2.1 and 2.2: Settling the West

Question 1

Vigilance Commitee

Answer 1

group of ordinary citizens who organize to find criminals and bring them to justice.

Question 2

hydraulic mining

Answer 2

Method of mining by which water is sprayed at a very high pressure against a hill or mountain, washing away large quantities of dirt, gravel, and rock and exposing the minerals beneath the surface

Question 3

Open Range

Answer 3

vast areas of grassland owned by the federal government.

Question 4

Hacienda

Answer 4

huge ranches that covered thousands of acres in territories formerly settled by Spain.

Question 5

Barrios

Answer 5

Spanish-speaking neighborhoods in a town or city.

Question 6

Homestead

Answer 6

a piece of U.S. public land acquired by living on it and cultivating it.

Question 7

Dry Farming

Answer 7

A way of farming dry land is which seeds are planted deep in the ground where there is some moisture.

Question 8

Sodbuster

Answer 8

A name given to Great Plains farmers

Question 9

Bonanza Farm

Answer 9

A large, highly profitable wheat farm

Question 10

Annuity

Answer 10

Money paid by contract by regular intervals

Question 11

Assimilate

Answer 11

to absorb a group into the culture of another population, widely used in the U.S. during the 19th century with immigrants and Native Americans.

Question 12

Allotment

Answer 12

A plot of land assigned to an individual or a family for a specified use

Question 13

Prospector

Answer 13

A person of valuable resources such as gold

Question 14

Boomtowns

Answer 14

Towns that popped in areas where there were prosperous mines.

Question 15

Cattle Drives

Answer 15

Texas cattle were driven north to railroads to be transported east.

Question 16

Barbed Wire

Answer 16

A new invention that was used to fence off the Great Plains.

Question 17

Mexican Cession

Answer 17

Mexico handed over a large portion of Northern Mexico the the United States after the Mexican American War Via the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

Question 18

Forty-Niners

Answer 18

Gold prospectors in California during the California Gold Rush of 1849.

Question 19

Homestead Act of 1862

Answer 19

government gave away Federal Land in an attempt to settle the Great Plains

Question 20

Oklahoma Land Rush

Answer 20

in 1889 the federal Government released the last portions of Federal Land of settlement

Question 21

Comstock Lode

Answer 21

First discovered in 1858 by Henry Comstock, some of the most plentiful and valuable silver was found here, causing many Californians to migrate here, and settle Nevada. It turned Virginia City into a boomtown.

Question 22

Stephen Long

Answer 22

Explained the Great Plains in 1819 and called it the ‘Great American Desert’ and concluded that I was almost “wholly unfit for cultivation” he also predicted that “the scarcity of wood and water would prove to be an insuperable obstacle in settling”

Question 23

Sedalia, Missouri

Answer 23

Destination of the first cattle drive.

Question 24

Chisholm Trail

Answer 24

A former cattle trail from San Antonio in Texas to Abilene in Kansas

Question 25

Placer Mining

Answer 25

Method of extracting shallow deposits of mineral ore by hand using simple tools like picks, shovels, and pans.

Question 26

Sluice Mining

Answer 26

Diverted the current of a river into trenches, then the water was directed to a box where heavier minerals settled at the bottom.