APUSH Ch. 11 Vocab: PART 2

Oregon Trail

an emigrant route that originally led from Independence, Missouri to the Willamette Valley in Oregon, a distance of some 2,000 miles. Alternate routes included the California Trail, the Mormon Trail, and the Bozeman Trail. Together they conveyed several hundred thousand migrants to the Far West in the 1840s, 1850s, and 1860s

Californios

the elite Mexican ranchers in the province of California

“Fifty-four forty or fight!”

Democratic candidate Governor James K. Polk’s slogan in the election of 1844 calling for American sovereignty over the entire Oregon Country, which stretched from California to Russian-occupied Alaska and at the time was shared with Great Britain

Bear Flag Republic

a short-lived republic created in California by American emigrants to sponsor a rebellion against Mexican authority in 1846