apwh chapter 31 study guide

1) Compare the treatment of indigenous people in the United States and Canada. Why was their not a significant metis population in the United States? What does the difference mean?
The treatment of the indigenous people in the United States was different from the treatment in Canada. In the United States westward expansion brought settlers and government forces into conflict with the indigenous people of North America. The indigenous people resisted the efforts of the United States to push them from their ancestral lands and hunting grounds. The U.S. then passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830 which moved all the Native Americans west of the Mississippi River into the “Indian Territory”. The United States allowed settlers and railroads to encroach the reservations and they forced the Indians to even smaller territories. The Dawes Act of 1887 shifted the land policies away from the reservations and towards individual tracts. The U.S. treated the indigenous peoples (or Native Americans) harshly. The treatment of indigenous people in Canada is different. In Canada, the natives and metis moved west to preserve their land and trading rights but the Canadians started to threaten them. They also threatened local land rights. Louis Riel, in western Canada, became the leader of the metis and indigenous peoples. In the U.S. they were in camps so that is why there isn’t a metis population. In the U.S., indigenous is being preserved while in Canada. This is the difference.

2) What have been the obstacles to the industrial development of Latin America? Consider the export products named on page 866. Who profits from this trade? How is it that “even as agriculture, railroad construction and mining were booming, the standard living for average Mexicans was declining in the late nineteenth century”?
There were a few obstacles to the industrial development of Latin America. The small trading markets in Latin America limited the foreign influences which took the form of investment. British merchants had little desire to change the Latin America into dependent trading partners. Porfirio Diaz was a dictatorial general who represented the interest of large landowners, wealthy merchants and foreign investors. There were railroad tracks, telegraph lines, and the production of mineral resources surged. There were the steel, glass, chemical and textile industries. Mexico also acquired paved streets, streetcar lines and streetlights. Their profits from the Mexican enterprises didn’t support the industrial development and instead they took money from the oligarchy and foreign investors who supported Diaz while the working class seethed with resentment of low wages, long hours and foreign managers. Latin America had exports that drove economic growth. There was copper and silver from Mexico, bananas and coffee from Central America, rubber and coffee from Brazil, beef and wheat from Argentina, copper from Chile, and tobacco and sugar from Cuba. The British and elites profited from this trade. Their profits from the Mexican enterprises didn’t support the industrial development and instead they took money from the oligarchy and foreign investors who supported Diaz while the working class seethed with resentment of low wages, long hours and foreign managers. Even if agriculture, railroad construction and mining were booming, the living of the average state affairs helps explain the sudden outbreak of violent revolution in 1910.