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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. |