Terms
Granted white settlers 160 acres to incentivize settling the west
What is the Homestead Act?
The Homesteaders received ownership of their 160 acres after living there for this long
What is 5 years?
Vast areas of grassland used by ranchers to graze their herds.
What is the open range?
Invented to protect crops from roaming cattle
What is barbed wire?
The two factors that influence why people move
What are push and pull factors?
The belief that it was God's will for the west to be settled.
What is Manifest Destiny?
Large dry grassland where settlers homesteaded and began to grow wheat
What is the Great Plains?
The first major discovery of silver ore in the United States, located in Virginia City, Nevada.
What is the Comstock Lode?
A machine invented for harvesting wheat
What is the McCormick reaper?
The event is US history that caused many black Americans to move west?
What is the end of the Civil War?
A farming method used in dry climates where seeds are planted deep in the soil where there is enough moisture for them to grow
What is dry farming?
The ranchers livelihood was threatened by the farmers building this
What are fences?
A battle between the United States and Native Americans that resulted in the massacre of approximately 300 Lakota men, women, and children
What is the Battle of Wounded Knee?
Invented by John Deere to cut through the thick prairie grass and soil
What is the steel plow?
The idea that the trials of westward expansion forged our national identity
What is the Frontier Thesis?
The process of absorbing Native Americans into American society by forcing them to learn English and to adopt American culture.
What is assimilation?
Cowboys took cattle on the "long drive" to this location
What is the railroad?
Large, highly-profitable farms in the west that typically grew a single cash crop (wheat).
What is Bonanza Farming?
Used by homesteaders to pump fresh water for drinking
What is a windmill?
The state on the "edge" of the US where trails westward began
What is Missouri?
A program which divided Native American reservations into individual plots of land for farming and ranching and gave those plots to individual Native American families.
What is the Dawes Act?
The companies that received free land from the government but sold it to Homesteaders for a profit
What are railroad companies?
United States military officer who led US troops in the Battle of Little Bighorn, resulting in the deaths of Custer and almost all of his men.
Who is George A. Custer?
Temporary homes built out of grass and soil.
What is a sod house?
The discovery of gold caused this mass migration west
What is the California Gold Rush?