| Term |
Description |
| Adaptation | The process of adjusting to a new environment , such as the Great Plains, often by using newly designed or invented tools or processes. |
| Barbed Wire | A new type of fencing in the late 1800s that allowed farmers and ranchers to fence in the Plains. It cattle away from crops. |
| Dry farming | A late 1800s method of farming on the Great Plains. Soil was plowed deeply and plows gently broke up sod to help keep the moisture in the soil clumps. They also used a newly developed wheat seed that didn’t require as much water. |
| Exodusters | These people, mostly ex-slaves, journeyed from the Southeastern Region to the Great Plains in order to begin a new life. |
| Expansion | Getting bigger! In the late 1800s the population of the West EXPANDED as more people migrated from the eastern U.S. to the Western U.S. |
| Great Plains | A vast plateau of land rising gradually from the Mississippi to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It was once known as the Great American Desert because of its scarce rainfall. |
| Homestead Act of 1862 | A law that offered 160 acres of federal land to anyone who would pay $10 to live on the land and farm it for five years. This helped expand the western population. |
| Invention | A new process or devise that usually makes life easier. Examples in the 1800s: steel plows, barbed wire, railroads, dry farming, and sod house building. |
| Migration | Movement from one place to anotherExample-Exodusters, settlers, and homesteaders |
| Plateau | Large area of high level ground. Example-The Great Plains |
| Pioneer | Settlers- people who set up their homes and farms in previously un-owned areas . American pioneers moved into Indian territory to settle. |
| Railroad | A system of trains, tracks, and train depots. The number of these increased in the late 1800s as people headed west on trains and sent their products, such as gold, silver, cattle, and wheat back east on trains. |
| Sod house | A Great Plains house made by first cutting bricks consisting of grass, soil and roots , and then stacking them like bricks to build a house. |
| Steel plow | The improved and heavier-duty plows of the late 1800s allowed farmers to more efficiently break up the SOD on the great Plains |
| Transcontinental Railroad | The system of railroads that linked the Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast. It opened up the west to the great migration of adventurers, fortune seekers, and settlers. |
| Wheat | A grain that can be ground into flour, the main crop of the Great Plains, America’s Breadbasket! |
| Windmill | Run by wind power, modifications to this invention allowed water deep beneath the Great Plains sod to be pumped up through pipes for household use, water for livestock, and irrigation. |
| Homesteader | A person who took advantage of the 1862 law ,The Homestead Act, that granted 160 acres of public land to settlers as long as they farmed the land for 5 years. |
| Cattle | Cows and Bulls, raised by ranchers, herded and roped by cowboys, and shipped on railroads to slaughter houses , many in Chicago, and then put back on trains to sell back east. |
| Chisholm Trail | A cattle trail stretching from San Antonio, Texas to the railroad stock yards at Abilene, Kansas. Established as one of the routes for the long drive of Texas cattle. |
| Little Big Horn | A River in Montana, where Custer led an unsuccessful surprise attack on Sioux Indians led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. |
| Policy | A plan that guides decision-making. |
| Rancher | A person who raises cattle |
| Reservation | Land set aside for Indian Tribes. |
| Indian Treaties | Agreements between Native Americans and the U.S. Government that restricted the natural way of life for Native Americans, and ultimately sent them to reservations, where unfortunately more agreements were broken, placing many people in poverty. |
| Prospectors | In the 1800s, these people searched out areas in the west looking for gold and silver, natural resources that would make them a fortune. |
| Chief Joseph | Nez Perce chief who was unsuccessful in leading his people to freedom. Sadly, the Nez Perce who survived their almost successful escape to Canada were forced to move onto reservations. He is known for these words, "I will fight no more, forever." |
| Colonel George Armstrong Custer | The U.S. Army officer who made a really bad decision and was killed, along with 265 of his men, when they attacked a Sioux village near Little Big Bighorn River, Montana. Battle Name: Custer’s Last Stand or Battle of Little Big Horn. |
| Sitting Bull | Sioux Indian leader, who along with another famous Indian leader by the name of Crazy Horse, plus 2,500 warriors, surrounded and killed George Armstrong Custer and his men in just a few hours at the Battle of Little Big Horn. |
