Manifest Destiny Flashcards
Westward Expansion
A movement/migration westward for jobs, land, hope, the gold rush, adventure, a new beginning and the transcontinental railroad. It lasted from 1850-1890.
Homestead Act of 1862
Settlers were given free land as long as they farmed it and stayed on it for a certain amount of time.
Manifest Destiny
Belief that the U.S was made to expand east to west. Coast to Coast.
Reservation System
Kept the Native Americans off there own land. Introduced in 1870. They could not support themselves in such confined land.
Dawes Act
1887 law which gave all Native American males 160 acres to farm and also set up schools to make Native American children more like other Americans.
Transcontinental Railroad
A route of railroad tracks going all the way across America, which was a project of two railroad companies (the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific) that finished in 1869.
Promontory Point, Utah
Meeting place where Union Pacific RR tracks connected to the Central Pacific tracks.
Little Bighorn
1876) Battle during which the Sioux Tribe defeated the U.S. Army forces led by Colonel George A. Custer.
Sitting Bull
Sitting Bull was a Hunk-papa Lakota holy man who led his people as a tribal chief during years of resistance to United States government policies.
Wounded Knee Massacre
White troops went into the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation camp to disarm the Lakota. A tribesman was reluctant to give up his rifle. A scuffle over the rifle escalated and a shot was fired which resulted in the 7th Cavalry’s opening fire from all sides, killing men, women, and children, as well as some of their own fellow soldiers.
