Chapter 16: Vocabulary

Question 1

Transcontinental Railroad

Answer 1

The railway line completed on May 10, 1869, that connected the Central Pacific and Union Pacific lines, enabling goods to move by railway from the eastern United States all the way to California.

Question 2

Protective Tariff

Answer 2

A tax or duty on foreign producers of goods coming into or imported into the United States; tariffs gave U.S. manufacturers a competitive advantage in America’s gigantic domestic market.

Question 3

Treaty of Kanagawa

Answer 3

An 1854 treaty that, in the wake of a show of military force by U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry, allowed American ships to refuel at two ports in Japan.

Question 4

Burlingame Treaty

Answer 4

An 1868 treaty that guaranteed the rights of U.S. missionaries in China and set official terms for the emigration of Chinese laborers to work in the United States.

Question 5

Munn v. Illinois

Answer 5

An 1877 Supreme Court case that affirmed that states could regulate businesses, such as railroads and grain elevators, if those businesses were “clothed in the public interest.”

Question 6

Gold Standard

Answer 6

The practice of backing a country’s currency with its reserves of gold. In 1873 the United States, following Great Britain and other European nations, began converting to the gold standard.

Question 7

Morrill Act

Answer 7

An 1862 act that set aside 140 million federal acres that states could sell to raise money for public universities.

Question 8

Comstock Lode

Answer 8

Immense silver ore deposit discovered in 1859 in Nevada that touched off a mining rush, bringing a diverse population into the region and leading to the establishment of boomtowns.

Question 9

Long Drive

Answer 9

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 the other cow towns of Kansas.

Question 10

Exodusters

Answer 10

African Americans who walked or rode out of the Deep South following the Civil War, many settling on farms in Kansas in hopes of finding peace and prosperity.

Question 11

Yellowstone National Park

Answer 11

Established in 1872 by Congress, Yellowstone was the United States first national park.

Question 12

Sand Creek Massacre

Answer 12

The November 29, 1864, massacre of more than a hundred peaceful Cheyennes, largely women and children, by John M. Chivington’s Colorado militia.

Question 13

Fetterman Massacre

Answer 13

A massacre in December 1866 in which 1,500 Sioux warriors lured Captain William Fetterman and 80 soldiers from a Wyoming fort and attacked them. With the Fetterman massacre the SIoux succeeded in closing the Bozeman Trail, the main route into Montana.

Question 14

Dawes Severalty Act

Answer 14

The 1887 law that gave Native Americans severalty (individual ownership of the land) by dividing reservations into homesteads. The law was a disaster for native peoples, resulting over several decades in the loss of 66% of lands held by Indians at the time of the law’s passage.

Question 15

Battle of Little Big Horn

Answer 15

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.

Question 16

Ghost Dance Movement

Answer 16

Religion of the late 1880s and early 1890s that combined elements of Christianity and traditional Native American religion. It fostered Plains Indians’ hope that they could, through sacred dances, resurrect the great bison herds and call up a storm to drive whites back across the Atlantic.

Question 17

Wounded Knee

Answer 17

The 1890 massacre of Sioux Indians by American cavalry at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota. Sent to suppress the Ghost Dance, soldiers caught up with fleeing Lakotas and killed as many as 300.