Vocabulary
Built from squares of earth on the prairie because stones and trees were scarce.
Sod Houses
He was a famous black cowboy who grew up slavery.
Nat Love
This was used to keep livestock in bounds and mark property lines.
Barbed Wire
This railroad was completed in 1869.
Transcontinental Railroad
Areas where Native Americans were forced to move to as more and more white Americans were moving west and grabbing land.
Reservations
He was the president who signed the Homestead Act into law in 1862.
Abraham Lincoln
These were used to pump fresh water from in the ground.
Windmills
The California Gold Rush began in this year.
1849
To absorb one cultural group into another; to become more like a different cultural group than your own.
Assimilate
He was a Nez Perce Chief who made a treaty with the United States so that his people could stay on their homeland.
Chief Joseph
This was used to grow crops without using much water. Farmers planted seeds deeper in the ground to keep them moist, then covered them with mulch.
Dry Farming
This group of people found new beginnings and great opportunities in the West.
Former Slaves
200 Lakota men, women, and children were murdered during their sacred ceremony, "The Ghost Dance," by the U.S Calvary.
Wounded Knee Massacre
He was an Apache Indian Chief who fought many battles against the U.S. Army. He eventually became a prisoner of war and a sort of celebrity, traveling the country.
Geronimo
This became the main cash crop of the plains.
Wheat
People who went to California hoping to get rich, most ended up poor and stuck there.
The 49ers
The 19th century belief that the expansion of the United States was justified and inevitable.
Manifest Destiny
This U.S. General is famous for dying at the Battle of Little Bighorn, where he and his regiment of 267 soldiers were greatly outnumbered.
General George Custer
Created by John Deere, this was used to break the tough, dry soil of the prairie.
Steel Plow
List the five reasons for Westward expansion.
Cheap land, new transportation, wealth, adventure, new beginnings