FIrst Quiz Vocab Flashcards
Comostock Lode
Immense sliver ore deposit discovered in 1859 in Nevada that touched off a mining rush, brining a diverse population into the region and leading to the establishment of boomtowns.
Long Drive
Facilitated by the completion of the Missouri Pacific Railroad in 1865, a system by which cowboys herded cattle hundreds of miles north from Texas to Dodge City and other cow towns of Kansas.
“Rain follows the plow”
An unfounded theory that settlement of the Great Plains caused an increase in rainfall.
Joseph Glidden
Invented barbed wire in 1874.
Granger Laws
Legislation designed to regulate the rates charged by railroads and elevators. This legislation also made it illegal for railroads to fix prices by means of pools and to give rebates to privileged customers.
National Grange Movement
Organized by Oliver H. Kelly in 1868 primarily as a social and education organization for framers and their families. Within five years, chapters existed in almost every state, with most in the Midwest.
Munn v. Illinois (1877)
The Supreme Court upheld the right of a state to regulate businesses of a public nature, such as railroads.
Frederick Jackson Turner
An American historian who proclaimed the end of the frontier due to his review of the 1890 census data. The frontier experience, he argued, shaped Americans’ national character. It left them a heritage of “coarseness and strength, combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness,” as well as “restless, nervous energy.”
Ft. Laramie Treaty
Signed on September 17, 1851 between United States treaty commissioners and representatives of the Cheyenne, Sioux, Arapaho, Crow, Assiniboine, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nations. This attempt to establish reservations and bring peace to the northern plains failed.
Sand Creek Massacre
The November 29, 1864, massacre of more than a hundred peaceful Cheyenne, largely women and children, by John M. Chivington’s Colorado militia.
Battle of Little Bighorn
The 1876 battle begun when American cavalry under George Armstrong Custer attacked an encampment of Sioux, Arapaho, and Cheyenne Indians who resisted removal to a reservation. Custer’s force was annihilated, but with whites calling for U.S. soldiers to retaliate, the Native American military victory was short-lived.
Chief Joseph
The peace chief of the Nez Perce. He led his people on a 1,100 mile journey in an attempt to flee to Canada. He eventually surrendered to the American government stating, “I will fight no more forever.”
Sitting Bull
The leader of the powerful Lakota Sioux on the northern plains. He openly refused to go to a reservation. Along with Crazy Horse, he defeated General Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
George Armstrong Custer
A brash self-promoter who had graduated last in his class at West Point. He led an expedition into South Dakota’s Black Hills. He along with all of his men were killed at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
Geronimo
The leader of the Apache in the Southwest. He took up arms in opposition to the reservation policy but surrendered in September 1886.
Ohiyesa (Dr. Charles Eastman)
The ideal example of Native American assimilation. He practiced traditional western medicine on the Pine Ridge Reservation in North Dakota.
Helen Hunt Jackson
She chronicled the injustices done to American Indians in a best-selling book “A Century of Dishonor” in 1881.
Dawes Severalty Act
The 1887 law that gave Native Americans individual ownership of law by dividing reservations into homesteads. The law was a disaster for native peoples, resulting over several decades in the loss of 66 percent of lands held by Indians at the time of the law’s passage.
Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock
A 1903 Supreme Court ruling that Congress could make whatever Indian policies it chose, ignoring all existing treaties.
Indian Reorganization Act
A 1934 law that promoted the reestablishment of tribal organization and culture.
