Westward Expansion Study Guide

1. Westward Expansion Study Guide Bethel Elementary School

2. Physical systems that affected the settlement of the west • Unpredictable weather conditions • “The Great American Desert” • Rugged mountain ranges

3. European Immigrants • Homesteading openly advertised to immigrants in the cities of the Eastern United States and throughout Europe. • Contributed to the success of farming on the Great Plains through • their new farming techniques • seed varieties

4. Native Americans • Lost their homelands • Were forced to move onto reservations as a result of the governments decisions to move the Native Americans

5. Transcontinental Railroad • Trade between farmers and their markets was encouraged as part of the development of the West

6. Effect of the Railroad • Know that a major effect of the railroad on the natural environment was the development of transportation centers by industry led to air and water pollution

7. Mining companies • competed with miners to claim the richest lands during the gold rush Why does it say Ghost Town?

8. European Immigrants • Settled in regions with others from their own homelands Migration did not occur in orderly fashion. All people did not choose to move at the same time nor to the same location. Pioneers decided to migrate and to settle where they believed they would best continue their traditional ways of life and thought and still seek new opportunities and improvement of lifestyle. (Several immigrant and religious groups decided to migrate and resettle together in an effort to preserve and to perpetuate their culture and beliefs with which they were accustomed and to escape the force of Americanization that accompanied contact with the American population.

9. Chinese Immigrants • The Chinese were often paid lower wages for their work on the transcontinental railroad • discrimination of the Chinese because of their culture

10. Changing Federal Policies toward Native Americans • Construction of the transcontinental railroad • Discovery of rich mineral deposits west of the Mississippi • Continued western movement of white settlers

11. Native Americans and Farming • Main reason for the failure of the farms worked by Native Americans after the government placed them on reservations was because the land policy went against their beliefs and traditions.

12. Native American Children • Reformers supported removing Native American children from their homes and sending them to boarding schools • They wanted Native American children to learn the ways of the white man As the Dawes Act was allocating tribal lands to individuals and selling other land to whites, Sen. Dawes was also instrumental in a system of Indian schools that were consciously designed to take the Indian out of Native American children. Richard H. Pratt ~ a cavalry officer "I believe in immersing the Indians in our civilization and when we get them under holding them there until they are thoroughly soaked . . . Kill the Indian and save the man."

13. Impact of the Railroads • Impact of the railroads on the bison and on the Native Americans who depended on them.

14. Ranchers vs Cowboys • Cooperation and conflict between ranchers and cowboys. • Conflicts between farmers and ranchers soon developed. Farmers often accused ranchers of allowing herds to trample their farmland. • The invention of barbed wire by Joseph Glidden in 1873 was the beginning of the end for the cattle industry; as farmers began to contain their farmlands, the open range began to disappear.

15. Battle of Little Bighorn • The US Army was able to use this conflict to its advantage (Battle of Little Bighorn) • General George Custer was sent to round up Sitting Bull and the Sioux. He and his force of over 200 men were all killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in June of 1876. This was the last major Native American victory against the American army. Large numbers of federal troops were brought into the region, returning the Sioux to their reservations.

16. Cattle Drives • Cattle drives were profitable and why they came to an end.

17. Homesteaders • Challenges faced by homesteaders included harsh weather, thick sod, and swarms of grasshoppers.

18. Vocabulary~ Homesteader • The Homestead Act had an immediate and enduring effect on America that is still felt today. It affected public lands in 30 of the 50 states. It brought about vast, sweeping changes to nearly every aspect of life in this country and helped define the world in which we now live. When President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act into law on May 20, 1862, he created a method of westward expansion that would exist for the next 123 years and eventually be responsible for the settlement of over 270 million acres of the American landscape Settler under the Homestead Act

19. Vocabulary~ Sodbuster • Sodbusters were the initial settlers turning lush prairies into plowed fields.

20. Vocabulary~ Exoduster • Exodusters was a name given to African Americans who migrated from states along the Mississippi River to Kansas in the late nineteenth century, as part of the Exoduster Movement or Exodus of 1879. It was the first general migration of blacks following the Civil War

21. Vocabulary~ Reservation • An area of land managed by a native American tribe • In an attempt to confine Native Americans to limited territory, thus clearing the way for westward expansion, the U.S. government created a system of Indian reservations

22. Vocabulary~ Pioneer • a person who is among the first to explore or settle a new country or area.

23. Technology of Westward Expansion • Advancements in technology aided western expansion—examples: the windmill, steel plow, and barbed wire

24. Native Americans are pushed across the Mississippi during the Trail of Tears • The Trail of Tears is a name given to the forced relocation and movement of Native American nations from southeastern parts of the United States following the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

25. Congress passes the Homestead Act • Homestead Act (1862): bill that did much to encourage settlers to move west; 160 acres of land was given to any settler who was an American citizen or who had applied for citizenship, who was committed to farming the land for six months of the year, and who could pay the $10 registration fee for the land.

26. The Transcontinental Railroad is completed at Promontory Point, Utah • In May 1869, the railheads of the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific railroads finally met at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory. A specially-chosen Chinese [and Irish] crew had taken only 12 hours to lay the final 10 miles (16 km) of track in time for the ceremony.

27. Congress excludes Chinese immigrants from entrance to the United States • In 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. The Chinese Exclusion Act stated that there was a limited amount of immigrants of Chinese descent allowed into the United States for 10 years.

28. US government divides reservation lands into farms for Native American families • Approved on February 8, 1887, "An Act to Provide for the Allotment of Lands in Severalty to Indians on the Various Reservations," known as the Dawes Act, emphasized severalty, the treatment of Native Americans as individuals rather than as members of tribes.