Whites had originally been reluctant to settle on the Western Plains because ________.

Question

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

The belief that the treeless grasslands were unsuitable for farming drove early white settlers’ reluctance: they thought the Western Plains had little potential for agriculture because it lacked trees.

Relevant knowledge points: 19th-century Americans associated trees with fertile, livable land—timber provided building material, fuel, and indicated adequate rainfall. Explorers and military reports (e.g., Stephen Long in the 1820s calling the area the “Great American Desert”) reinforced the view that the Plains were arid and unsuited to crops. Settlement patterns before the 1860s favored wooded river valleys and Eastern farmland. Technological limits (wood-frame construction, lack of dry-farming techniques, absence of cheap irrigation and barbed wire) made tree availability an important practical concern.

Step-by-step reasoning:
1. Early reports emphasized a lack of timber and apparent aridity on the Plains.
2. Settlers judged agricultural potential by visible signs (trees, rivers). Without trees they assumed poor soils and insufficient rainfall.
3. Because timber was essential for homes, fences, fuel, and farm equipment, the absence of trees made settlers wary about moving there.
4. Later technological and policy changes (steel plows, railroads, windmills, barbed wire, Homestead Act, dry-farming) changed perceptions and made large-scale settlement and farming possible.

Why the correct answer is correct: It directly reflects period attitudes and practical concerns that discouraged settlement. The “lack of trees” was interpreted as a proxy for infertile, arid land, so settlers thought farming would fail.

Why other options are incorrect:
- Feeling guilty about displacing Native Americans was not a primary deterrent to westward settlement.
- Land on the Plains was generally cheap or offered free (Homestead Act), not extraordinarily expensive.
- Settlers largely desired the spread of farming and ranching; that was a motive to settle, not to avoid it.

Conclusion: The correct choice—“they believed the region had little potential for agriculture because it lacked trees”—is confirmed.

Whites had originally been reluctant to settle on the Western Plains because ________.单项选择题

类似问题

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Nearly 300,000 men, women, and children braved disease, starvation, and natural barriers to travel overland to Oregon, California, and Utah between 1841 and 1869.

The forces that pushed many Americans westward included all of the following except ________.

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The government, under the provisions of the _____________ of 1862, had opened up the Great Plains by conferring the title to 160 acres of land for those that settled and improved it for five years.

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