Westward Expansion Questions

Westward Expansion Questions (13.1, 13.2)

September 9, 2009

1. What are some of the main reasons that the federal government's policy of assimilation failed? 

One reason that the federal government’s policy of assimilation failed is because the Native Americans were not willing to give up their history.  They didn’t want to change their traditions.  The government wanted them to start dressing, acting and speaking like Americans.  The whites saw the Native American’s as uncivilized and thought they needed to become civilized, which meant wear appropriate clothing, be a farmer, live in a house and own private property, along with many other things.The government split up the land from the reservations and gave it to individual Native Americans in the Dawes Act.  The government told the Indians that the money they earned from the sales of the extra land would go to them, but they didn’t give it to them.

2. How successful were government efforts to promote settlement of the Great Plains? Give examples to support your answer.

At first, government efforts to promote settlement of the Great Plains with the Homestead Act were not very successful.  Families that were supposed to be there settled only about 10 percent of the land; cattlemen and miners interfered.  Also, all of the plots of land didn’t have the same soil quality.  Then, the Homestead Act was strengthened and there was a rush of settlers to Oklahoma.  Railroads that were made across the country in the 1860’s helped settlers move west.  The settlers of the west started having trouble maintaining their large farms, so the Morrill Act (1862) and the Hatch Act (1887) were acts that created and funded agriculture colleges and experiment stations.