A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn CH. 7-8 Study Guide
Over 4,000 Cherokees died on the forced march to reservation land in Oklahoma. We have a name for the route they took. What is it called?
Trail of Tears
Mexico surrendered. There were calls among Americans to take all of Mexico but we took just half. The treaty signed in 1848 set our southern boundary at the Rio Grande river. Incredibly, an American newspaper concluded that "We take nothing by conquest...thank God." The newspaper was implying that we had bought half of Mexico by paying their government how much money?
15 million
When angry Mexicans responded to the invasion of their country by firing on and killing several American soldiers, President Polk declared that "American blood has been shed on American soil" and demanded war. A young congressman from Illinois, suspecting what had happened, introduced the "spot resolutions" demanding to know the exact spot where this American blood had been shed. Who was he?
Abraham Lincoln
For some of us with a conscience, it is hard to read these words: "The waves of population and civilization are rolling to the westward, and we now propose to acquire the countries occupied by the red men of the South and West by a fair exchange..." Which president would shrug his shoulders and make such a statement?
Andrew Jackson
What man, who became president, does Zinn identify as the most aggressive enemy of the Indians in early American history?
Andrew Jackson
An Indian GI, a veteran of Vietnam, testifying publicly in 1970 about the horror of the war but about his own maltreatment as an Indian, began to weep as he repeated what phrase with bitterness?
As long as grass grows and water runs
One group of Indians was called "Red Sticks." What is the name of the large city in Louisiana that means 'red sticks' when translated into French?
Baton Rouge
An Indian condemned the behavior of white men concluding, "the white men do not scalp the head; but they do worse - they poison the heart...Farewell, my nation!...Farewell to Black Hawk." Who was this Indian?
Black Hawk
James K. Polk, an expansionist Democrat, was elected president in 1844. on the night of his inauguration he confided to his Secretary of the Navy that one of his main objectives was to acquire what area owned by Mexico?
California
In 1814, Andrew Jackson became a national hero when he fought the Battle of Horseshoe Bend against a thousand Creeks. However, he couldn't have won without the help of another tribe of Indians who were promised government friendship if they joined the war They swam a river and came up behind the Creeks, trapping them for Jackson. What tribe were they?
Cherokees
This tribe in Georgia contained farmers, blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, owners of property. they had a printing press and published a newspaper. They even welcomed missionaries and Christianity, but none of this made them more desirable than the land they lived on. What tribe was this that was finally driven from their land to bare reservation land in Oklahoma?
Cherokees
General Taylor first moved his troops to Corpus Christi, Texas. Several years ago the U.S. Nay proposed to name a nuclear attack submarine the U.S.S. Corpus Christi. A public uproar ensued. Why were people so upset?
Corpus Christi = Blood of Christ. Disrespectful
The word Alabama is an Indian word. Translated into English, what does it mean?
Here we may rest
As American's white population grew, Indians were pushed further west. In 1820, 120,000 Indians lived east of the Mississippi River. By 1844, how many were left?
Fewer than 30,000
Jackson would later refer to it as "immutable laws of self defense" when he invaded this area, burning Seminole villages, seizing Spanish forts. His naked aggression resulted in our gaining which state and calling it a "purchase" from Spain in 1819?
Florida
Ironically, while deciding that he wasn't bound by a decision of the Supreme Court, Jackson was attacking ___________________________'s right to nullify a federal tariff. Of course it was hypocrisy, but what state was so arguing?
Georgia
"Grog shops were broken open first, and then, maddened with liquor, every species of outrage was committed. Old women and girls were stripped of their clothing - and many suffered still greater outrages. Men were shot by dozens...their property, churches, stores and dwelling houses ransacked...Such a scene I never hope to see again. It gave me a lamentable view of human nature... and made me for the first time ashamed of my country." An infantry lieutenant had written this in a letter to his parents. these American atrocities had occurred in what city?
Haumantla
Andrew Jackson sentenced a 17 year-old soldier to be executed. He turned down a plea for commutation and walked out of the earshot when a firing squad carried out his order. What crime had the young man committed?
He refused to clean up his food, and threatened his officer with a gun.
In an embarrassingly condescending warning, a naval officer named Revere was speaking in California to what people?
Indian Chiefs
Lewis Cass, Secretary of War, probably had his fingers crossed behind his back when in 1835 he promised Shawnees and Cherokees that if they would only move across the __________________ that "The United States will never ask for your land there. This I promise you in the name of your great father, the President. That country he assigns to his red people, to be held by them and their children's children forever."
Mississippi
Sullivan's thinking, shared by many other Americans, would invalidate promises made to others that land then occupied by them would be theirs, "As long as grass grows, and water runs." Promises to what people?
Native Americans
Who is the famous New England author who addressed a letter to President Martin Van Buren on the subject of Indian Removal and ended by saying: "You, sir, will bring down that renowned chair in which you sit into infamy if your seal is set to this instrument of perfidy; and the name of this nation, hitherto the sweet omen of religion and liberty, will stink to the world." ?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Even on European maps the Nueces River was recognized as the boundary between Texas and Mexico. In a move clearly designed to provoke a war with Mexico, President Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor to march his army 150 miles further south to the banks of what other river?
Rio Grande
Among Indians, the name Osceola, is revered. He waged war mightily against the white men who wanted his tribe's land. he was the leader of what tribe?
Seminole
This Shawnee chief tried to unite Indians against the white invader, saying "Let the white race perish. They seize your land; they corrupt your women, they trample on the ashes of your dead! back whence they came, upon a trail of blood, they must be driven." Who was he?
Tecumseh
There is a troubling speech by a member of the Creek tribe. He ended hid address by saying, "Brothers! I have listened to a great many talks from our great father. But they always began and ended in this--'Get a little further; you are too near me.' Name him.
Speckled Snake
when this Indian chief met William Henry Harrison, a future president, an interpreter said: "Your father requests you to take a chair." The Indian replied: "My father! The sun is my father, and the earth is my mother; I will repose upon her bosom." Which Indian was this?
Tecumseh
Who was the outspoken abolitionist who published a wish for a Mexican victory in his newspaper The Liberator?
William Lloyd Garrison
ordinarily it is a dangerous thing to disregard decisions of the Supreme Court, but it happened with the decision in Worcester v. Georgia. What, basically, was the decision announced by Chief Justice John Marshall that was ignored by President Andrew Jackson?
Worcester was violating the treaty with the Cherokees
Explain the feelings about supporting the war that were expressed by Congressman Joshua Giddings of Ohio.
aggressive, unholy, and unjust
Read the summation of Dale Van Every in his book The Disinherited in which he sums up what removal meant to the Indian, then fill in the blank of his statement: "He (the Indian) had never fully grasped the principle establishing a private ownership of land as any more rational than ownership of _________..."
air
In the summer of 145, John O'Sullivan, editor of the Democratic Review, coined a two word phrase representing his thinking that it was appropriate that we Americans control all of the land between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. What was the phrase?
manifest destiny
Who did Senator Hiram V. Johnson believe we'd be betraying if we didn't prosecute this war against Mexico?
manifest destiny or God
The Indian Removal Act was very controversial. Which section of the country was against it?
the North
Cite the language of congressman Giles of Maryland that indicated a racist component in his belief about the Mexican War.
white race or anglo-saxon