| A | B |
|---|
| mission | A place established by missionaries for their work. |
| Californio | A Spanish-speaking Californian. |
| rancho | A grant of land made by the Mexican government. Most were used for raising cattle and crops. |
| mountain men | Trappers who crisscrossed the West in search of valuable furs. |
| Oregon Trail | an overland route that stretched about 2,000 miles from Independence, Missouri, to the Columbia River in Oregon |
| homestead | a plot of land where pioneers could build a home, farm, or ranch |
| wagon trains | columns of wagons |
| Mormons | Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints |
| forty-niners | the people (almost all young men) who joined the rush for gold in California in 1849 |
| heritage | the traditional beliefs, values, and customs of a family or country |
| tradition | a belief, custom, or way of doing something that has existed for a long time |
| vaqueros | cowboys |
| rodeo | roundup |
| adapt | to change in order to survive in a new or different environment or situation |
| pastor | herder |
| irrigation | a system for bringing water to farmland by artificial means, such as using a dam to trap water and ditches to channel it to fields |
| adobe | a mixture of earth, grass, and water that is shaped into bricks and baked in the sun |
| reservation | An area of land set aside by the government for Native Americans. Generally were on poor land that settlers didn’t want. |
| transcontinental railroad | a railroad that crosses a continent (trans means “across”) |
| stockyard | a large holding pen where cattle are kept temporarily |
