Question 1:
Comment on any one point of difference between the native peoples of South and North America.
Answer:
On contrary to native peoples of South America, native people of North America did not attempt extensive agriculture. They did not produce more than their needs. That is why they did not develop kingdoms and empires like South America.
Question 2:
Other than the use of English, what other features of English economic and social life do you notice in nineteenth century USA?
Answer:
Other than the use of English, other features of English economic and social life we notice in nineteenth century USA are as follows :
- The Europeans treated the land in a different way than it was treated by the natives of the USA. Some of the migrants from Britain and France wanted to own land in America. They were younger sons and were therefore not able to inherit their father’s property.
- Several immigrants from Germany, Sweden, Italy, etc., had lost their lands to big farmers. They wanted farms which they could own.
- People from Poland wanted to work in the prairie grasslands, which reminded them of the steppes of their homes.
- It was very easy to buy huge properties at very low prices in America. So the English bought large tracts of land, cleared them and developed agriculture. They introduced crops like rice and cotton. These crops did not grow in Europe and therefore could be sold there for profit.
- They hunted wild animals to extinction to protect their huge farms from them. The barbed wire was invented in 1873 and they felt totally secured with this.
- The English forced the natives to move from the bought land to expand their settlements in the USA. They signed treaties with natives to sell their land. Europeans even paid them very low prices of the land. Sometimes the European people of the USA cheated the natives by taking more land or paying less than the promised price.
Question 3:
What did the ‘frontier’ mean to the Americans?
Answer:
The boundries of USA kept on expanding due to conquered land and purchased land. That is why the western frontier of the USA was a shifting one. With this, natives were also forced to move back. The boundary of the state where they reached was known as the ‘frontier’.
Question 4:
Why was the history of the Australian native peoples left out of history books?
Answer:
The policy of discrimination was followed by the European historians against the Australian native people. They only mentioned the achievements of European settlers in their books and also tried to show that native people had no tradition and history of their own. That is why the history of the Australian native peoples was left out of history books.
Question 5:
How satisfactory is a museum gallery display in explaining the culture of a community? Give examples from your own experience of a museum.
Answer:
Museum plays a very important role in making the people understand their culture. Things displayed in a museum help to revive forgotten or ignored cultures. Early cultures of Australia are such examples of this.
Question 6:
Imagine an encounter in California in about 1880 between four people : a former African slave, a Chinese labourer, a German who had come out in the Gold Rush and a native of the Hopi tribe, and narrate their conversation.
Answer:
This question is based upon imagination. So it is not important from the examination point of view.