HS History: Foreign Policy and the States Quiz

Answer: Washington

"54 40 or Fight!" was the demand of American expansionists for the northern boundary of the disputed Oregon Country in the 1840s. It was also the campaign slogan of James Knox Polk in the Election of 1844. The Oregon Treaty of 1846 eventually set the northern boundary of the USA in Oregon Country at the 49th parallel.

Answer: Florida

In addition to acquiring most of the Florida peninsula (known as East Florida) in the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819, the United States also acquired any lands Spain still claimed in the Oregon and Louisiana territories, which included a small area in Colorado and in the southeastern corner of the current state of Louisiana. The Adams involved was Secretary of State John Quincy Adams.

Answer: Maine

Sometimes called "the Pork and Beans War," the Aroostook War was a conflict over the boundary between Maine and New Brunswick in 1838-9. Although militias were assembled, no actual combat took place. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 settled the boundary by compromise approximately midway between the claimed boundaries of the two entities.

Answer: Alaska

The purchase of Alaska in 1867 from Russia earned the nickname "Seward's Folly" by critics in reference to Secretary of State William H. Seward. Signed by Andrew Johnson, the transaction cost the U.S. $7.2 million, or roughly two cents an acre. Wags also referred to the newly-acquired territory as "Seward's Icebox" and "Walrussia."

Answer: Arizona and New Mexico

The Gadsden Purchase was a $10 million deal with Mexico in 1853. It added over 29,000 square miles to the southwestern corner of New Mexico and south of the Gila River in Arizona. The U.S. hoped to use the land to add to its transcontinental railroad system, which it did with the completion of the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1883.

Answer: Iowa and Nebraska

The Louisiana Purchase area extended westward from the Mississippi River to the crest of the Rocky Mountains. Mississippi and part of Louisiana lie east of the Mississippi. Parts of both Minnesota and North Dakota also lie east and north of the Missouri-Mississippi river system. Parts of Wyoming and Colorado both lie west of the crest of the Rockies.

Answer: Texas

By the time of the Mexican War, which began in 1846, Texas was already a state within the USA, having been annexed in 1845 after it had been an independent republic for nine years.

Answer: Ohio

The Battle of Fallen Timbers, which is considered the final battle of the "Northwest Indian War," took place on 20 August 1794, not far from today's Toledo, Ohio. Although the Northwest Territory (the area bounded by the Great Lakes, Ohio River, and Mississippi River sometimes called the "Old Northwest"), had been ceded to the US by Britain in the Treaty of Paris in 1783 which ended the American Revolution, the presence of British forts and Native peoples who had not accepted the white men's treaties made America's control of the territory problematical. With the Treaty of Greenville, all doubt was ended as to which nation the Northwest Territory belonged and of which nation the Native peoples were subjects.

Answer: North Dakota and Minnesota

Also known as the London Convention, the Anglo-American Convention of 1818, or simply the Convention of 1818, the Treaty of 1818 established the northern boundary of the United States from the Rocky Mountains to the Lake of the Woods at the 49th parallel, while allowing joint occupation of the Oregon Country.

The final division of the Oregon Country, also at the 49th parallel, would take place in 1846.

Answer: Hawaii

By 1842, both the United States and United Kingdom recognized the sovereign Kingdom of Hawai'i, which was created in 1795 with the unification of the independent islands of Hawaii, O'ahu, Maui, Moloka'i, and Lana'i. In 1810 the islands of Kaua'i and Ni'ihau joined. Following the founding Kamehameha dynasty, the Kalakaua dynasty was established in 1874. Hawaii's final ruler was Queen Liliuokalani, who was overthrown by US businessmen in 1895.