indians.
D) praise for the colonists from people in England for having dealt effectively with the Indians.
E) better relations with the remaining Indians.
Answer: B, C
Q2) ____ Rhode Island
Answer: 7
Q3) The middle colonies were notable for their
A) lack of good river transportation.
B) unusual degree of democratic control.
C) lack of industry.
D) status as the least "American" of the colonies.
E) established churches.
Answer: B
Q4) ____ Hudson River
Answer: 1
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Chapter 4: American Life in the Seventeenth Century, 1607-1692
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Q1) Which of the following was universally true about men and women, regardless of whether they from the North or the South and whether they were enslaved, free, or indentured servants?
A) Women cooked, cleaned and cared for children.
B) Women were the primary farmers.
C) Men cleared the land and planted the crops.
D) Men and women from different geographic, socioeconomic, and racial backgrounds were universally able to maintain family stability in colonial America, despite significant political, economic, and social challenges.
E) Children helped with all chores and picked up an education when possible.
Q2) slave codes
Q3) "witch hunting"
Q4) Assess the validity of the following statement, "slavery might have begun in America for economic reasons, but by the end of the seventeenth century, it was clear that racial discrimination also powerfully molded the American slave system."
Q5) To what extent is the following statement, by Thomas Jefferson, true; "the town meeting was the best school of political liberty the world ever saw."
Q6) Bacon's Rebellion
Page 6
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Chapter
5: Colonial Society on the Eve of Revolution, 1700-1775
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Q1) Trends that sapped the spiritual vitality from many early eighteenth-century churches included
A) clerical intellectualism.
B) predestination.
C) the rejection of Arminianism.
D) lay liberalism.
E) the growing strength of Catholicism.
Q2) Paxton Boys
Q3) The New Light preachers of the Great Awakening
A) delivered intensely emotional sermons.
B) rarely addressed themselves to the matter of individual salvation.
C) reinforced the established churches.
D) were ultimately unsuccessful in arousing the religious enthusiasm of colonial Americans.
E) opposed the emotionalism of the revivalists.
Q4) ____ Rum
Q5) ____ Tobacco, fish, lumber, and flour for British textiles
Q6) Arminians
Q7) ____ Slaves
Q8) Benjamin Franklin Page 7
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Chapter 6: The Duel for North America, 1608-1763
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Q1) British regulars
Q2) The immediate purpose of the Albany Congress of 1754 was to
A) request the help of the British military.
B) keep the Iroquois tribes loyal to the British.
C) prevent the French from attacking American outposts.
D) support George Washington's desire to head the colonial militia.
E) block British efforts to take control of New York City.
Q3) When William Pitt became prime minister during the Seven Years' War, he A) ended Parliament's practice of reimbursing the colonies for their war-related expenditures.
B) ordered a full-scale assault on the French West Indies.
C) relied heavily on the older, more cautious generals in the British Army.
D) focused on developing a successfulmilitary strategy in the Québec-Montréal area that ultimately routed the French in Canada.
E) remained popular with the wealthy but not the poor.
Q4) ____ Louisiana
Q5) Evaluate the relative importance of the three following elements in contributing to the British victory in the Seven Years' War: the leadership of William Pitt, the aid of American colonists, and the skill of the British regulars? Justify your choices.
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Chapter 7: The Road to Revolution, 1763-1775
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Q1) Virtual representation meant that
A) almost all British subjects were fully represented in Parliament and elected by British colonial subjects throughout the British Empire.
B) every member of Parliament represented all British subjects everywhereincluding in the American colonies.
C) colonists could elect their own representatives to Parliament.
D) Parliament could pass virtually all types of legislation affecting British colonies, without assent from colonial legislatures, except taxation legislation.
E) each member of Parliament represented only people in his parliamentary district.
Q2) African Americans during the Revolutionary War
A) fought for both the Americans and the British.
B) fought only for the British.
C) fought only for the Americans.
D) supported neither side, as both enslaved them.
E) seized the opportunity to gain their freedom by running away to Barbados.
Q3) Given that the Quebec Act did not apply to the thirteen seaboard colonies, why did the act create such a stir of protest among them?
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Chapter 8: America Secedes from the Empire, 1775-1783
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Q1) As commander of America's Revolutionary army, George Washington exhibited all of the following except
A) unparalled strategic military genius.
