An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People

Multiple Choice and Long Answer questions create ideal opportunities for whole-book review, unit exam, or summative assessments.

Multiple Choice

1. Indigenous people practiced stewardship over the environment, according to the authors. Which of the following practices does stewardship include?

A) Careful resource management, such as controlling fires and cultivating agriculture

B) Creating comprehensive lists naming all those who pass through their land

C) Pillaging the natural resources from any intruder that may come upon their territory

D) Developing fertilizers and other soil enrichments to help crops grow bigger and stronger

2. In the 11th century, when the Catholic Church privatized common lands, what new class was created as a byproduct and to what effect?

A) A monk class was created for those who couldn’t afford private land, inspiring a religious revolution.

B) A peasant class was created, which was used for labor and warfare on behalf of the Catholic Church.

C) A rogue class was created, for those who rejected the privatized model of land ownership, spurring a spike in vigilante justice.

D) A bard class was created, of artists and entertainers spurring a renaissance in art and culture.

3. Which of the following American cultural artifacts does NOT mention a formation of a perfect union and/or divine guidance?

A) The Declaration of Independence

B) The United States Constitution

C) The Pledge of Allegiance

D) The Star-Spangled Banner

4. What was one of the primary ways that early American settlers earned money, as described in Chapter 4?

A) They wove and sold lace kerchiefs.

B) They robbed the Indigenous people’s equivalent of a bank.

C) They brought in and sold the hair of murdered tribespeople.

D) They mined for coal and sold it to Spain.

5. What was the Powhatan Confederacy and for what were they known?

A) A coalition of Virginian white men, who killed off the vast majority of Powhatan’s in Virginia in 1603

B) A group of numerous eastern coastal tribes, founded by a member of the Powhatan Tribe, to push out the European settlers in present-day Boston in 1610

C) An alliance of over 30 Algonquian-speaking tribes, who confronted invasion in the form of England’s Jamestown colony in 1607

D) A faction of like-minded tribal leaders, all who wanted to find a way of working peacefully with European settlers in 1608

6. What was the primary force that prevented the Pequot of the northeast from stopping the early pilgrims?

A) A smallpox outbreak

B) A cholera outbreak

C) A measles outbreak

D) A Bubonic plague outbreak

7. What force drove the Chickamaugas and Muscogee to partner together in the 1780’s?

A) Because the President Harrison decreed that all North Carolinian tribes would now have to coalesce into one

B) Because the Franklinites, who were members of the unofficial 14th state in North Carolina they deemed “Franklin,” were threatening to take over territories of both tribes

C) Because flooding in their region–combined with being pushed off their land by English settlers–caused them to merge into a single tribe

D) Because the Samsonites set fire to both tribes’ primary dwelling structures, they were forced to join forces and relocate to Tennessee

8. Why did the Cherokee Nation seek a federal injunction against the Georgia state legislature?

A) Because Georgia legislature forcefully installed President Andrew Jackson as the sovereign leader and chief of the Cherokee

B) Because Georgia legislature destroyed a federally protected crop of corn, guarded by the Cherokee

C) Because Georgia legislature declared that the Cherokee Nation’s constitution was void and that all its land belonged to European settlers

D) Because Georgia legislature sought to confiscate any and all property from the Cherokee Nation that held any monetary value

9. In what year did the Muscogee Nation fall into civil war, and what caused it?

A) 1811, because traditionalists wanted to retain their corn-focused agricultural ways while converts wanted them to adopt European practices

B) 1812, because traditionalists slaughtered a group of colonial settler women and children, which was against the Nation’s morals

C) 1813, because traditionalists attacked the faction of Muscogee Nation that were collaborating with federal agent Benjamin Hawkins

D) 1814, because traditionalists wanted to stay while converts wanted to break away from their territory and move to Canada

10. What country established San Antonio, and what are the Indigenous Nations with whom they maintained “peaceful-but-tense” relations?

A) The French, and the Nations of the Inuit and Métis

B) The French, and the Nations of the Coushatta and the Chitmacha

C) The Spanish, and the Nations of the Cherokee and the Lower Muscogee

D) The Spanish, and the Nations of the Apache and Comanche

11. What caused Texas to plot to secede from Mexico in 1836, eventually resulting in the Battle of the Alamo?

A) Texan plantation owners pressuring the Mexican government to reverse its slavery ban

B) Texan vigilantes wanting to form their own justice coalitions, free from the Policia Federal

C) Texan women urging their husbands, many of them elected officials, that seceding from Mexico would be best for their children

D) Texan citizens resented being forced to learn the Spanish language

12. What was declared in the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo?

A) That relations between the U.S. and Mexico would be handled by appointed diplomats

B) That the war between the U.S. and Mexico would be paused until the Mexican general Guadalupe Hidalgo had passed away

C) That the war between the U.S. and Mexico has ended

D) That relations between the U.S. and Mexico would be arbitrated by Indigenous people

13. The Indigenous peoples of present-day Alaska struggled under what country’s control since when?

A) Spain, since 1782

B) China, since 1783

C) Poland, since 1781

D) Russia, since 1784

14. How many points were in the doctrine developed by activists in the American Indian Movement headquarters, as part of the Trail of Broken Treaties?          

A) 19

B) 20

C) 21

D) 22

15. What rights were granted to Indigenous people by the 1975 Indian Self-Determination Act?

A) Indigenous people were given more authority by the federal government to have a greater degree of control over their welfare.

B) Indigenous people were given back their lands in a certain section of the Pacific Northwest.

C) Indigenous people were allowed to determine the education of their children, based on their unique cultural values.

D) Indigenous people were given a sum of $2.3 million dollars, as reparations for the atrocities committed to them by colonialist settlers.

Long Answer

Compose a response of 2-3 sentences, incorporating text details to support your response.

1. England’s early 17th century conquest of what country became the model for its invasion of the Americas, and how so?

2. What does Dunbar-Ortiz uncover as the brutal irony of “scalping”?

3. What was the result of the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy that began in 2016?