U.S. History Chapter 17 Vocab
Chinese Exlusion Act
1882 law that effectively barred Chinese immigration and set a precedent for further imiigration restrictions. Racial and cultural animosities stood at the heart of the anti-Chinese agitation that led to the passage of the Exclusion Act. The Chinese Exclusion Act led to a sharp drop in the Chinese population in America.
Dawes Allotment Act
1887 Law that divided up reservations and allotted parcels of land to individual Indians as private property. In the end. the American government sold almost 2-3rds of Indian land to white settlers. The Dawes Act dealt a crippling blow to traditional tribal culture.
Exodusters
A group of former slaves from Mississippi and Louisiana who moved west to Kansas in 1879 so that they could own land and escape the sharecropping system.
Homestead Act of 1862
Act that promised 160 acres in the trans-Mississippi West to free to any citizen who settled on the land for 5-years. Between 1870 and 1900. hundress of thousands of Americans moved west, many drawn by the promise of free land.
Battle of the Little Big Horn
Battle between Sioux warriors led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull and American cavalry led by George Armstrong Custer. When Custer charged into a Siouz encampment, he and his men were killed. The Battle of Little Big Horn was a major military victory for the Sioux, but their success was shortlived.
Geronimo
Chiracahua Apache shaman (medicine man) who refused to stay at the San Carlos Reservation and repeatedly led raiding parties in the early 1880's. Geronimo and his banf were captured in September 1886. Although fewer than three dozen Apaches had been identified as "hostiles" the government rounded up nearly 500 Apaches, including the scouts who had helped track Geronimo, and sent them as prisoners to Florida.
Wounded Knee
December 1890 massacre of Sioux Indians by American cavalry at Wouned Knee Creek, South Dakota. Sent to suppress the Ghost Dance, the soldiers opened fire on a group of Sioux as they attempted to surrender. More than 200 Sioux men, women, and children were killed.
Sitting Bull
Great Sioux leader of the second half of the nineteenth century. Sitting Bull was among those who refused to sign the two Treatie of Fort Lamarie (1851 and 1868). Along with Crazy Horse, he led Indian forces at the Battle of Little Big Horn. Sitting Bull surrendered in 1881. When, in 1890, Sitting Bull joined the Ghost dance, he was killed by Indian police as they tried to arrest him.
Ghost Dance
New religion that served as a nonviolent form of resistance for Indians in the late nineteenth century. The Pauite shaman Wovoka combined elements of Christianity and traditional Indian religion to found the Ghost dance religion in 1889. The Ghost Dance frightened whites and was violently surpressed.
Comstock Lode
Silver ore deposit discovered in 1859 in the Washoe basin in Nevada. Discovery of the Comstock Lode touched off an influx of people into the region and led to the establishment of a number of boomtowns, including Virginia City, Nevada. By 1875, Virgina City had a diverse population of about 25,000 people.
1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie
Treaty with the Sioux in which the United States agreed to abandon the Bozeman Trail and guarentee Sioux xontrol of the Black Hils. The treaty was signed following a bief war with the Sioux on the norther plains.
