| A | B |
|---|
| Great Plains | AN AREA OF LAND THAT STRETCHES FROM THE 98th MERIDIAN TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, flat Grasslands that gently rise in elevation from east to west. |
| reservations | - areas of federal land set aside for American Indians. The government expected the Indian to stay on the reservation. |
| Ghost Dance | A religious movement predicting the arrival of a paradise for American Indians. Indians who performed the dance believed that it would lead to a new life free from suffering. |
| Massacre at Wounded Knee | While collecting the arms of the Sioux Indians in SD a shot was fired and a slaughter followed where 150 Sioux died, mostly women and children. This was the last major event of the Plains Indian war |
| Dawes Act | In an attempt to improve the lives of Native Americans a law was passed that made land ownership private rather than shared. After the land was broken up, what was left was sold - the result was that the tribes lost about 2/3 of their land. The law was a failure. |
| Chief Joseph | Leader of the Nez Perce tribe; attempted to lead his group to Canada to escape the Army. They were stopped and Joseph gave a speech in which he promised he would not fight again. |
| Boomtowns | The communities that sprang up when a mine opened. Often disappeared quickly when the mine closed. |
| Transcontinental Railroad | A rail line that connected the East to the West. The US government encouraged the construction by passing laws that gave railroad companies loans and large land grants |
| Comstock Lode | The name given to the discovery of gold and silver in western Nevada. |
| Promontory. Utah | The place where the two Railroad companies met to form the Transcontinental Railroad on May 10, 1869, a golden spike was used to connect the two tracks. |
| open range | Large areas of open land that had once been occupied by Indians and buffalo, now used by ranchers to graze their large herds. Open range ended in the 1880s because of competition for use of the open land and the invention of barbed wire, |
| cattle drive | A journey taken by cowboys and herds in order to get the cattle to market (where cattle towns met the railroad) or to the northern Plains for grazing. Usually lasted several months. |
| range wars | Competition over land use between large ranchers, small ranchers, and farmers. |
| Chisholm Trail | One of the earliest and most popular routes for cattle drives. Ran from San Antonio, Texas to Abilene, Kansas. |
| sodbuster | A nickname for farmers in the west because it took great effort to break up the dirt or sod so that crops could be planted. |
| dry farming | The shift from the water dependent crops like corn to crops that could withstand dry conditions. Also involved keeping part of the land unplowed to keep the moisture in the soil. |
| Homestead Act | gave government owned land to small farmers; 160 acres of land in exchange for a small registration fee and a promise to live there for 5 years. |
| Exoduster | Southern African Americans who went west were called this because of their exodus, or migration west. Many had been sharecroppers after the Civil War. |
| Cyrus McCormick/reaper | A designer, builder and seller of farm equipment. This machinery allowed farmers to harvest large fields more quickly and with fewer workers. |
| Battle of Little Bighorn | The worst defeat that the US Army suffered in the West. Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse defeated George Armstrong Custer. |