B) personal courage.
C) a sense of justice.
D) moral force and self-discipline.
E) patience and loyalty to the Patriot cause.
Q2) ____ Newport
Q3) The Revolutionary War began with fighting in ____; then in 1777-1778, fighting was concentrated in ____; and the fighting concluded in ____.
A) the South, the middle colonies, New England
B) the middle colonies, New England, the South
C) New England, the South, the middle colonies
D) New England, the middle colonies, the South
E) the middle colonies, the South, New England
Q4) What qualities in George Washington made him a good choice for commanding the Revolutionary army? What were his most valuable contributions to independence?
Q5) ____ Saratoga
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Chapter 9: The Confederation and the Constitution, 1776-1790
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Q1) Write your definition of democracy.Then use this definition to evaluate the Constitution as it was penned in 1787.In what ways was it a democratic document, and in what ways did it guard against democracy?
Q2) As a result of the Revolution, many state capitals were relocated westward A) because better roads now made this territory more easily accessible.
B) due to a fear of British capture.
C) because water routes were now opened to the interior regions.
D) to get them away from the haughty eastern seaports.
E) All of the above
Q3) In keeping with the spirit, if not the actual wording of the Declaration of Independence's affirmation that "All men are created equal," most states ____ property-holding requirements for voting.
A) kept the same
B) reduced C) raised
D) ignored
E) raised significantly
Q4) Thomas Jefferson observed that "173 despots would surely be as oppressive as one." What was the context of his remark? What was Jefferson warning against?
Page 12
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Q1) A diplomatic historian has said, in reference to early American foreign policy, that "Europe's troubles became America's opportunities." What events of the 1790s would best illustrate the truth of this remark? Why?
Q2) ____ Baltimore
Q3) Assess the validity of the following statement: "It was fortunate for the Republic that the Federalists had the helm [control of the government] for a time." Do you agree? Why or why not?
Q4) The ____ Amendment might rightly be called the states' rights amendment.
A) First
B) Sixth
C) Eighth
D) Ninth
E) Tenth
Q5) All of the following were part of Alexander Hamilton's economic program except
A) the creation of a national bank.
B) funding the entire national debt at par.
C) vigorous foreign trade.
D) protective tariffs.
E) paying only domestic debts but not foreign debts.
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Chapter 11: The Triumphs and Travails of the Jeffersonian Republic,
1800-1812
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Q1) Lewis and Clark demonstrated the viability of
A) travel across the isthmus of Panama.
B) an overland trail to the Pacific.
C) settlement in the southern portion of the Louisiana territory.
D) using Indian guides.
E) developing harbors on the Pacific coast.
Q2) Thomas Jefferson and his political supporters opposed John Adams's last-minute appointment of new federal judges mainly because
A) the judges appointed were viewed by Jefferson and his political supporters as incompetent.
B) they believed that the appointments were unconstitutional.
C) they did not want a showdown with the Supreme Court.
D) it was an attempt by the Federalists, who had been defeated in the congressional and presidential elections of 1800, to maintain political influence in the federal government.
E) these judges were superfluous in a federal judiciary with relatively few civil and criminal cases being filed and tried each year.
Q3) ____ British North America
Q4) ____ Spanish Florida
Page 14
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Chapter 12: The Second War for Independence and the Upsurge
of Nationalism, 1812-1824
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Q1) After Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in 1815, European nations
A) wereimmediately engulfed by liberal and democratic revolutions.
B) became more influential in developing the course of westward development and expansion by America.
C) formed a military alliance to contain any future French aggression.
D) returnedshortly thereafter toconservatism, illiberalism, and reaction.
E) sought more trade with China.
Q2) As a result of the Missouri Compromise
A) there were more slave than free states in the Union.
B) slavery was outlawed in all states north of the forty-second parallel.
C) slavery was banned north of 36° 30' in the Louisiana Purchase territory.
D) Missouri was required to free its slaves when they reached full adulthood.
E) there were more free states than second states in the Union.
Q3) ____ Missouri Territory
Q4) ____ St.Marks
Q5) Describe the ways in which nationalism exhibited itself in the American republic following the War of 1812?
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Q6) What might the president and Congress have done in 1812 to avoid war with Britain and still maintain the nation's honor?
