Transcontinental Railroad
This 1862 federal law encouraged railroad construction across the U.S. by providing land grants and government loans to private companies.
What is The Pacific Railway Act?
Enacted in 1862, this federal policy offered 160 acres of public land to settlers who agreed to live on and cultivate it for five years.
What is the Homestead Act?
This Civil War veteran founded the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania in 1879 to enforce cultural assimilation.
Who is Captain Richard Henry Pratt?
This famous 1876 battle, also called Custer's Last Stand, saw a coalition of Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors defeat the 7th Cavalry.
What is the Battle of the Little Bighorn?
In 1890, this federal government agency officially declared that a clear continuous frontier line no longer existed in the West.
What is the U.S. Census Bureau?
This railroad company built westward from Omaha, Nebraska, using mostly Irish immigrants and Civil War veterans.
What is the Union Pacific Railroad?
Due to a severe lack of timber on the Great Plains prairies, homesteaders
constructed houses out of thick blocks of this natural material.
What is sod (or soddies)?
Captain Pratt summarized the ultimate goal of the Indian Boarding School system with this famous six-word slogan.
What is Kill the Indian, save the man
This Hunkpapa Lakota spiritual leader and chief organized resistance against U.S. encroachment and co-led forces at Little Bighorn.
Who is Sitting Bull?
This historian presented an influential 1893 thesis arguing that the western frontier was the key driver of American democracy and national identity.
Who is Frederick Jackson Turner?
This Construction Superintendent for the Central Pacific hired thousands of Chinese immigrants, praising their reliability despite paying them lower net wages.
Who is Charles Crocker?
This nickname was given to thousands of African American migrants who moved from the South to Kansas in the late 1870s seeking freedom and land.
Who are the Exodusters?
Upon arriving at boarding schools, Native children were stripped of traditional
clothing and had this physical feature cut short.
What is their hair?
In 1877, this Nez Perce leader attempted to lead his people 1,100 miles toward Canada to avoid forced reservation placement before surrendering.
Who is Chief Joseph?
On December 29, 1890, U.S. soldiers killed over 150 Lakota men, women, and children at this South Dakota site, ending major armed Plains resistance.
What is the Wounded Knee Massacre?
On May 10, 1869, the Central Pacific and Union Pacific tracks were officially linked with a golden spike at this location in Utah.
What is Promontory Point (or Promontory Summit)?
Because wood was unavailable for cooking and heating, Great Plains settlers burned dried manure known by this informal term.
What are buffalo chips?
Boarding school administrators enforced an "English Only" policy, punishing students caught speaking native languages with this harsh mouth wash.
What is lye soap?
This tragic 1864 event in Colorado involved U.S. troops attacking a peaceful Cheyenne village, killing many women and children.
What is the Sand Creek Massacre?
While crossing the country by wagon previously took six months, the Transcontinental Railroad reduced cross-country travel time to this short duration.
What is a little over one week (7-8 days)?
Central Pacific workers carved 15 tunnels through solid granite while enduring 40-foot snow drifts in this treacherous mountain range.
What are the Sierra Nevada Mountains?
Settlers fulfilling the legal requirements of the Homestead Act had to follow three main steps summarized as file, improve, and this.
What is prove?
Passed in 1887, this law divided tribal lands into individual family allotments to encourage assimilation, costing Native nations millions of acres.
What is the Dawes Act?
This spiritual movement promised the restoration of Native lands and buffalo, but its suppression led directly to the Wounded Knee Massacre.
What is the Ghost Dance?
The destruction of these vast herds severely damaged Plains Indian independence, economies, and traditional ways of life.
What are the American buffalo (bison)?