American Progress Words Flashcards
What is manifest destiny?
1800s belief that Americans had the right to spread across the continent.
What was the westward expansion?
A period when people settled the great plans and the remaining frontier.
What is suffrage?
The right to vote.
What is an immigrant?
A person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country.
What is the Dawes Act?
1887 law that distributed reservation land to individual Native American owners.
What is the Homestead Act?
Provided free land in the West to anyone willing to settle there and develop it. Encouraged westward migration.
What is the Pacific Railway act?
1862 legislation to encourage the construction of a transcontinental railroad, connecting the West to industries in the Northeast (Union Pacific and Central Pacific RR)
What is the Chinese exclusion act?
1882 law that barred Chinese laborers from entering the United States.
What is a Nativist?
person opposed to immigration; anti-immigrant.
What is assimilation?
To become one with a new culture, abandoning your own.
