| A | B |
|---|
| placer mining | method of extracting mineral ore by hand using simple tools like picks, shovels, and pans |
| quartz mining | method of extracting minerals involving digging beneath the surface |
| Henry Comstock | man that staked a claim in Six-Mile Canyon, Nevada that was pure silver ore-it brought 30,000 people to the area almost overnight |
| vigilance committee | self-appointed volunteers that would track down and punish wrongdoers |
| open range | vast areas of grassland owned by the federal government |
| long drive | driving cattle long distances to a railroad depot for fast transport and great profit |
| Chisholm Trail | trail to Abilene, Kansas which was the major route north |
| maverick | a stray calf with no identitfying symbols |
| barbed wire | new invention that allowed hundreds of miles to be fenced off cheaply and easily |
| Great Plains | region that extends westward to the Rocky Mountains from around the 100th meridan(the imaginary line running north to south from the central Dakotas through western Texas) |
| Stephen Long | explored Great Plains region with an army expedition in 1819 and concluded it was "almost wholly unfit for cultivation" |
| Homestead Act | the government passed this in 1862 to support settlement in the Great Plains |
| homestead | method of acquiring a piece of U.S. public land by living on and cultivating it |
| dry farming | a way of farming dry land in which seeds are planted deep in the ground where there is some moisture |
| sodbuster | a name given to Great Plains farmers |
| Wheat Belt | the area in the Great Plains that began producing wheat in the 1880's |
| bonanza farm | a large, highly-profitable wheat farm |
| nomad | a person who continually moves from place to place, usually in search of food |
| annuity | money paid by contract on regular intervals |
| Little Crow | chief of the Dakota Sioux that led an uprising against the army because annuities had not been paid and the Sioux were starving |
| Indian Peace Commission | formed by Congress in 1867 that created two large reservations on the Great Plains run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs with authority given to the army |
| George A. Custer | commander of the Seventh Cavalry that died along with 210 soldiers at Little Bighorn fighting the Lakota and Cheyenne |
| Ghost Dance | a ritual that celebrated a hoped-for day of reckoning when settlers would disappear, the buffalo would return, and they would reunite with dead ancestors |
| assimilate | to absorb a group into the culture of a larger population |
| allotment | a plot of land assigned to an individual or family for cultivation |
| Dawes Act | passed in 1887 by Congress which allotted to each head of household 160 acres of reservation land for farming; single adults received 80 acres; and 40 acres were allotted for children |
| Fetterman's Massacre | the ambush killing of William Fetterman and 80 soldiers by the Lakota Sioux led by Crazy Horse because settlers were entering Soiux territory |
| Sand Creek Massacre | conflict between the Cheyenne/Arapaho people and miners in the 1860's along Sand Creek in eastern Colorado where 200 settlers were killed |
