Unit 2: Reconstruction and Westward Expansion

Freedmen’s Bureau

A federal agency created to provide aid for enslaved people who were emancipated

13th Amendment

Abolishes slavery

Radical Republican

A group of Republican political leaders dedicated to imposing harsh conditions on the states that had seceded from the Union during the Civil War

14th Amendment

Guarantees due process and equal protection under law

15th Amendment

Gives all adult males the right to vote

KKK

A group of Protestant, white supremacist mostly based in the South who terrorized the newly freed slaves through acts of violence such as lynching, beatings, and burning houses

Jim Crow Laws

State laws passed throughout the South to enforce racial segregation of public facilities

Compromise of 1877

An agreement by which Rutherford B. Hayes won the 1876 presidential election and in exchange agreed to remove all remaining federal troops from the South. The Democratic Party regained control of southern state governments and the state governments institutionalized laws that harmed rights of black citizens.

Plessy v. Ferguson

Court case in which the Supreme Court said segregation did not violate the 14th amendment if they were separate but equal facilities for blacks and whites

Booker T. Washington

(1856-1915) Was born into slavery and grew up in poverty following emancipation. In 1881, Washington was chosen to head the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institution, where he promoted vocational education for African American students. He encouraged African American citizens to accept segregation and to instead focus on improving themselves through education and economic opportunities.

WEB DuBois

(1868-1963) Was an American educator, reformer, and champion of civil rights. He is best known for his book “The Souls of Black Folk” in which he criticizes the more accommodating approach of Booker T. Washington and advocates for civil rights for African Americans. DuBois went on to help found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Exoduster

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

Manifest Destiny

The belief that the United States was destined by God’s will to extend from the Atlantic to Pacific Ocean

Homestead Act

1862 Law that gave 160 acres of land to persons willing to live on and cultivate it for five years

Transcontinental Railroad

Rail Link between the eastern and western United States

Reservation

Public land where Native Americans were required to live by the federal government

Sitting Bull

(1831-1890) Was a war chief and important spiritual leader who became the first-ever chief of all the Lakota Sioux bands in the 1860s. After surrendering to the Army in 1881, he lived on a reservation where he was killed by Indian police sent to arrest him.

Battle of Little Bighorn

1876 battle in which the Sioux defeated U.S. Army troops. Was caused by the discovery of gold in the Black Hills area of South Dakota that settlers wanted to mine

Assimilation

Being absorbed into the main culture of a society

Dawes Act

Distributed reservation land to individual Native Americans to encourage assimilation to a farming lifestyle: had to stay on it for 25 years before it became their own

Wounded Knee (1890)

1890 confrontation between U.S. cavalry and Sioux that marked the end of Indian resistance

Open-Range System

Method of ranching in which the rancher allowed his or her livestock to roam and graze over a vast area of grassland

Las Gorras Blancas

(The White Caps) Group of Mexican Americans living in New Mexico who attempted to protect their land and way of life from encroachment by white landowners

Billy the Kid

Classic anti-hero; moved from New York to New Mexico with his mother. His mother passed away when he was 15 and he began to commit crimes and murdered a man and fled when was 17. Came clean to the police but was not given the full pardon he was guaranteed. He ws scheduled to be executed at 22 but he escaped from jail again. However instead of fleeing the area he decided to stay with his love and when he was finally caught again he was shot and killed.