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westward Expansion
| 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 |
| Telegragh | invention that sent messages along wires using electricity |
| Samuel B. Morse | developed a way to send telegraph messages |
| Transcontinental Railroad | a rail road across the continent linking the eastern united United states to the western united states |
| Union Pacific | began building train track west from Omaha most workers were Irish immigrants |
| Central Pacific | began building train track east from Sacramento California most workers were Chinese immigrants |
| Promontory Point | place in Utah where the Union pacific met the Central pacific and connected the transcontinental railroad |
| Chinese immigrants | made up almost 80% of the central pacific workers |
| red cloud | told union pacific workers they were scaring away the buffalo |
| gen, William Tecumsah Sherman | Warned the Native Americans that 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 new farms on the great Plains |
| Homesteaders | settlers who claimed land through the Homestead act |
| sod house (soddy) | houses made from sod (soil) on the great plains |
| sodbusters | the name for farmers on the great plains |
| Pioneers | new settlers |
| exodusters | thousands of African American pioneers who moved to the great plains and started communities |
| Nicodemus,Kansas | a successful community started by exodusters |
| technology | the use of new ideas to make tools that improve peoples lives |
| entrepreneur | a person who starts a new business hoping to make a profit |
| Levi Strauss | began making pants out of blue denim that were sturdy and didn't tear the first blue jeans |
| Reservation | area of land set aside for Native Americans |
| sitting bull | chief of the Lakota tribe in the black hills of south Dakota |
| Col. George Custer | led the 7th cavalry on a mission to defeat the Lakota and force them onto a new Reservation |
| Battle of little bighorn | battle in which Crazy Horse helped lead the Lakota to victory against the U.S. forces |
| chief Joseph | A Nez Perce ' chief who led his people to the Canadian border to avoid moving to a reservation |