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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 rail road lines extending across the great plaines |
| Pony Express | business that delivered mail from Missouri to California in just 10 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 that they were scaring away the buffalo. |
| Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman | warned the Native Americans that nothing would stop the building of the rail roads. |
| 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. |
| Soddy house | houses made from sod on the great plains. |
| sod busters | name for farmers on the great Plains. |
| pioneers | new settlers. |
| exodusters | thousands of African American pioneers who moved to the great plains and started community's |
| Nicodemus, Kanses | a successful community started by exodusters. |
| technology | the use of new ideas to make tools that improve peoples lives. |
| enterpreneur | a person who starts a new business hoping to make a profit. |
| Levi Strauss | began making pants out of blue denim that wre 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 witch 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. |