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Difficulty: HardWestward Expansion and American Indians

"If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian, he can live in peace. There need be no trouble. Treat all men alike. Give them all the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. ... You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born a free man should be contented penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases. If you tie a horse to a stake, do you expect he will grow fat? If you pen an Indian up on a small spot of earth and compel him to stay there, he will not be contented, nor will he grow and prosper."
— Chief Joseph, Nez Perce, 1879

Which of the following federal policies of the late nineteenth century most directly created the conditions criticized by Chief Joseph in the excerpt?

  1. A
    The enactment of legislation designed to protect traditional communal land ownership from division.
  2. B
    The federal refusal to intervene in the western economy through land grants or infrastructure subsidies.
  3. The relocation and confinement of tribes to reservations to clear pathways for western railroads and settlement.Answer
  4. D
    The immediate extension of Fourteenth Amendment citizenship rights to all reservation residents.

Answer

The relocation and confinement of tribes to reservations to clear pathways for western railroads and settlement.
The correct answer is correct because Chief Joseph's grievance regarding being 'penned up' directly targets the reservation system. Throughout the post-Civil War era, the federal government consolidated Native Americans onto defined reservations to open up the Great Plains and Pacific Northwest for commercial farming, mining, ranching, and transcontinental railroads.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the source text for key arguments and metaphors.
Chief Joseph objects to Native Americans being 'penned up' and denied the freedom to move, comparing this restriction to tying a horse to a stake.
Understanding the core complaint allows for mapping the historical grievance to specific federal actions.
2
Identify the historical context of the speech in 1879.
The late nineteenth century was defined by the U.S. government's reservation policy, which sought to concentrate Native Americans on limited tracts of land to make way for American economic expansion.
Aligning the speech's date and theme with the correct period of federal Indian policy eliminates policies from earlier or later eras.
3
Evaluate the choices against historical evidence.
The federal reservation policy directly forced tribes onto restricted lands to enable western settlement and railroad expansion. Other choices misrepresent federal economic involvement, the purpose of the Dawes Act, or the scope of Reconstruction amendments.
Applying historical knowledge about the Dawes Act, transcontinental railroad subsidies, and Gilded Age citizenship rulings isolates the correct answer.

Key Concept

The reservation system was implemented to clear land for transcontinental railroads and white settlement, leading to military conflict and the disruption of traditional Native American ways of life.
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Topics

Westward Expansion and American Indians

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