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westward expansion
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| California gold rush | period where thousands of people went west in search of 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 |
| Telegraph | 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 linking the Eastern 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 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 people’s 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 in the Black Hills of South Dokota |
| Col. George Custer | led the 7 th Cavalry on a mission to defeat the 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 | Chief Joseph A Nez Perce’ chief who led his people to the Canadian border to avoid moving to a reservation. |