Chapter 13: The Rise of a Mass Democracy, 1824-1840
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Q1) To what extent was John Quincy Adams's presidency frustrating for him and why was Adams's presidency ultimately judged as a failure by historians.Do you agree with this scholarly consensus of Adams's presidency? Why or why not?
Q2) Write your definition of political favoritism.Then use this definition to argue that the rotation in office/spoils system of the Jacksonians was or was not crass political favoritism.
Q3) The Nullification Crisis of 1832-1833 erupted directly over
A) banking policy.
B) internal improvements.
C) tariff policy.
D) extension of slavery into the western territories.
E) Indian policy.
Q4) Both the Democratic party and the Whig party
A) favored a renewed national bank.
B) supported federal restraint in social and economic affairs.
C) were mass-based political parties.
D) clung to states' rights policies.
E) feared the rise of the Anti-Masonic party.
Q5) ____ Louisiana
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Chapter 14: Forging the National Economy, 1790-1860
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Q1) To what extent did the American government contribute to and promote industrial growth and economic expansion in the early nineteenth century?
Q2) ____ Lake Erie
Q3) Assess the validity of the following statement, "The cotton gin affected not only the history of America but that of the world."
Q4) The turnpikes, canals, and steamboats were new transportation links that generally encouraged
A) lowering of freight rates.
B) economic growth.
C) rising land values.
D) migration of peoples.
E) states' rights.
Q5) Compared with canals, railroads
A) were more expensive than canals to construct.
B) transported freight more slowly.
C) faced much less political opposition by vested economic interests.
D) required less technological obstacles to overcome to construct and operate them safely.
E) could be built almost anywhere with sufficient financial capital.
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Chapter 15: The Ferment of Reform and Culture, 1790-1860
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Q1) One sign that women in America were treated better than women in Europe was that
A) American women could vote.
B) the law in the United States prohibited men from beating them.
C) rape was more severely punished in the United States.
D) their ideas of equality were well received by American men.
E) American women earned respect by engaging in male activities.
Q2) One American writer who did not believe in human goodness and social progress was
A) James Russell Lowell.
B) Henry David Thoreau.
C) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
D) Edgar Allan Poe.
E) Walt Whitman.
Q3) Write your definition of paternalism.Then use this definition to argue that early-nineteenth-century American reform efforts were in part paternalistic endeavors by middle-class Americans to "do something for" the less fortunate.
Q4) The text's authors label Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville "literary individualists and dissenters." Against what were they dissenting? Why?
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Q1) All of the following were weaknesses of the slave plantation system except that
A) it relied on the destructive one-crop economy of cotton and failed to institute a system of crop rotation.
B) it repelled a large-scale European immigration.
C) it stimulated racism among poor whites.
D) it created an aristocratic political elite.
E) its land continued to remain predominately in the hands of the small farmers.
Q2) Plantation agriculture was wasteful largely because
A) it relied mainly on artificial means to fertilize the soil.
B) it required leaving cropland fallow every other year.
C) excessive water was used for irrigation.
D) it was too diversified, thus taking essential nutrients from the soil.
E) its excessive cultivation of cotton despoiled good land.
Q3) Most white southerners were
A) planter aristocrats.
B) small slaveowners.
C) merchants and artisans.
D) "poor white trash."
E) subsistence farmers.
Page 19
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Chapter 17: Manifest Destiny and Its Legacy, 1841-1848
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Q1) President Polk's claim that "American blood [had been shed] on the American soil" referred to news of an armed clash between Mexican and American troops near
A) San Francisco.
B) the Nueces River.
C) Santa Fe.
D) the Rio Grande.
E) San Antonio.
Q2) Texas declared its independence from Mexico in 1836.Why wasn't it annexed to the United States until 1845?
Q3) The nomination of James K.Polk as the Democrats' 1844 presidential candidate was secured by
A) southern expansionists.
B) anti-Texas southerners.
C) Henry Clay.
D) eastern business interests.
E) radical abolitionists.
Q4) Write your definition of imperialism.Then use this definition to argue that the United States was or was not an imperialistic nation in the 1840s.
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Chapter 18: Renewing the Sectional Struggle, 1848-1854
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Q1) The Free Soilers were most concerned that one of the adverse long-term effects of extending slavery in the western territories would
A) be an indefinite delay in the admission of western territories as states in the union.
