Westward Expansion Test Review Guide
6th Grade
This is your study guide for your Westward Expansion Exam next week on Thursday 2/27. The test
will be multiple-guess, matching, true/false and short answer. You will take the test on Thursday,
February 27 (A). I recognize that might worry or freak out some of you, but it shouldn’t. We have
gone over all of this material, and you got this. In order to help prepare for this test from afar, there
are some steps that I would like you to follow.
1. Gather all of your notes, worksheets, articles and assignments. This will include everything that
relates to Oregon Country reading packet, Blankets for the Dead, the group chart of notes and
anything else you find in your folder related to this topic.
2. Organize the flurry of paper into the informational categories listed below. Now there are many
different ways you can review this material. For some of you, it may be enough to highlight this
information in your already existing notes, handouts, etc. Others of you might need to make
flashcards for this information. Others of you might want to make new, more focused pages of
notes. You need to decide what works for you.
3. Study…. By study I mean that you need to quiz yourself or have a friend or family member quiz
you. Looking over your notes is not enough! If you are using your original notes to study, you
need to cover them up and see how much you remember or have someone quiz you. If you are
using lists of vocab word you should use the notecards we started in class or cover up the list below
and quiz yourself on each word.
In order to do well on a test, you need to test yourself over and over again.
Westward Expansion Vocabulary (18) Matching
Abolitionist
Empresario
Mountain Men
Annex
Forty-Niners
Prairie Schooner
Assimilation
Manifest Destiny
Reform
Cede
Mexican Cession
Reservation
Fording
Missionaries
Sectionalism
Texas Annexation
Tejano
Treaty
Famous People (10) Matching
Bridget “Biddy” Mason: won freedom from slavery, worked as a nurse and midwife (delivering
babies) and then became a successful businesswoman and a generous contributor to social causes.
Cathay Williams: first African American woman to enlist and be documented as a soldier in the U.S.
Army, as a buffalo soldier
Annie Oakley: was a member of the Wild Buffalo Bill West Show as a sharpshooter and became the
first American female superstar.
Narcissa Whitman: she was the first European-American woman to cross the Rocky Mountains in
1836 on her way to do missionary work in the Oregon Country
Chief Joseph: Leader of the Nez Perce who were forcibly removed from their home land of the
Walla Walla Valley in Oregon. Was known for saying “My heart is sick and sad.”
Stephen Austin: was an empresario who is responsible for settling Texas and is considered as a
founding father of that state.
Jim Bridger: known as the "King of the Mountain Men” set up a fort named Fort Bridger in
Wyoming and is credited for discovering the Great Salt Lake.
Sitting Bull: Lakota Native American holy man who led his people as a tribal chief during years of
resistance to United States government policies. Defeated General George Custer at the Battle of
Little Big Horn.
Frederick Remington: was an American painter, illustrator, sculptor and writer who specialized in
depictions of the American West with his subjects of Native Americans, Cowboys and US cavalry.
Jim Beckwourth: was an African American who played a major role in the early exploration and
settlement of the American West as a mountain man, fur trader, and explorer.
Key Events
Terms and goals of the Treaty of New Echota (Blankets for the Dead)
Terms and goals of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (Oregon Country textbook reading)
Terms and goals of the Indian Removal Act (Blankets for the Dead)
Battle of the Alamo (description and outcome)
The conditions and experiences during Westward Experiences of the following groups:
African Americans. Chinese Americans, Native Americans and Women
(chart on blog and written in class)
Cherokee experience along the trail of tears, reasons why they were removed (Blankets for the
Dead)
Reasons why the Mexican American War was fought (Oregon Country textbook reading)
Short Answer Questions:
Why did Americans of European descent feel so compelled to expand the country westward?
What might 19th-century Native Americans have said about Manifest Destiny? Why would they have
taken this perspective?
Note: The two questions above will appear on the test as your long answer questions. You can
make an outline for each of these questions that you will be able to use as you write your answers.