Westward Expansion, Railroads, and the Agrarian Movement

Vocabulary terms and definitions covering the expansion of the western frontier, Native American conflicts and assimilation, agricultural innovations, agrarian protest movements, and the growth and regulation of railroads.

Homestead Act (1862)

An 1862 law passed by Congress that offered 160 acres of free land to any citizen or intended citizen who was the head of a household.

Exodusters

African Americans who migrated from the post-Reconstruction South to Kansas to claim land and farm.

Soddy

A home built from stacked blocks of turf and prairie sod that stayed warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

Frederick Jackson Turner

The historian who authored the 1893 essay "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," arguing that the frontier frontier line made America unique.

John Deere

The inventor who developed a steel plow in 1837 that could easily slice through thick prairie soil.

Cyrus McCormick

The inventor who began mass-producing a mechanical reaping machine in 1847.

Morrill Acts (1862 and 1890)

Federal legislation that granted public land to individual states to fund agricultural and technical colleges.

Hatch Act of 1887

A federal law that established agricultural experiment stations to inform farmers of new scientific developments and agricultural techniques.

Bonanza Farms

Enormous single-crop spreads of 15,000 to 50,000 acres created by railroad companies and private investors.

Greenbacks

Almost $500 million in paper money issued by the United States during the Civil War that could not be exchanged for gold or silver.

The Grange (Patrons of Husbandry)

An agrarian organization founded in 1867 by Oliver Hudson Kelley that organized farmers to combat railroad abuses and unfair freight rates.

Colored Farmers' National Alliance

An agrarian organization founded in 1886 in Houston, Texas, by white Baptist missionary R. M. Humphrey that grew to include about 250,000 African American farmers.

Populism

The political "movement of the people" launched with the founding of the Populist (or People's) Party in 1892 to demand political and financial relief for struggling farmers.

Counting Coup

A Plains warrior practice of touching a live enemy with a coup stick and escaping unharmed to demonstrate bravery and gain honor.

Pemmican

A staple Plains Indian food made of dried buffalo meat (jerky) mixed with berries and animal fat.

Shamans

Medicine men or women in Native American tribes who demonstrated special sensitivity to the spirit world.

Sand Creek Massacre

A dawn attack on November 29, 1864, in which militia colonel John Chivington and his men slaughtered over 150 Native American inhabitants, mostly women and children.

Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868)

An 1868 agreement in which the Sioux were forced to live on a reservation along the Missouri River, which Sitting Bull refused to sign.

Sitting Bull

Leader of the Hunkpapa Sioux who led resistance against U.S. forces, had a vision during the Sun Dance, defeated Custer, and was killed in December 1890 during an arrest attempt.

Battle of the Little Bighorn

An 1876 engagement along the Little Bighorn River in which Sioux and Cheyenne warriors led by Crazy Horse, Gall, and Sitting Bull wiped out Colonel George A. Custer and the Seventh Cavalry.

Assimilation

A government policy and social plan under which Native Americans were expected to give up their traditional beliefs and cultural ways to integrate into white culture.

Dawes Act (1887)

An 1887 congressional law aiming to "Americanize" Native Americans by breaking up reservations and allotting 160 acres to each family head and 80 acres to each unmarried adult.

Ghost Dance

A spiritual movement and ritual promised by a Paiute prophet that Sioux turned to in hopes of having their traditional lands, buffalo, and way of life restored.

Battle of Wounded Knee

An 1890 massacre in South Dakota in which the Seventh Cavalry slaughtered as many as 300 mostly unarmed Sioux, effectively ending the Plains Indian wars.

Vaquero

A Spanish or Mexican horseman and cattle handler in the Southwest whose customs, clothing, and gear became the forerunner of the American cowboy.

Chisholm Trail

The major overland cattle trail running from San Antonio, Texas, through Oklahoma to the railhead in Abilene, Kansas, surveyed with the help of Joseph McCoy.

Transcontinental Railroad

The first continuous transcontinental rail line, completed on May 10, 1869, when the Central Pacific and Union Pacific tracks were joined with a golden spike at Promontory, Utah.

C. F. Dowd

The professor who proposed dividing the earth into 24 standard time zones, creating four distinct zones across the United States: Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific.

Pullman Strike (1894)

A violent 1894 labor strike that broke out after factory owner George M. Pullman reduced employee wages while refusing to lower rents in his company town.

Crédit Mobilier

A fraudulent construction company formed in 1864 by Union Pacific stockholders to pocket up to $23 million by overcharging the railroad for laying track.

Munn v. Illinois (1877)

The 1877 Supreme Court ruling that upheld state Granger laws, confirming that states could regulate private property and railroads when serving the public interest.

Interstate Commerce Act (1887)

An 1887 federal law that reestablished the federal government's authority to supervise railroad activities and established the five-member Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC).