| A | B |
|---|
| California Gold Rush | began in1849 when thousands raced to California to find gold |
| forty-niners | miners who swarmed California gold fields |
| vacqueros | spanish cowboys |
| cow towns | towns where cattle were loaded on trains to be shipped east |
| Chisholm Trail | cattle trail from San Antonio to Abilene |
| transcontinental railroad | railway that connected the east and west coasts |
| lobbyist | person who tries to persuade legislators to pass laws that help their group |
| Pacific Railway Act | law passed in 1862 to provide land to build a transcontinental railroad |
| Promontory Point, Utah | place where the transcontinental railroad was completed |
| railroad barons | railroad owners who became very rich and powerful |
| Sand Creek Massacre | over 150 American Indians were killed by U.S. soldiers |
| reservations | federal land reserved for an American Indian tribe |
| Treaty of Fort Laramie | 1868 treaty that guaranteed the Sioux tribe land in South Dakota |
| George Armstrong Custer | army leader defeated and killed at the Battle of the Little Big Horn |
| Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse | wiped out Custer's troops at the Battle of the Little Big Horn |
| assimilation | adaptation or absorption of one culture by another |
| Dawes Act of 1887 | reservation land divided up among individuals instead of tribes |
| Homestead Act of 1862 | law that made 160 acres of land available to homesteaders |
| soddies | houses made of sod |
| arid climate | generally dry weather conditions |
| steel plow | tool that made it much easier to cut through prairie sod |
| mechanical reaper | used to cut and bind sheaves of grain at harvest |
| windmills | pumped water from deep wells |
| Exodusters | African Americans who left the South to settle on the plains |
| populism | favors the interests of common people over those of the wealthy business owners |
| monetary policy | controls the supply and value of money |
| gold standard | currency in circulation is backed by and equal amount of gold |
| Greenback Party | political movement in the 1880's that hoped to increase the money supply to create inflation |
| James B. Weaver | populist candidate who ran for president in 1892 |