B) cause costly wage labor to wither away and, thus, close the opportunity for the American worker to own property.
C) enable, through enhanced profits, and permit small farmers to purchase more land.
D) be to undermine the moral case against slavery.
E) None of these choices are correct.
Q2) By 1850, the South
A) was experiencing serious economic difficulties.
B) feared that slavery might be abolished in states where it already existed.
C) remained concerned about its weak voice in national government.
D) was relatively well off, politically and economically.
E) recognized that slavery's expansion was over.
Q3) ____ Kansas Territory
Q4) ____ California
Q5) ____ Gadsden Purchase
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Chapter 19: Drifting Toward Disunion, 1854-1861
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Q1) The panic of 1857
A) was caused by overproduction of southern cotton.
B) hit hardest among grain growers of the Northwest.
C) finally brought most southern congressmen to support free homesteads.
D) stimulated northern demands for lower tariff rates.
E) demonstrated the economic dominance of the North.
Q2) What was responsible for the violence in "Bleeding Kansas"? Why might the violence be viewed as a "prelude to Civil War"?
Q3) Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 Republican party presidential nomination in part because he
A) had been a strong supporter of William Seward.
B) had never taken a stand on the issue of slavery in the territories.
C) had made fewer enemies than front-runner William Seward.
D) had more political experience than his opponents.
E) None of these choices are correct.
Q4) The authors argue that despite Lincoln's election in 1860, the South "was not badly off." What do they mean? Why, in spite of this, did southern states secede?
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Chapter
20: Girding for War: The North and the South,
1861-1865
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Q1) In order to persuade the Border States to remain in the Union, President Lincoln
A) relied solely on moral appeal.
B) used only totally legal methods.
C) guaranteed that they could keep slavery permanently.
D) never had to use troops.
E) used legally dubious methods including the declaration of martial law in Maryland and the deployment of Union soldiers in a local civil war in Missouri.
Q2) At the outset of the Civil War, the South confidently anticipated that King Cotton and effective Southern diplomacy would result in European economic and military intervention on its behalf.Why didn't this economic and military intervention on behalf of the South materialize? Would such economic and military intervention by Great Britain and France made a significant difference in the outcome of the war? If so, what type of economic and military intervention would have been most helpful to the Confederacy's cause?
Q3) Identify the significance of the Border States to both the North and the South.How did they influence the shaping of Union military and political strategy to win the Civil War?
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Chapter 21: The Furnace of Civil War, 1861-1865
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Q1) Arrange the following in chronological order: (A)the Battle of Bull Run, (B)the Battle of Gettysburg, (C)Lee's surrender at Appomattox, and (D)the Battle of Antietam.
A) B, C, A, D
B) D, B, C, A
C) C, A, D, B
D) A, B, D, C
E) A, D, B, C
Q2) The South's victory at Bull Run (Manassas Junction) in 1861
A) reduced enlistments in the South's army.
B) reduced the number of Confederate deserters.
C) demonstrated how difficult Confederate independence would be.
D) convinced the South of the need to prepare for a protracted conflict.
E) did not undermine Northerners belief that military victory in the Civil War would be an easy task to accomplish.
Q3) ____ Vicksburg
Q4) ____ Fort Sumter
Q5) ____ Richmond
Page 24
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Chapter 22: The Ordeal of Reconstruction, 1865-1877
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Q1) The Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed
A) citizenship and civil rights to freed slaves.
B) land for former slaves.
C) voting rights for former Confederates who had previously served in the U.S. Army.
D) freed slaves the right to vote.
E) education to former slaves.
Q2) Which of the following was not among the functions provided by the black Union League?
A) Educating blacks in their civic duties
B) Campaigning for Republican candidates
C) Helping blacks migrate from the South to the North
D) Building black churches and schools
E) Recruiting militias to protect black communities from white retaliation.
Q3) There are several examples in American history of rapid reconciliation with the defeated foe.Why didn't the South receive this sympathetic treatment in Reconstruction? Who or what do you fault for the harshness of Southern Reconstruction? Why?
Q4) It has been wryly observed that "the North won the Civil War, but the South won Reconstruction." Interpret this statement and assess its truth.
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