Immigration & Native American Wars in the West Flashcards
Homestead Act 1862
Signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on May 20, 1862, the Homestead Act encouraged Western migration by providing settlers 160 acres of public land. In exchange, homesteaders paid a small filing fee and were required to complete five years of continuous residence before receiving ownership of the land.
Dawes General Allotment Act
Made land ownership among Native Americans private
Tried to lessen traditional influences of Native American society so as to encourage them to adopt the ways of white people
Ended up taking about two-thirds of Native American land
Chinese Exclusion Act 1882
The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882. It was one of the most significant restrictions on free immigration in US history, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers.
New Immigrants from 1880-1910
The new groups arriving by the boatload in the Gilded Age were characterized by few of these traits. Their nationalities included Greek, Italian, Polish, Slovak, Serb, Russian, Croat, and others. Until cut off by federal decree, Japanese and Chinese settlers relocated to the American West Coast. None of these groups were predominantly Protestant.
Ellis Island
Ellis Island definition. Island in the harbor of New York City, southwest of Manhattan. Note: From 1892 to 1954, it served as the prime immigration station of the country. Some twelve million immigrants passed through it during this time.
Nativism
Nativism is an opposition to immigration which originated in United States politics. Although opposition to immigration is inherent to any country with immigration, the term nativism has a specific meaning. Strictly speaking, nativism distinguishes between Americans who were born in the United States, and individuals who have immigrated - ‘first generation’ immigrants
Streetcar
Electric streetcars or trolley(car)s (North American English for the European word tram) were once the chief mode of public transit in hundreds of North American cities and towns. Most of the original urban streetcar systems were either dismantled in the mid-20th century or converted to other modes of operation, such as light rail.
Tenement
A tenement is, in most English-speaking areas, a substandard multi-family dwelling in the urban core, usually old and occupied by the poor.
Reservation
A federal Native American reservation is an area of land reserved for a tribe or tribes under treaty or other agreement with the United States, executive order, or federal statute or administrative action as permanent tribal homelands, and where the federal government holds title to the land in trust on behalf of the tribe.
Treaty of Medicine Lodge 1867
Those words were part of the Medicine Lodge Peace Treaty of 1867. That treaty was drawn between the U.S. government and the five tribes of Plains Indians – the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Apache, and Comanche in the city of Medicine Lodge in southern Kansas.
Crazy Horse
Crazy Horse was a legendary warrior and leader of the Lakota Sioux, celebrated for his battle skills as well as his efforts to preserve Native American traditions and way of life. Resisting efforts to force the Sioux on to reservations, he fought alongside Sitting Bull and others in the American-Indian Wars, and was instrumental in the defeat of George Armstrong Custer’s forces at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. After surrendering to federal troops in 1877, he was killed amid rumors of a planned escape.
Sitting Bull
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Sitting Bull (c.1831-1890) was the Native American chief under whom the Sioux tribes united in their struggle for survival on the North American Great Plains. Following the discovery of gold in the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1874, the Sioux came into increased conflict with U.S. authorities. The Great Sioux wars of the 1870s would culminate in the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn, in which Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and a confederation of tribes would defeat federal troops under George Armstrong Custer. After several years in Canada, Sitting Bull finally surrendered to U.S. forces with his people on the brink of starvation, and was finally forced to settle on a reservation. In 1890, Sitting Bull was shot and killed while being arrested by U.S. and Indian agents, fearful that he would help lead the growing Ghost Dance movement aimed at restoring the Sioux way of life. Sitting Bull is remembered for his great courage and his stubborn determination to resist white domination.
Battle of Little Bighorn 1876
In late 1875, Sioux and Cheyenne Indians defiantly left their reservations, outraged over the continued intrusions of whites into their sacred lands in the Black Hills. They gathered in Montana with the great warrior Sitting Bull to fight for their lands. The following spring, two victories over the US Cavalry emboldened them to fight on in the summer of 1876.
To force the large Indian army back to the reservations, the Army dispatched three columns to attack in coordinated fashion, one of which contained Lt. Colonel George Custer and the Seventh Cavalry.
s the Indians closed in, Custer ordered his men to shoot their horses and stack the carcasses to form a wall, but they provided little protection against bullets. In less than an hour, Custer and his men were killed in the worst American military disaster ever.
Massacre at Wounded Knee 1890
Wounded Knee, located on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in southwestern South Dakota,was the site of two conflicts between North American Indians and representatives of the U.S. government. An 1890 massacre left some 15 Native Americans dead, in what was the final clash between federal troops and the Sioux. In 1973, members of the American Indian Movement occupied Wounded Knee for 71 days to protest conditions on the reservation.
Ghost Dance Movement
Predicted the arrival of paradise for Native Americans
Misunderstood by U.S. officials, who feared it would lead to rebellion
Gradually died out after the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890
