| A | B |
|---|
| frontier | an undeveloped area |
| Comstock Lode | huge deposit of gold and silver in Nevada 1859 |
| boomtowns | communities that suddenly grew when a mine opened |
| Cattle Kingdom | The Great Plains from Texas to Canada where many ranchers raised cattle |
| cattle drive | long journeys; cowboys would herd cattle to market or plains for grazing |
| Chisholm Trail | Texas to Kansas; one of the earliest and most popular routes for cattle drives |
| Pony Express | system of messengers on horseback that carried messages West |
| transcontinental railroad | a railroad that would cross the continent and connect the East to the West |
| Treaty of Fort Laramie | first major treaty between U.S. government and the Plains Indians |
| reservations | areas of federal land set aside for Native Americans |
| Treaty of Medicine Lodge | most southern Plains Indians agreed to live on reservations |
| buffalo soldiers | troops that included African Americans that were sent to an area to force Indians to leave and do live on reservations |
| Sitting Bull | leader of the Sioux Indians who refused to give up land in Black Hills to be mined |
| George Armstrong Custer | his soldiers discovered gold in the Black Hills |
| Battle of Little Big Horn | Sioux forces led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull fight and defeat Custer and his troops |
| Massacre at Wounded Kneed | US army shot and killed about 150 Sioux-last major incident on the Plains |
| Long Walk | 300 mile march the Navajo were forced to take to a 300 mile walk in desert to a reservation in New Mexico |
| Geronimo | Apache Indian who avoided capture by US forces |
| Ghost Dance | predicted the arrival of paradise for Native Americans. In this paradise buffalo would return and settlers would disappear |
| Dawes General Allotment Act | tried to lessen traditional influences on Indian society by making land ownership private rather than shared. Promised but failed to Indians US citizenship |
| Homestead Act | gave government owned land to small farmers |
| Morrill Act | granted more than 17 million acres of federal land to the states |
| Exodusters | southerners who made a mass departure from the South |
| Sodbusters | Name given to Plains farmers who had the hard work of breaking up sod |
| dry farming | a new method of farming that shifted the focus away from water-dependent crops such as corn |
| National Grange | a social and educational organization for farmers |
| Annie Bidwell | used her influence to support a variety of moral and social causes such as women's suffrage and temperance |
| deflation | a decrease in the money supply and overall lower prices |
| Populist Party | called for the government to own railroads and telephone and telegraph systems. Wanted an 8 hour workday and limits on immigration |
