Ch 17 Vocabulary Terms

Front 1

GREAT PLAINS

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The Great Plains are the broad expanse of prairie, steppe and grassland which lie west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada.

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"CROWD NOBODY"

Back 2

What Horace Greely, editor of the New York Tribune, told people when he referred to moving out west where there were no inhabitants or great cities.

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"INDIAN COUNTRY"

Back 3

The land west of the Mississippi and east of California that was never considered useful by American society and was used as a giant Indian reservation.

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CHIVINGTON MASSACRE

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On November 2, 1864, a group of Colorado militia led by by Colonel John M, Chivington attacked a tribe led by Chief Black Kettle when the group was sleeping.

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RED CLOUD

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A Sioux chief, responsible for the Fetterman Massacre.

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FETTERMAN MASSACRE

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In December 1866 Chief Red Cloud led Captain William J. Fetterman into the wilderness and then ambushed them killing all eighty-two soldiers.

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BUFFALO SOLDIERS

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A term used to describe black cavalrymen that served in the west. Particularly the Ninth and Tenth cavalry.

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RED RIVER WAR

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The Red River War was a military campaign launched by the U.S. Army in 1874 to remove the Comanche, Kiowa, Southern Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indian tribes from the Southern Plains where they had been raiding settlers and travelers and enforce their relocation to reservations in Indian Territory.

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SITTING BULL

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A Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux holy man who led his people as a war chief during years of resistance to United States government policies. Born near the Grand River in Dakota Territory, he was killed by Indian agency police on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation during an attempt to arrest him and prevent him from supporting the Ghost Dance movement.

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CRAZY HORSE

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a Native American war leader of the Oglala Lakota. He took up arms against the U.S. Federal government to fight against encroachments on the territories and way of life of the Lakota people, including leading a war party at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in June 1876. After surrendering to U.S. troops under General Crook in 1877, Crazy Horse was fatally wounded by a military guard while allegedly resisting imprisonment at Camp Robinson in present-day Nebraska.

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GEORGE ARMSTRONG CUSTER

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a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. Today he is most remembered for a disastrous military engagement known as the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

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7TH CAVALRY

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The 7th Cavalry Regiment is a United States Army cavalry regiment. Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer was killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876 with 211 men of the 7th Cavalry.

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NEZ PERCE TRIBE

Back 13

The Nez Perce (pronounced /ˌnɛzˈpɜrs/) are a tribe of Native Americans who live in the Pacific Northwest region (Columbia River Plateau) of the United States.

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CHIEF JOSEPH

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was the chief of the Wal-lam-wat-kain (Wallowa) band of Nez Perce during General Oliver O. Howard's attempt to forcibly remove his band and the other "non-treaty" Nez Perce to a reservation in Idaho. For his principled resistance to the removal, he became renowned as a humanitarian and peacemaker.

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WOVOKA

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Is also known as Jack Wilson, was the Northern Paiute religious leader who founded the Ghost Dance movement. Wovoka means "cutter" [1] or "wood cutter" in the Northern Paiute language.

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GHOST DANCE

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was a religious movement which was incorporated into numerous Native American belief systems. The chief figure in the movement was the prophet of peace, Jack Wilson, known as Wovoka among the Paiute. He prophesied a peaceful end to white American expansion while preaching goals of clean living, an honest life, and cross-cultural cooperation by Native Americans.

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WOUNDED KNEE MASSACRE

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occurred on December 29, 1890 near Wounded Knee Creek (Lakota: Cankpe Opi Wakpala) on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. By the time it was over, at least 150 men, women, and children of the Lakota Sioux had been killed and 51 wounded (4 men, 47 women and children, some of whom died later); some estimates placed the number of dead at 300.

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ASSIMILATION

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Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New customs and attitudes are acquired through contact and communication.

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COURT OF INDIAN OFFENSES

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A special court created by Congress to try Native Americans who were charged with breaking government rules.

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DAWES SEVERALTY ACT

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Divided tribal lands into small plots for distribution among member of the tribe. Each family head received 160 acres, single adults 80 acres and children 40 acres. Once the land was distributed any surplus was sold to white settlers, with the profits going to Native American schools.

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EXTERMINATION OF THE BUFFALO

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The killing began in the 1860's as the transcontinental railroads pushed west and it stepped us as settlers found they could harm the Indians by harming the buffalo.

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BUFFALO BILL CODY

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an American soldier, bison hunter and showman. He was born in the Iowa Territory (now the American state of Iowa), near LeClaire. He was one of the most colorful figures of the American Old West, and mostly famous for the shows he organized with cowboy themes such as the Wild West Show.

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GOLD RUSH OF 1849

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began on January 24, 1848, when gold was discovered by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill, in Coloma, California.[1] News of the discovery brought some 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad.[2] Of the 300,000, approximately half arrived by sea and half walked overland.

