AH- Westward Expansion

Bonanza Farms

large farms that came to dominate agricultural life and much of the west, operated similar to factories

Homestead act

Provided free land in the west to anyone willing to settle there and develop it. Encouraged Westward migration

Dawes Act

Law that distributed reservation land to individual Native American owners

Exodusters

African Americans who migrated from the South to the West after the Civil War

Technology that led to the the agricultural boom of the 1800s

Reaper, thresher machines, barbed wire, steel plow

Indian Boarding Schools

Native Americans were forced to attend to learn new suctions, religions and language of the settlers

Populist party

Represented mainly farmers, favoring free coinage of silver and government control of railroads and other monopolies

Great Plains

Vast grassland between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains

Red Cloud’s War

Sioux leader’s struggle to keep U.S. miners off the Bozeman Trail, ended with a win for the Sioux and the signing of the Treaty of Laramie

Sand Creek Massacre

An attack on a group of Cheyenne by a regiment of Colorado militiamen that resulted in the death of more than 200 tribal members

Boomtown

A community experiencing a sudden growth in business or population, especially in the West

Open Range

A vast area of grassland owned by the government where ranchers could graze their herds for free

General CusteR

United States general who was killed along with all his command by the Sioux at the battle of Little Bighorn

Dry Farming

A way of farming dry land in which seeds are planted deep in ground where there is some moisture

Sodbusters

Name given to Great Plains farmers because they had to break through so much thick soil, called sod, in order to farm

Wounded Knee

After killing Sitting Bull, the 7th Cavalry rounded up Sioux at this place in South Dakota and 300 Natives were murdered

Soddy

A frontier home usually dug into a hill or made from sod

Farmers’ Alliance/Grange

A Farmers’ organization that advocated for reforms like lower railroad freight rates, lower interest rates, and a change in the governments tight money policy

Transcontinental Railroad

Connected the East and West Coast with the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Lines

Chisholm Trail

A former cattle trail from San Antonio in Texas to Abilene in Kansas

Oklahoma Land Rush

Last huge movement of people before the frontier closed

Battle of Little Bighorn

Battle after the Treaty of Fort Laramie is broken by the U.S. Government. The Sioux fought general Custer and won

13th Amendment

Abolishes and prohibits slavery

Reconstruction

the period after the Civil War in the United States when the southern states were reorganized and reintegrated into the Union

Sharecropping

A system used on southern farms after the Civil War in which farmers worked land owned by someone else in return for a small portion of the crops.

Sharecropper

a tenant farmer who gives a part of each crop as rent.

14th Amendment

Declares that all persons born in the U.S. are citizens and are guaranteed equal protection of the laws

Freedman’s Bureau

1865 - Agency set up to aid former enslaved persons. It furnished food and clothing to African Americans and helped them get jobs

15th Amendment

U.S. cannot prevent a person from voting because of race, color, or creed

Amnesty

an official pardon for people who have been convicted of political offenses

Andrew Johnson

President during Reconstruction and was impeached

Radical Republicans

After the Civil War, a group that believed the South should be harshly punished and thought that Lincoln was sometimes too compassionate towards the South

Ku Klux Klan

A secret society created by white southerners in 1866 that used terror and violence to keep African Americans from obtaining their civil rights

Poll Tax

A requirement that citizens pay a tax in order to register to vote

Literacy Test

A test given to persons to prove they can read and write before being allowed to register to vote

Segregation

Separation of people based on racial differences

Jim Crow Laws

Laws designed to separate Blacks and Whites in public places

Discrimination

Behaving differently, usually unfairly, toward the members of a group

The Compromise of 1877 resulted in

the withdrawal of federal troops and abandonment of black rights in the South.

Plessy V. Ferguson

a 1896 Supreme Court decision which legalized state ordered segregation so long as the facilities for African Americans and whites were equal