click below
click below
Normal Size Small Size show me how
Westward Expansion
Vocabulary
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 Calofornia 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 |
Unio Pacific | began building train track west from Omaha, Most workers were Irish immaigrants |
Central Pacific | began buliding 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 citzens and immigrants who were willing to start new farms on the Great Plains *Had to be a man 21 or older or a woman who was the head of the family *Paid about $10, agreed to farm, live on land for minimun 5 year |
Homesteaders | settlers who claimed land through the Homestead Act |
sod house ( soddy ) | house 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 |
Niodemus, Kansas | a successful community started by exodusters |
technology | the use of new ideas to make tools that improve people's lives |
enterpreneur | a person who starts a new business hoping to make a profit |
Levi Strauss | began making pants out of blue denim that were sturdy - the first blue jeans |
Reservaton | area of the land set aside for Native Americans |
Sitting Bull | cheif of the Lakota tribe in the Black Hills of South Dakota |
Col. George Custer | led by the 7th Cavarly 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 |
Cheif Joseph | A Nez Perce' cheif who led his people to the Canadian border to avoid moving to a Reservation. |