Settling the West

• vigilance committee - group of ordinary citizens who organize to find criminals and bring them to justice
• boomtowns were towns whose populations rose dramatically after news of a mineral discovery, such as gold
• hydraulic mining is a method of mining where water is sprayed at a very high pressure against a mountain, washing away its gravel and rock exposing the minerals beneath the surface
• quartz mining, which if familiar to people today, where deep mine shafts are dug and miners go underground to extract the minerals
• open range was a vast area of grassland owned by the federal government
• haciendas was the Spanish word for a huge ranch
• barrios were the Spanish speaking neighborhoods in a town or city
• homestead is a piece of U.S. public land acquired by living on it and cultivating it
• dry farming is a way of farming dry land in which seeds are planted deep in the ground where there is some moisture
• sodbuster was a name given to the Great Plains farmers
• bonanza farms is a large, highly profitable wheat farm
• Homestead Act, 1862 was issued by the government, allowing for all people that were not against the union, to own up to 160 acres of land available for settlement. If they lived on that land for 5 years they would earn title to it.
• Oklahoma Land Rush was where 100,000 people rushed to Oklahoma to stake claims in that area, which had a large territory for settlement
• nomad was a person who continually moved from place to place, usually in search of food or water
• annuity is money that is paid by contract at regular intervals, usually annually (yearly)
• Indian Peace Commission, 1867 proposed creating two large reservations on the Plains, one for the Sioux and the other for the Native Americans
• assimilate meant to absorb a group into the culture of another population
• allotment was a plot of land assigned to an individual or a family for a specified use
• red cloud, crazy horse, and sitting bull were all chiefs of the Lakota group in the Sioux, who are native americans
• chief black kettle was the chief of the Native American group called the cheyenne, who brought the cheyenne to Fort Lyon to negotiate a peace treaty
• George Armstong Custer was a sent by the government on an expedition to the Dakota Territory, where he undermined the native American warriors. This causes him and 200 other soldiers' deaths during the battle known as Little BigHorn
• the Black Hills was in the South Dakota Territory, and did belong to the Dakota Sioux tribe as well as the Lakota Sioux tribe
• Chief Joseph led the Nez Perce people, who didn't want to move to Idaho in 1877. The army then forced them out, causing the people to flee 1,300 miles away from their homes. Later, Joseph said the struggle was over and they were exiled to Oklahoma.
• The battle of Wounded Knee Creek was an outcome of chief Sitting Bull's death and this battle caused the death of about 200 more Lakota people.
• although the Cheyenne and chief Black Kettle were coming up with a peace treaty with the government, Chivington jumped to attack them, leading to the Sand Creek Massacre
• The Dawes Act divided reservation land into allotments, a plot of land assigned to an individual or a family for farming or ranching. 160 acres were able to be allotted to each head of the household, 80 for adults and 40 for children
• The Citizenship Act of 1924 granted all native Americans the right to become a citizen.
• The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 reversed the Dawes Act's policy of assimilation, helping to restore reservation lands that were divided and gave native Americans control over those lands, hence allowing them to elect their own governer
• sitting bull was the leader of the Sioux, who strongly defended his people
• Comstock was a prospector who claimed virginia city in Nevada without knowing what resources were there, then he made a deal for thousands of dollars. Later the miners mined up pure silver.
• prospectors were people who claimed lands with minerals in them to soon make money from them
• when no minerals are found anymore in boomtowns, miners would move out and go to another town to mine minerals. these boomtowns became ghost towns
• leadville was one of the west's most famous boomtowns
• congress admitted three new states in 1889: north dakota, South Dakota, and montana
• hydraulic mining led to devastating effects, which were over flooding land and allowing for dirt and sediments to go on farm lands, hence ruining the crops growing there
• the Texas longhorn was a cattle breed that descended from Spanish cattle
• the "long drive" included ranchers rounding up 260,000 longhorns and drove them to Sedalia, Missouri
• barbed wires allowed for cattle and sheep to not escape the farms and ranches
• the contracts that Hispanic people owned for their land was 100 years old, which were too vague as things have changed since then. This allowed the westerns settlers to claim land from the Hispanic people
• the white settlers fenced off public land that belonged to the Hispanic community to graze lifestock. The white settlers did this because they had to raise cattle to import beef to the east.