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OVERLAND TRAIL

Back 24

was a stagecoach and wagon trail in the American West during the 19th century. While portions of the route had been used by explorers and trappers since the 1820s, the Overland Trail was most heavily used in the 1860s as an alternative route to the Oregon, California and Mormon trails through central Wyoming

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HOMESTEAD ACT OF 1862

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one of several United States federal laws that gave an applicant freehold title to up to 160 acres (1/4 section, 65 hectares) of undeveloped federal land outside the original 13 colonies. The law required three steps: file an application, improve the land, and file for deed of title. Anyone who had never taken up arms against the U.S. government, including freed slaves, could file an application and evidence of improvements to a federal land office. The act sold about 100 million acres to private citizens and corporations, granted 128 million acres to railroad companies and sold huge tracts to the states.

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TIMBER CULTURE ACT OF 1873

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a follow-up act to the Homestead Act. The Timber Culture Act was passed by Congress in 1873. The act allowed homesteaders to get another 160 acres (0.65 km2) of land if they planted trees on one-fourth of the land, because the land was "almost one entire plain of grass, which is and ever must be useless to cultivating man."

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TIMBER AND STONE ACT OF 1878

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sold Western timberland for $2.50 per acre ($618/km²) in 160 acre (0.6 km²) blocks.
Land that was deemed "unfit for farming" was sold to those who might want to "timber and stone" (logging and mining) upon the land. The act was used by speculators who were able to get great expanses declared "unfit for farming" allowing them to increase their land holdings at minimal expense.
In theory the purchaser was to make affidavit that he was entering the land exclusively for his own use and no association was to enter more than 160 acres (0.6 km²). In practice wealthy companies fraudulently obtained title for up to twenty thousand acres (80 km²) by hiring men to enter 160 acre (0.6 km²) lots which were then deeded to the company after a nominal compliance with the law.

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NATIONAL RECLAMATION ACT

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a United States federal law that funded irrigation projects for the arid lands of 17 states in the American West using income from the sale of public lands.

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ROMUALDO PACHECO

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An American politician and diplomat. Involved in California state and federal politics, Pacheco was elected and appointed to various posts and offices throughout his more than thirty-year career, including the California State Senate, the 12th Governor of California, and three terms in the United States House of Representatives.

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LAS GORRAS BLANCAS

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were a group active in the American Southwest in the late 1880s and early 1890s. The group believed in Mexican reclamation of land taken by Anglo farmers and used intimidation and raids to accomplish their goals. They sought to develop a class-based consciousness among local people through the everyday tactics of resistance to the economic and social order confronting common property land grant communities.

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PLACER MINING

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The mining of alluvial deposits for minerals. Simply by using a sluice box or a pan to separate sand and water from mineral deposits.

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COMSTOCK LODE

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In 1859 , fresh strikes of gold were found near Piles Peak in Colorado and in the Carson River Valley of Neveda. THe gold there quickly played out but the find uncovered a thick bluish black ore that appeared to be pure silver and gold. A quick-witted drifter named Henry T.P. Comstock talked his way into partnership in the claim and the Comstock Lode with ore worth $3876 a ton quickly gained attention.

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CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT

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a United States federal law signed into law by Chester A. Arthur on May 8, 1882, following revisions made in 1880 to the Burlingame Treaty of 1868. Those revisions allowed the U.S. to suspend immigration, and Congress subsequently acted quickly to implement the suspension of Chinese immigration, a ban that was intended to last 10 years.

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FOREIGN MINERS TAX

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A $20 monthly licensing fee that was placed upon foreign miners.

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VAQUEROS

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Mexican cowboys that developed the techniques of branding, roundups, and roping.

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WYOMING STOCK GROWERS ASSOCIATION

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a historic American cattle organization created in 1873. The Association was started among Wyoming cattle ranchers to standardize and organize the cattle industry, but quickly grew into a political force that has been called "the de facto territorial government"[1] of Wyoming's organization into early statehood, and wielded great influence throughout the American West.

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EXODUSTERS

Back 37

name given to African Americans who fled the Southern United States for Kansas in 1879 and 1880. After the end of Reconstruction, racial oppression and rumors of the reinstitution of slavery led many freedmen to seek a new place to live.
Many migrated to, and then settled, primarily in Kansas because of its fame as the land of the abolitionist John Brown. The state was reputed to be more progressive and tolerant than most others.

Front 38

DRY FARMING

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A farming technique that required crops to be planted in furrows 12 to 14 inches deep and surrounded by a dust mulch in order to loosen the soil and slow evaporation.

Front 39

NATIONAL GRANGE

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The Grange provided social, cultural and educational activities for it's members. It's constitution banned involvement in politics.

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BONANZA FARMS

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very large farms in the United States performing large-scale operations, mostly growing and harvesting wheat. Bonanza farms were made possible by a number of factors including: the efficient new farming machinery of the 1870s, the cheap abundant land available during that time period, the growth of eastern markets in the U.S., and the completion of most major railroads.

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"Hydraulic" society

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Referring to the dependence of the early west upon proper aqueducts and irrigation systems in order for the land to be cultivated.

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"Instant Cities"

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The ability of the west to be able to grow at an accelerated rate due to a combination of immigration and the attraction of gold miners to areas. Thus causing the rapid construction of metropolitan areas in the West.