Manifest Destiny: 1840s belief that the US was meant to spread across the continent
Oregon Trail: Overland route of about 2,000 miles from Missouri to Oregon, used by wagon trains
Wagon train: A group of covered wagons traveling west together
Prairie schooner: Nickname for a covered wagon
Pioneers: People who settled new lands ahead of others
Independence, Missouri: A common starting town for the Oregon Trail
Santa Fe Trail: Trade route from Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico
Mormon Trail: Route Brigham Young led members of the Latter-day Saints to Utah in 1847
Brigham Young: Led the Mormon pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley
Texas Revolution (1835-36): Texans fought to break away from Mexico
The Alamo (1836): Mission in San Antonio where Texan defenders fell after a 13-day siege
Sam Houston: Led Texans to victory at San Jacinto and became president of the Republic of Texas
Republic of Texas: Independent nation from 1836 to 1845
Texas annexation (1845): Texas joined the United States as a state
Mexican-American War (1846-48): War between the US and Mexico over Texas and western lands
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848): Ended the Mexican-American War; Mexico gave up California, Nevada, Utah and more
Mexican Cession: Land the US received from Mexico in 1848
Gadsden Purchase (1853): US bought a strip of land from Mexico for a southern rail route
Oregon Treaty (1846): Agreement with Britain that set the northwest border at the 49th parallel
Gold Rush (1848-49): Gold found at Sutter's Mill in California drew about 300,000 people
Forty-niners: Gold seekers who came to California in 1849
James Marshall: Found gold at Sutter's Mill in January 1848
Prospector: A person who searches for valuable minerals
Boomtown: A town that grows suddenly, often near a gold or silver find
Ghost town: A town left empty after the mines or railroads moved on
Comstock Lode: Huge silver discovery in Nevada in 1859
Pony Express (1860-61): Rider relay that carried mail between Missouri and California in about ten days
Telegraph: Machine that sent messages by electric wire; it ended the Pony Express in 1861
Homestead Act (1862): Gave 160 acres free to settlers who farmed it for five years
Homesteader: A settler who claimed land under the Homestead Act
Sod house: Prairie home built of cut blocks of grass and soil
Exodusters: Black families who moved from the South to Kansas in the 1870s
Transcontinental railroad: Rail line across the US, completed in 1869
Promontory Summit, Utah: Site where the two railroads joined in 1869 with a golden spike
Union Pacific: Railroad company that built west from Nebraska
Central Pacific: Railroad company that built east from California
Chinese railroad workers: Thousands of immigrants who did dangerous work building the Central Pacific
Chinese Exclusion Act (1882): Law that banned most Chinese immigration for ten years, then longer
Cattle drive: Moving herds of cattle on foot to railroad towns
Chisholm Trail: Route cattle drovers used from Texas to Kansas
Cowboy: A worker who tends cattle on ranches and drives
Vaquero: Mexican horseback herder whose methods shaped cowboy life
Buffalo (bison): Large grazing animal of the plains that Plains peoples depended on
Great Plains: Wide grassland region in the middle of North America
Plains Indians: Nations such as the Lakota, Cheyenne, Comanche and Crow who lived on the Plains
Lakota Sioux: Plains nation of the northern plains and Black Hills
Black Hills: Lakota sacred lands; gold found there in 1874 led to conflict
Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868): Promised the Black Hills to the Lakota; later broken
Sitting Bull: Lakota leader who resisted giving up Plains lands
Crazy Horse: Lakota war leader who fought at Little Bighorn
Battle of Little Bighorn (1876): Native warriors defeated Custer's troops in Montana
George Custer: US Army officer killed at Little Bighorn
Wounded Knee (1890): Tragic killing of many Lakota people by US soldiers in South Dakota
Reservation: Land set aside by treaty or law for Native nations to live on
Dawes Act (1887): Law that split reservation land into private plots, shrinking Native holdings
Indian boarding schools: Schools that took Native children from families to change their culture
Chief Joseph: Nez Perce leader who led a long retreat in 1877 and said he would fight no more forever
Geronimo: Apache leader who resisted US forces in the Southwest
Cherokee removal: Forced move of the Cherokee from their southeastern homes in the 1830s
Donner Party: California-bound pioneers trapped by winter snow in 1846-47
Whitman Mission: Missionary settlement in Oregon Country involved in tragic conflict in 1847
Lewis and Clark: Explorers of the Louisiana Purchase 1804-1806 who opened interest in the West
Louisiana Purchase: 1803 land deal from France that opened the West
Frontier: Edge of settled land, where few people lived
Frederick Jackson Turner: Historian who argued in 1893 that the frontier shaped American life
Annie Oakley: Sharpshooter famous in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show
Buffalo Bill Cody: Showman whose Wild West show toured the US and Europe
Laura Ingalls Wilder: Author of the Little House books about prairie childhood
Mountain men: Trappers who lived in the Rockies and traded furs
Jim Bridger: Mountain man and guide who knew the Rockies well
Kit Carson: Scout and guide in the West
Rocky Mountains: Mountain chain that wagon trains crossed through passes like South Pass
South Pass: Wide Rocky Mountain gap in Wyoming used by the Oregon Trail
Fort Laramie: Fort in Wyoming that served as a stop on the Oregon Trail
Statehood for California (1850): California entered as a free state after the Gold Rush
Utah Territory: Settled by Mormon pioneers around Salt Lake City
Land rush (1889): Settlers raced to claim free lands in Oklahoma
Oklahoma Territory: Opened to settlers by land runs beginning in 1889
Barbed wire: Cheap fencing that let ranchers and farmers close off land in the 1870s
Steel plow: John Deere's plow that could cut through tough prairie sod
Windmill: Tool that pumped water for farms and ranches on dry plains

Free flashcards from Peabody at peabody.kids/flashcards/us-westward-expansion