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 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 form Omaha , Most workers were Irish immigrants |
Central Pacific | -Began building train track east form 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 building the railroads |
Homestead Act of 1862 | Law that offered land to American citizens, 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 |
entreprenur | 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 didnt tear - the first blue jeans |
Reservation | Area of land set aside for Native Americans |
Sitting Bull | Chief of the Lakota tribe in the black hill of South Dakota |
Col George Custer | Led the 7th cavalry on a mission to defeat the defeat the Lakota an force and force them onto a new reservation |
Battle of little Bighorn | Battle in which Crazy Horse lead the Lakota to victory against the U.S. forces |
Chief Joseph | A Nez Perce' chief who led hi people to the Canadian border to avoid moving to a reservation |