M2, L1-4 Westward Expansion - Lia Smith-Cedeno

Homestead Act

1862 - Provided free land in the West to anyone willing to settle there and develop it. Encouraged westward migration.

Dawes Act

1887 law that distributed reservation land to individual Native American owners

Ghost Dance

A ritual the Sioux performed to bring back the buffalo and return the Native American tribes to their land.

Battle of Little Bighorn

In 1876, Indian leaders Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse defeated Custer's troops who tried to force them back on to the reservation, Custer and all his men died

Wounded Knee Massacre

In December 1890, Army troops captured some of Sitting Bull's followers and took them to a camp. 300 Sioux men, women, and children were killed

Buffalo Soldiers

Nickname for African-American soldiers who fought in the wars against Native Americans living on the Great Plains during the 1870s

Long Drive

Refers to the overland transport of cattle by the cowboy over the three month period. Cattle were sold to settlers and Native Americans.

Reservation System

The system that allotted land with designated boundaries to Native American tribes in the west, beginning in the 1850s and ending with the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887. Within these reservations, most land was used communally, rather than owned individually. The U.S. government encouraged and sometimes violently coerced Native Americans to stay on the reservations at all times.

Indian Schools

These places were created in order to forcibly assimilate Indian children to white culture. They cut their hair, converted them to Christianity, forced them to change their language and used various other ways to make Indian children act like white Americans.

Sand Creek Massacre

an attack on a village of sleeping Cheyenne Indians by a regiment of Colorado militiamen on 29 November 1864 that resulted in the death of more than 200 tribal members

Morrill Land Grant Act

of 1862, in this act, the federal government had donated public land to the states for the establishment of college; as a result 69 land- grant institutions were established.

Westward Expansion

territorial acquisitions as settlers began moving westward beyond the Appalachian Mountains

Chisholm Trail

the major long drive route north from Texas to Abilene, Kansas, where cowboys drove herds of cattle to the railroads to be shipped back East for huge profits

Assimilation

the social process of absorbing one cultural group into harmony with another