1-The West & Government

Soddy

A home built of blocks of turf

Exoduster

African Americans who moved from post reconstruction South to Kansas.

Chisholm trail

the major cattle route from San Antonio, Texas, through Oklahoma to Kansas

Battle of Wounded Knee

US soldiers massacred 300 unarmed Native American in 1890. This ended the Indian Wars.

Battle of Little Big Horn

1876 - General Custer and his men were wiped out by a coalition of Sioux and Cheyenne Indians led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.

Barbed Wire

Used to fence in land on the Great Plains, eventually leading to the end of the open frontier.

Reservations

Land given to Native Americans in an effort to make up for all of the land that was taken from them in the history of our country.

Dawes Act

An act that broke up Indian reservations and distributed land to individual households. Leftover land was sold for money to fund U.S. government efforts to "civilize" Native Americans.

Homestead Act

Passed in 1862, it gave 160 acres of public land to any settler who would farm the land for five years. The settler would only have to pay a registration fee of $25.

Boomtowns

A town undergoing rapid growth due to sudden prosperity; usually because of the discovery of gold or silver.

Assimilation/Americanization

Adopting the traits of another culture. Often happens over time when one immigrates into a new country.

Ghost Dances

Set of dances and rites that followers believed who cause the white men to disappear and restore Native American lands

Transcontinental Railroad

The Transcontinental Railroad was a 1,912-mile (3,077 km) continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected Omaha to San Francisco Bay.

Sutter's Mill

The first place where gold was found in California.

Bonanza Farms

large farms that came to dominate agricultural life in much of the West in the late 1800s.

Vaqueros and Cowboys

Skilled riders who herded cattle on ranches in Mexico, California, and the Southwest

Barrios

Spanish-speaking neighborhoods in a town or city

Klondike Gold Rush

Gold rush immigration to and for gold prospecting, along the Klondike River near Dawson City, Yukon, Canada after gold was discovered there in the late 19th century.

Populism

the political doctrine that supports the rights and powers of the common people in their struggle with the privileged elite

Liberty

freedom of choice

Laissez-faire

Idea that government should play as small a role as possible in economic affairs.

E Pluribus Unum

out of many, one

Individualism

a social theory favoring freedom of action for individuals over collective or state control.

Hydraulic mining

a method of mining by which water is sprayed at a very high pressure against a hill or mountain, washing away large quantities of dirt, gravel, and rock and exposing the minerals beneath the surface

Open Range

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

Comstock Lode

First discovered in 1858 by Henry Comstock, some of the most plentiful and valuable silver was found in Nevada.

Manifest Destiny

the 19th-century doctrine or belief that the expansion of the US throughout the American continents was both justified and inevitable.

Meat Packing Industry

The slaughtering, processing, packaging, and selling of animals, mainly pigs and cows. Industry booms in the late 1800's centered in Chicago. Meat would then be shipped to East coast

Destruction of the Buffalo

The most significant blow to tribal life on the plains; caused by over-hunting by Native Americans, settlers fur traders, and the US Army. Led to the decline of Native Americans on the Great Plains

Egalitarian

a belief in the equality of all people

Civic responsibility

Obligations that each person has to society. Like voting, obeying the laws, paying taxes.

Alexis de Tocqueville

He wrote a two-volume Democracy in America that contained insights and pinpointed the general equality among people. He wrote that inequalities were less visible in America than France.