Western Expansion Study Guide

Grassland extending through the west-central portion of the United States

Great Plains

What two animals were vital for the Native Americans way of life?

Horses and buffalo/bison.

Did Native Americans believe you could own land?

No

Why were settlers pouring into the Black Hills in South Dakota?

They discovered gold.

What battle was known as George Custer’s Last Stand?

The Battle of Little Bighorn.

The idea to bring Native Americans into American culture was known as what?

Assimilation

What did the army do to ensure that the Native Americans had to move on the reservations?

They removed the bison

What did the Dawes Act do?

It broke up the reservations and gave some of the reservation land to individual Native Americans to farm.

Towns that popped up overnight in areas where gold or silver was found were called what?

Boom towns

25% of cowboys were what?

African American

Describe the workday and the lifestyle of a cowboy:

They worked 10 to 14 hours a day and were expert riders and ropers.

Transport of cattle that lasted around 3 months on average:

Long drive/cattle drive.

What ended the “open range” and the cowboy way of life?

Barbed wire fencing.

Why was barbed wire invented in the first place?

To protect crops from cattle.

What act encouraged settlers to move to the Great Plains?

Homestead act.

What did most settlers have to build their houses out of on the Great Plains?

Sod/dirt.

Railroad that connected the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans was called?

Transcontinental Railroad

A large portion of the railroad workers were what?

Immigrants

What immigrants were discriminated against the most?

Chinese

What was that act called and what did it do?

The Chinese Exclusion Act

Where did many of the immigrants in large urban cities work?

Factories

The movement of the people was called:

Populous movement

Economic depression in the late 1800s was called what

The Panic of 1873