| A | B |
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| Great Plains | The grassland extending through the west central portion of the US. |
| Horse and Buffalo | Horses brought by the Spanish allowed native tribes to travel further. Buffalo were hunted and a source of trade for tribes. |
| Native Family Life | Tribes usually congregated in SMALL extended family groups where everyone spoke the same language. Young men were trained to be hunters & warriors. Powerful spirits were said to control the natural world. |
| Settlers Push Westward | Unlike natives, settlers believed land could be bought or claimed. White settlers argued that natives desrved to loose land because they didn't settle or improve it. |
| Railroad & wagon trains | Both used as a means of transportation to claim land in the west. |
| Silver and Gold | Both precious metals were found and rumored to be in the West, motivating more white settlers to head there. |
| Colorado, 1858 | Gold discovered that year. |
| 1834 | The year that the federal government passed an act making the entire Great Plains one big reservation. |
| 1850's | Indian policy changes and instead sets aside specific land for specific tribes. |
| Massacre at Sand Creek | Cheyenne tribe returned to Colorado's Sand Creek Reserve thinking they were protected. Instead, Colonel Chivington and his troops opened fire and 150 were killed, mostly women and children. |
| Crazy Horse | Sioux warrior who ambushed US troops killing 80 soldiers. |
| Treaty of Fort Laramie | Sioux agreed to live on a reservation along the Missouri River. Only tempporarily stopped war between US troops, settlers and Indians. |
| Sitting Bull | A Sioux indian that would not sign the Treaty of Fort Laramie and expected to continue to use their traditional hunting grounds. |
| Red River War | 1874-1875. US army rounded up all friendly tribes on reservations and all other tribes they destroyed their villages, livestock, warriors and only brought back the women & children. |
| Gold Rush | Gold was found in the BLACK HILLS of North Dakota. Indians stood in the way. |
| George A. Custer | US colonel who reported the gold and started a gold rush. |
| Custer's Last Stand | Custer took his men to the Little Bighorn River where Sioux and Cheyenne warriors waited for them. Within an hour, Custer and all of his men were dead. |
| assimilation | A plan under which Native Americans would give up their Indian ways and traditions and become part of the white culture. |
| Dawes Act | 1887. This act broke up the reservations and gave some of the resrvation land to individual Native Americans, 160 acres to head of households and 80 acres to unmarried adults. The remainder of the land would be SOLD TO SETTLERS! By 1932, whites had taken 2/3 of total land. |
| End of the Buffalo | Tourists and fur traders shot buffalo for sport. Eventually the buffalo are nearly extinct ENDING a significan way of life for native tribes. Buffalo were the Plains Indians main source of food, clothing, shelter, an fuel. By 1900, only one single herd existed under protection in Yellowstone Park. |
| Ghost Dance Movement | A ritual among the Sioux that leaders promised would return their lands and way of life. Scared to death soldiers and white settlers. Resulted in the death of Sitting Bull who advocated the dance to his people. |
| Battle of Wounded Knee | Seventh Calvary rounded up 350 starving and freezing Sioux, took them to a camp at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Soldiers demanded that the Sioux give up their weapons, a shot was fired by someone starting a volley of firing. When it was over, 300 unarmed natives were dead including children. Represents the END of the indian wars. |
| Cattle Becomes Big Business | As buffalo disappeared, cattle took their place on the Great Plains and ranching became a profitable business from Texas to Kansas. |
| Texas Longhorns | sturdy, short tempered breeds of cattle accustomed to the dry grasslands of Spain. Used for food and helped to introduce horses as work animals and transportation. |
| Vaquero | Mexican cowboy who was the 1st to wear spurs and chapparrearas or chaps. |
| Broncos | "Rough horse" that ran wild. |
| mestenos | Mustangs that the American coyboys tamed. |
| Mexican rancho | Became the American ranch |
| Railroads | It was not until the railroads came to the Great Plains that cowboys were seen as valuable workers due to the growing demand for BEEF in rapidly growing cities like Chicago and New York.. . |
| Chisholm Trail | the major cattle route from San Antonio, Texas through Oklahoma to Kansas. Soon after the trail opened 75,000 cattle were being driven by cowboys who were suddenly in demand. |
| A day's work | The average workday for a coyboy was 10 to 14 hours on ranch or trail. |
