| A | B |
|---|
| What Americans thought of the Great Plains | As the Great American Desert |
| Frontier | an undeveloped area |
| Comstock Lode | Huge deposit of gold/silver discovered in Nevada |
| Dangers of Mining | unsafe equipment, lung disease, fire, cave-ins, explosives |
| Boomtowns | Communities that grew suddenly when a mine opened |
| Joseph McCoy | Built pens for cattle in Abilene Kansas and shipped cattle on nearby rr. |
| Cattle Kingdom | Great Plains from Texas to Canada where ranchers raised cattle |
| Cowhands/Cowboys | Workers who took care of cattle |
| Vaqueros | Showed techniques/tools to cowhands |
| Most dangerous duty of cowhand | cattle drive |
| Cattle Drive | Long journey cowboys herded cattle to market |
| Chisholm Trail | First route for cattle drive |
| End of Open Range | Competition between farmers and ranchers, Small ranchers competiting with large ranches, loss of prarie grass, invention of barbed wire, severe winters |
| Demand in East | beef |
| Most popular breed of cattle | longhorn |
| Need as more Americans moved west | to send goods/information between East and West |
| Pony Express | system of messengers on horseback who carried messages west |
| Telegraph lines | put Pony Express out of business |
| transcontinental railroad | railroad that would cross the continent and connect the East to West |
| How Railroad Companies financed construction | Acts gave railroad companies loans and large land grants that they sold |
| Two companies to build the transcontinental railroad | Union Pacific and Central Pacific |
| Central Pacific | From Sacramento, California to the east |
| Union Pacific | Omaha, Nebraska to west |
| Workers for Union Pacific | Irish immigrants, ex-soldiers, African Americans |
| Workers for Central Pacific | Mostly Chinese immigrants |
| Leland Stanford | Part owner of Central Pacific |
| Challenges for Central Pacific | Breaking through mountain range & weather conditions |
| Challenges for Union Pacific | Harsh weather in Great Plains |
| Promontory, Utah | Where both railroads met with a golden spike |
| Results of Railroad | Increased economic/population growth, better transportation for people/goods, sold land to settlers in West, helped businesses, Railroads became biggest industry in U.S. |
| Plains Indians Depended on 2 animals | horses & buffalo |
| Brought horses to America in 1500's | Spaniards |
| How Plains Indians used the buffalo | Used all parts for survival |
| Treaty of Fort Laramie | First major treaty between U.S. & Plains Indians |
| Reservation | Areas of federal land set aside for Native Americans |
| Crazy Horse | Leader of Sioux Indians |
| Treaty of Medicine Lodge | Most southern Plains Indians agreed to live on reservations. |
| Buffalo Soldiers | Nickname made by Native Americans for African Americans |
| Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer | Led U.S. troops. Him & his troops were killed in the Battle of Little Bighorn. |
| Battle of Little Bighorn | Sioux Indians last major victory |
| Sitting Bull | Leader of Sioux Indians |
| Massacre at Wounded Knee | Last major incident on the Great Plains |
| Long Walk | 300 mile march Navajo were forced to walk |
| Geronimo | Leader of Apache Indians |
| Ghost Dance | Religious movement led by a Paiute Indian named Wovoka that predicted the arrival of paradise for Native Americans |
| Sarah Winnemucca | Gave lectures on problems of reservation system |
| Dawes General Allotment Act | Tried to lessen traditional influences on Indian society by making land orwnership private rather than shared but failed to deliver. |
| Chief Joseph | Leader of Nez Perce |
| Homestead Act | Gave government owned land to small farmers |
| Morrill Act | Granted federal land to the states and required states to sell land and use money to build colleges to build colleges to teach agriculture and engineering |
| What groups took advantage of land offers in West | Immigrants, single women, African Americans |
| Sodbusters | Nickname of Plains farmers |
| Exodusters | The African Americans who made a mass exodus from south |
| Dry Farming | New method of farming shifting focus away from water-dependent crops |
| Breadbasket of the World | The Great Plains |
| Women's role in West | Helped build communities |
| Wyoming | First to give women right to vote |
| Annie Bidwell | Founders of Chico, California who used her influence to support moral & social causes |
| Life in West | Difficult and lonely |
| Laura Ingalls Wilder | Wrote books about settler's lives on the prairie |
| U.S. population from 1860-1900 | More than doubled |
| Overproduction of crops | Resulted in low prices for crops |
| Low prices on crops | Farmers lose farms |
| National Grange | Social & educational organization for farmers |
| Gold Standard | Paper money backed by gold |
| Deflation | Decrease in money supply and overall lower prices |
| Free Silver Movement | Unlimited coining of silver and back paper currency with silver |
| William Jennings Bryan | Political candidate who supported Free Silver Movement |
| Populist Party | New Party who called for the government to own railroads and telphone & telegraph systems and favored free silver |
| What ended the Populist Party | McKinley's victory |
| End of Frontier | Oklahoma Land Rush where people raced to claim the remaining unsettled land |
