APUSH Chapter 16

Comanche Tribe

Small tribe who moved into the South West of the US in the 1700s, became the most powerful tribe in the west by 1860. Built a way of life by hunting Buffalo.

Comanchero’s

Prosperous New Mexicans who acquired this title because of their rich trade with the Comanche.

William Tecumseh Sherman

U.S. delegation leader, head of army of the West, signed treaty with Comanche.

Medicine Lodge Creek Treaty

\*An 1867 treaty between the Comanches and the U.S. Army in which the Comanches agreed to settle on a reservation.

Quanah Parker

New Comanche leader from 1871-1873, fiercest opponent of compromise with whites.

Isa-tai

Young Comanche spiritual leader, says if they stopped associating with whites, life would be good again.

Navajos

Another tribe just as warlike as the Comanches, dominated large swaths of New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas.

Bosque Redondo

\*A reservation in central New Mexico where the majority of the Navajos and Mescalero Apaches were confined during the civil war.

Kintpaush

Leader of the Modoc tribe, led his people out of a reservation back to their homeland successfully, despite resistance from the US Army.

Ghost Dance

Part of a religious awakening among the Lakota Sioux in 1890 in which they believed that if they return to their traditional ways and ceremonies, the whites would be driven from their land.

Homestead Act

\*\*\*Law passed by Congress in 1862 providing 160 acres of land free to anyone who would live on the plot and farm it for 5 years.

Grant’s Peace Policy

A new effort by President Grant to end the Plains Indian wars by creating a series of reservations on which tribes could maintain their traditional ways.

Ely S. Parker

First Native American Commissioner of Indian Affairs, first nonwhite to hold a high government position. From the Seneca tribe, appointed by president Grant.

Dawes Act

An 1887 law terminating tribal ownership of most reservation land and allocating some parcels to individual Indians while the remainder was open for white settlement.

Richard Henry Pratt

Put in charge of Indian prisoners, decided to create a model Indian school.

Carlisle Indian School

\*A boarding school for Native American children opened in Carlisle, Pennsylvania to teach white ways and separate Indian children from Tribal culture.

Transcontinental railroad

\*The Union Pacific rail line from California and the Central Pacific line connected with Chicago and other eastern cities, it was the first rail line to allow train travel all across the US.

Eli Janney

Invented a safer system for coupling and decoupling railway cars saving many lives of railway workers.

Joseph G. McCoy

Founded Abilene, Kansas, one of the nations first cattle towns, to facilitate the loading of cattle onto transcontinental trains that would speed the beef to consumers.

Gregorio Cortez

Mexican who shot Texan Governor in chest when he was accused of crime he didn’t commit. Known as hero in Mexico.

Russian hard winter wheat

Staple crop which Mennonite settlers grew because of its versatility.

Turner’s Thesis

The western frontier had created American character, end of frontier will bring downfall of the country.