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westward Expansion
How America settled the west
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Manifest Destiny | Called for the US expansion to the West and beyond. It was inevitable! |
| Homestead Act | Gave 160 Acres of land in the west to a settler who would improve on it by building and farming it for 5 years. |
| 36 30 line | The line of latitude that divided the free and slave states. |
| Transcontinental Railroad | Considered the single biggest engineering feat in US history leading it to grow and prosper. |
| Dawes Act | Native American policy to "Kill the Indian and Save the Man", and eliminate Indian culture and their way of life. |
| Trail of Tears | Forceful expulsion of the Cherokee from the East of Northern Georgia to the west in Oklahoma. |
| Exodusters | Black homesteaders that went west (Kansas) to escape Jim Crow and own and farm the land |
| Boom Town | Towns that popped up in the west because of economic opportunities that arose. |
| Ghost Town | Towns that dried up and died out because the economic opportunities that popped up disappeared quickly. |
| Technological Innovation | Because the west was so untamed and had such extremes, in order to pull people west, many of the obstacles needed to be solved for people to succeed. |