| Roundup | Occurred during the spring when cowboys would herd up all longhorns on the open ranch to a fenced in corral , keeping the cattle there until they were so hungry they would graze instead of running away. |
| Long Drive | The overland transport of cattle to various locations. There were usually 1 cowboy for every 250 cattle. Slept in the saddle or on the ground, bathed in rivers, risked death often. |
| Trail Boss | Cowboy who supervised the drive and negotiating with settlers or Native Americans to move cattle through the area. |
| Legends of the West | Wild Bill Hancock, Calamity Jane. |
| Barbed Wire | This invention by Joseph F. Glidden allowed farmers to section off their land and keep cowboys from driving cattle through their property. |
| Factors that led to the End of the Open Range | Barbed wire, overgrazing of land by cattle, and bad weather. |
| Importance of the Railroads | Opened the west up to settlement |
| Central Pacific and the Union Pacific | Railway lines competing to get to the Pacific first. |
| Civil War veterans, Chinese & Irish immigrants, African Americans, & Mexican Americans | Famous for doing the back breaking labor of laying railroads tracks to crisscross the west. |
| Homestead Act | offered 160 acres to any citizen or intended citizen who was head of a household. 600,000 families took up the government's offer. |
| exodusters | African Americans who moved from the post Civil War South and the failure of Reconstruction to Kansas. |
| Problems of the Homestead Act | About only 10% of the land was actually settled by families as intended. The majority was taken up by private speculators and railroad companies. |
| Oklahoma Land Rush | land hungry settlers claimed 2 million acres in LESS THAN A DAY! |
| Sooner State | Nickname given to Oklahoma after many of it's settlers claimed land SOONER than they were supposed to by law. |
| 1890 | The year that the federal government proclaimed that the country no longer had a continous frontier, meaning the frontier no longer existed. |
| Frederick Jackson Turner | Historian who argued that it was the settling of the frontier that made America unique. |
| Dugouts and Soddies | Settler built their homes out of the sides of hills, mud, or dried grasses. Hence the names, dugouts or soddies. |
| Women on the prairie | Worked outside with the men, plowed the land, planted, harvested, sheared sheep, made clothes, found water, sponsored churches and schools. |
| John Deere | Invented the steel plow in 1837 |
| Cyrus McCormick | Mass produced the first reaping machine or harvesting machine. |
| 1900 | Took only 10 minutes to produce a bushel of grain compared to 1890 when it took 183 minutes. |
| Morrill Act | Gave federal land to the states to help finance agricultural colleges |
| "breadbasket of the nation" | Nickname given to the dry eastern plans after settlers, inventions, colleges turned the place into a mass producer of wheat. |
| bonaza farms | enormous single crop spreads of 15,000 to 50,000 acres. Usually owned by railroad companies and investors. |
| We are popular farmers | Funnny sounding rhyme to help you remember that the Populist Party or people's party was started by FARMERS. |
| Populist reform | United farmers wanted to protect workers, reform income tax, regulate all too powerful railroad companies. |
| Grange | Patrons of the Husbandry or Grange. Purpose to provide an social outlet and educational forum for isolated farming families. |
| Farmers Alliance | Sent lecturers to towns to educate people about lower interest rates on loans and government control over railroads and banks. |
| Populism | movement of the people. Demanded reforms to life the burden of debt from farmers and other workers and to give the people a greater voice in government. |
| Panic of 1893 | Caused by farmers who could not pay back loans and too much railroad expansion. Railroad companies went bankrupt, gold was scarce, stocks fell on Wall street, price of silver plummeted. |
| bimetallism | Favored by those who wanted a monetary system in which the government would give citizens either gold or silver in exchange for paper currency. |
| gold standard | Favored by those who opposed bimetallism and instead wanted backing of paper money with GOLD ONLY. |
| William McKinley | Presidential nominee who backed the gold standard. |
| William Jenings Bryan | Presidential candidate who gave a famous speech "Cross of Gold Speech" where he outlined the reasons BIMETALLISM would save the country from tanother type of Panic of 1893. |
| Cross of Gold Speech | Delivered by William Jennings Bryan to support the adoption of bimetallism by the US government. |
| End of Populism | When McKinley won the presidency along with his gold standard all hoped of the farmers and their populism died with his victory. |
| Legacy of Populism | 1) downtrodden could organize and have a political impact 2) an agenda of reforms were enacted that impact modern day America |
