U.S. History Chapter 3 Study Guide

rail link between the East and the Western U.S.

Transcontinental railroads

self-appointed law enforcers

Vigilantes

Succeeded his father as chief of the Nez Perce in 1871

Chief Joseph

government departments and their non-elected employees

Civil Service

African Americans who migrated from the South to the West after the Civil War

Exodusters

public lands where Native Americans were forced to live by the federal government

Reservations

practice of the political party giving jobs and appointments to its supporters, rather than to people

Spoils System

method of ranching in which the rancher allowed his or her livestock to roam and gaze over a vast area of grassland

open range-system

What was the primary effect on Native Americans being confined to reservations?

Their nomadic way of life was increasingly effected

Democratic and Populist leader who ran unsuccessfully three times for the US presidency

William Jennings Bryan

25th President of the United States

William McKinley

1890 confrontation between U.S. cavalry and Sioux that marked the end of Indian resistance

Wounded Knee

land designated by the federal government for building schools, roads, or railroads

Land grant

group of Mexican Americans living in New Mexico who attempted to protect their land and way of life from encroachment by white landowners

Las Gorras Blancas

What did the gridlock between parties in Congress and the White House in the late 1800s lead to?

Little meaningful legislations was passed

Which type of people were most likely to support the Populist Party in the 1890s?

small farmers

President Grant is remembered as a corrupt president because he...

Allowed members of his administration to engage in corruption

absorbed into the main culture of a society

Assimilated

1876 battle in which the Sioux defeated US Army troop

Battle of Little Big Horn

What economic conditions led to difficulties in the farming industry in the late nineteenth century, and how did farmers react to those problems?

Crop prices dropped dramatically. Farmers reacted by buying machines to produce more and to replace what they weren't selling, but they often couldn't pay it back because they were to expensive

1887 law that divided reservation land into private family plots

Dave's General Allotment Act

farmers organization formed after civil War

Grange

1862 law that gave 160 acres of land to citizens willing to live on and cultivate it for five years

Homestead Act

What effect did the discovery of gold and silver have on the development of towns and communities in the West?

It led to people to move to the west and they could create more railroads and towns with the money they mined

How did the federal government affect the practice of mining in the West?

It provided land and patents for new inventions for large mining companies.

In what regions of the nation were populist party most popular and why?

It was mostly popular in the west since it did not really apply to urban workers, because they were not farmers

What conflict arose between farmers and ranchers settling western lands?

farmers demanded water rights from ranchers

currency not backed by gold or silver

fiat money

policy of designating monetary units in terms of their value in gold

gold standard

How was William Jennings Bryan different from the majority of other presidential candidates of the era?

he toured the nation, doing his own campaign

network of farmers' organizations that worked for political and economic reforms in the late 1800s

Farmers Alliance

An employee in the US Department of Agriculture who worked to improve the lives of farmers and the agricultural industry

Oliver H. Kelley

1883 law that created a civil service system for the federal government in an attempt to hire employees on a merit system rather than on a spoils system

Pendleton Service Act

A political party's organization that wins voter loyalty and guarantees power to a small group of leaders who often abuse it for their own gain.

Political machines

A party formed in 1891 to advocate a larger money supply and other economic reforms

Populist party

1864 incident in which Colorado militia killed a camp of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians

Sand Creek Massacre

A war chief and important spiritual leader who became the first-ever chief of all the Lakota Sioux bands in the 1860s. After surrendering to the Army in 1881, he lived on a reservation where he was killed by the Indian Police sent to arrest him.

Sitting Bull