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westward expansion
westward expantion
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| California gold rush | period where thousands of people went west to search for gold |
| Cattle drive | when cowboys guided huge herds of cattle north to new railroad lines extending across the great plains |
| Pony express | business that delivered mail from Missouri to California in just ten days |
| Telagraph | invention that sent messages along wires using electricity |
| Samuel B. Morse | developed a way to send telegraph messages |
| transcontinental railroad | a railroad across the continent liking the eastern United States to the western United States |
| Union pacific | began building train track west from Omaha, most Irish immigrants |
| central pacific | began building train track from Sacramento, California. most workers were Chinese immigrants. |
| promontory point | place in Utah where the union pacific connected with the transcontinental railroad |
| Chinese immagrants | made up almost 80% of central pacific workers. |
| red cloud | told union pacific they were scaring away the buffalo |
| Gen. William Tecumsah Sherman | warned Native American nothing would stop the building of the railroads |
| Homestead act of 1862 | law that offered free land to American citizens and immigrants who were willing to start farms on the great plains |
| Homesteaders | settlers who claimed land through the homstead act |
| sod house [soddy] | houses made from sod [soil] in the great plains |
| sodbusters | names for farmers in the great plains |
| pioneers | new settlers |
| Exodusters | Thousends of African American pioneers who moved to the great plains and started communities. |
| Nicodemus,Kansas | A successful community started by exodusters |