Native American Quiz
Questions: 16 · 10 minutes
1. A federally recognized tribe meets with a U.S. agency about managing treaty-protected resources. Which principle most directly explains why this is a political relationship between governments rather than merely a meeting with an interest group?
Assimilation
Federalism among U.S. states
Eminent domain
Tribal sovereignty and the government-to-government relationship
2. Which list contains the five original nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy?
Ojibwe, Odawa, Potawatomi, Miami, and Shawnee
Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee, and Seminole
Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca
Lakota, Dakota, Nakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho
3. Archaeologists find a large settlement near the Mississippi River that flourished around 1050–1350 CE and contained major platform mounds, including Monks Mound. Which site are they studying?
Mesa Verde
Cahokia
Chaco Canyon
Poverty Point
4. What did the U.S. Supreme Court conclude in Worcester v. Georgia (1832)?
Native people automatically lost tribal citizenship when they became U.S. citizens
Congress had to divide all tribal lands into individual farms
Georgia's laws had no force within the Cherokee Nation's territory
The Cherokee Nation had no distinct political relationship with the United States
5. A primary source describes Cherokee families being forced west from their southeastern homelands in 1838–1839, with many dying during the journey. Which event does it document?
The Long Walk
The Red River War
The Pueblo Revolt
The Trail of Tears
6. A historian finds that an Indigenous population declined sharply soon after sustained European contact, including in communities that had not fought major battles. What was the most important broad cause?
The rapid replacement of farming by horse-based hunting
The immediate disappearance of all established trade networks
A continent-wide failure of maize agriculture
Epidemics of newly introduced infectious diseases
7. A farmer plants the crops traditionally known as the “Three Sisters,” whose growth patterns and nutritional uses complement one another. Which crops are they?
Maize, beans, and squash
Maize, potatoes, and tomatoes
Beans, sunflowers, and wild rice
Squash, tobacco, and cassava
8. What is a potlatch in the traditions of several Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast?
A southeastern harvest ceremony associated with the ripening of corn
A Plains ceremony centered on dancing, prayer, and personal sacrifice
A ceremonial gathering involving feasting, gift distribution, and the affirmation of status or important events
An individual spiritual quest commonly involving fasting and seclusion
9. A museum label describes wampum only as “colonial-era Native money.” Which revision would make the label more historically accurate?
Wampum beads and belts could record agreements, support diplomacy, and carry ceremonial meaning, though they also entered exchange
Wampum was a standardized currency used identically by every Native nation
Wampum was mainly decorative jewelry and had no political importance
Wampum was introduced to Native communities by European banks
10. A settlement in the Four Corners region contains multistory masonry rooms constructed within cliff alcoves, especially during the late 12th and 13th centuries. With which people is it most closely associated?
Mississippian peoples
Inuit peoples
Ancestral Pueblo peoples
Calusa people
11. Which organization, founded in Minneapolis in 1968, initially confronted police brutality and problems affecting urban Native communities before becoming prominent in wider struggles over treaty rights and sovereignty?
The American Indian Movement
The Society of American Indians
The National Congress of American Indians
The Bureau of Indian Affairs
12. A federal policy divides reservation land held collectively into individual household allotments and opens designated “surplus” land to non-Native ownership. Which law established this policy on a broad scale?
The Indian Reorganization Act
The Indian Citizenship Act
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
The Dawes Act
13. A community traditionally adapts to a treeless Arctic environment by using resources such as sealskins, bone, driftwood, and—in suitable conditions—snow for temporary structures. Which Indigenous people best fits this description?
Inuit
Lakota
Tlingit
Seminole
14. What was a central significance of the 1969–1971 occupation of Alcatraz by Indians of All Tribes?
It launched the federal allotment of communally held reservation land
It drew national attention to treaty rights, Native identity, and self-determination
It called for the end of all legal relationships between tribes and the United States
It created the first Native-led political organization in U.S. history
15. Which 1924 law granted U.S. citizenship to Native Americans born in the United States, although discriminatory state practices continued to obstruct voting for some?
The Snyder Act
The Indian Citizenship Act
The Indian Reorganization Act
The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act
16. During World War II, a military unit needs rapid battlefield communications that enemy forces cannot easily understand. Which Native contribution directly served this purpose?
Reservation agents administered military radio networks
Code talkers transmitted messages using Indigenous languages and coded terms
Tribal councils replaced the military's signal corps
Native interpreters translated intercepted German and Japanese conversations