Help
Options
Didn't know it?
click below
click below
Knew it?
click below
click below
Don't Know
Remaining cards (0)
Know
retry
shuffle
restart
0:00
Embed Code - If you would like this activity on your web page, copy the script below and paste it into your web page.
Normal Size Small Size show me how
Normal Size Small Size show me how
West Vocab
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Frontier | unsettled or sparsely settled area of the country occupied by Native Americans. |
| Great Plains | The area from the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains |
| Comstock Lode | Location of a mine of valuable minerals next to Virginia City, Nevada |
| Boomtown | A town that has a sudden burst of economic or population growth |
| Ghost Town | A once thriving community in which of the population has left |
| igilantes | People that took the law into their own hands due to lack of law enforcement. |
| Exodusters | freed slaves that fled the south after Reconstruction and settled in the West |
| Wyoming | The first state to give women the right to vote. |
| Transcontinental railroad | a railroad that would span the continental connected the east with the west. |
| Union Pacific | Railroad company that began in Omaha and built track going west on the Great Plains. |
| Central Pacific | Railroad company that started in California and went east, blasting through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. |
| Golden Spike | Even in which the Union Pacific and Central Pacific met in Promontory Summit, Utah in 1869: completed the first transcontinental railroad. |
| Long drive | a 2-3 mount trip in which cowboys led cattle to the cow towns along the railroads. |
| Open Range | Unfenced land on the Great Plains in which cattle were allowed to graze. |
| Vaquero | The first cowboys that came from Mexico and settled in the Southwest. |
| Cowhand | Cowboys that took the cattle from Texas to the railroads on the Great Plains. |
| Sitting Bull | Sioux chief and medicine man that led native forces at the Battle of Little Bighorn. |
| crazy Horse | Sioux chief and warrior that fought at the Battle of Little Bighorn and was known for his bravery. |
| Geronimo | Apache chief that fought Mexican and US forces in the Southwest, surrendered to the US government in 1887 |
| Chief Joseph | Chief of the Nez Perce tribe, led them in a daring escape to Canada fighting off the US army. |
| Reservation | An area of land set aside for Native Americans to live on. |
| Battle of Little Bighorn | Battle in which the US 7th cavalry was massacred by the Sioux, cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors. |
| George Custer | Leader of the US seventh cavalry known for fighting Native Americans; was defeated and killed at the Battle of Little Bighorn |
| Wounded Knee | Event in which a group of US soldiers massacred a camp of 300 Sioux men, women, and children in 1890; marked the end of all armed resistance in the West |
| Dawes act | US law that forced natives to assimilate by making them farmers and sending native children to boarding schools in the east. |
| Buffalo Soldiers | Regiment of African American cavalry tat gained fame fighting Native Americans in the west |
| Barbed wire | invented by Joseph Glidden; it was cheap and allowed homesteaders to fence in their property; helped to close the open range to cattle grazing. |
| Homestead Act | Federal Law passed in 1862 to encourage Americans and immigrants to settle the west; gave free land to anyone that would live on it for 5 years. |
| Sodbusters | Farmers that lived on the Great Plains; built their homes out of sod, which is the top layers of prairie soil thickly packed with grass roots. |
| Windmills | Technology that helped homesteaders adapt to the Great Plains; pumped water up from the ground. |
Created by:
ralstwre000
Popular History sets