Chapter 5 Quiz: Who Came to the Mountains? Migration into Appalachia

Chapter 5 Quiz: Who Came to the Mountains? Migration into Appalachia

1. The Great Wagon Road ran approximately 735 miles from Philadelphia to:

A) The Ohio River Valley
B) The Carolina Piedmont and foothills
C) The coast of Georgia
D) New Orleans

2. The term "Scotch-Irish" refers to:

A) People of mixed Scottish and Irish ancestry
B) Descendants of Scottish Lowlanders who had been settled in the Irish province of Ulster
C) Irish Catholics who emigrated to Scotland before coming to America
D) Highland Scots who briefly lived in Ireland before emigrating

3. The primary "push factor" driving Scotch-Irish emigration from Ulster in the early eighteenth century was:

A) Famine caused by potato blight
B) Economic distress including rack-renting, crop failures, and religious discrimination under the Test Act
C) Military conscription into the British Army
D) Fear of Catholic invasion from France

4. Which ethnic group was most heavily concentrated in the Shenandoah Valley during the colonial settlement period?

A) Scotch-Irish Presbyterians
B) English Anglicans
C) German-speaking settlers from the Palatinate and other Germanic regions
D) Welsh Baptists

5. The Great Wagon Road followed an ancient route known as:

A) The Natchez Trace
B) The Great Warriors' Path, used by Indigenous nations for centuries
C) The Appalachian Trail
D) The King's Highway, built by the British Army

6. "Chain migration" refers to the process by which:

A) Enslaved people were transported in chains along migration routes
B) Early settlers sent information back to their communities of origin, encouraging friends and family to follow
C) Military forts were built in a chain across the frontier
D) Land was surveyed and sold in a sequential chain from east to west

7. The "Celtic thesis," as advanced by Grady McWhiney and David Hackett Fischer, argues that:

A) Appalachian culture was primarily shaped by the mountain environment
B) Appalachian culture was essentially transplanted from the Celtic fringe of the British Isles and persisted largely unchanged
C) Appalachian settlers rejected their British cultural heritage and created an entirely new culture
D) German settlers had a greater cultural influence on Appalachia than the Scotch-Irish

8. Which of the following is NOT a major criticism of the Celtic thesis discussed in the chapter?

A) It overstates cultural continuity across oceans and centuries
B) It erases the contributions of German, English, and African American settlers
C) It has uncomfortable political implications, treating culture as inherited rather than produced by circumstances
D) It ignores the role of religion in shaping backcountry culture

9. A "tomahawk claim" on the Appalachian frontier was:

A) A land grant earned through military service against Indigenous nations
B) An informal claim made by blazing a mark on a tree to indicate intended occupation
C) A treaty provision allowing settlers to claim land beyond the Proclamation Line
D) A legal instrument filed with the colonial land office

10. Daniel Boone's primary role in the settlement of Kentucky was as:

A) A military commander who defeated Indigenous resistance
B) A solitary wilderness philosopher seeking communion with nature
C) An agent of the Transylvania Company, a land speculation venture, who scouted and cut the Wilderness Road
D) A government surveyor working for the Virginia colonial administration

11. According to the 1790 census, enslaved people were present in:

A) No Appalachian counties
B) Only the largest towns in the Shenandoah Valley
C) Every Appalachian county where data was collected
D) Only counties bordering the plantation regions of the Tidewater

12. The chapter argues that the English contribution to Appalachian settlement has been overlooked primarily because:

A) English settlers arrived later than other groups
B) English settlers were the colonial default — unmarked and unremarkable because they were ordinary
C) English settlers were concentrated in urban areas, not rural mountains
D) English records were destroyed during the American Revolution

13. The Moravian Church's significance for Appalachian history lies partly in:

A) Their role in organizing labor unions
B) Their meticulous record-keeping, which provides some of the richest primary sources for the colonial period
C) Their military alliances with Indigenous nations
D) Their invention of the bank barn

14. Land speculation in colonial Appalachia established a pattern that the chapter identifies as recurring throughout the region's history. That pattern is:

A) Democratic land distribution that ensured every family had equal acreage
B) Absentee ownership — where the people who lived on the land were not the people who owned it
C) Communal land ownership modeled on Indigenous practices
D) Government-controlled land banks that prevented private ownership

15. The chapter describes the Appalachian frontier as "multiethnic from the first day." Which of the following best supports this claim?

A) All ethnic groups settled in perfectly integrated communities with no clustering
B) The New River Valley's earliest settlements included English, Scotch-Irish, German, and enslaved African American people
C) The colonial government required each settlement to include representatives of multiple ethnic groups
D) Indigenous peoples and European settlers shared communities peacefully

16. The "push-pull" framework for understanding migration breaks down most clearly for which group?

A) Scotch-Irish settlers
B) German Palatinate settlers
C) Enslaved African Americans, who were forcibly moved rather than choosing to migrate
D) English backcountry settlers

17. An estimated 200,000 to 300,000 settlers used which route to enter Kentucky and Tennessee between 1775 and 1810?

A) The Great Wagon Road
B) The Erie Canal
C) Daniel Boone's Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap
D) The Ohio River flatboat route

18. The chapter argues that the "myth of isolation" — the idea that early Appalachian settlers were cut off from the world — is contradicted by evidence of:

A) Regular mail service between mountain communities and colonial capitals
B) Trade networks connecting mountain communities to global markets (ginseng to China, deerskins to Europe, livestock to the coast)
C) Telephone communication in the eighteenth century
D) Frequent visits by colonial governors to backcountry communities

19. German settlers in the Shenandoah Valley are distinguished from Scotch-Irish settlers partly by their:

A) Refusal to own land
B) Emphasis on intensive agriculture, craft production, and distinctive architectural forms like bank barns
C) Exclusive reliance on hunting and trapping
D) Opposition to all organized religion

20. The conflict between squatters' labor-based property claims and the colonial elite's title-based property system prefigures which later Appalachian conflict?

A) The Civil War divisions in the mountains
B) The broad form deed disputes of the coal era
C) The opioid crisis
D) The creation of national parks