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Westward Expansion

Trails, territories, gold, railroads and the people who lived on the lands of the American West.

81 cardsGrades 3–5, Grades 6–8#west#oregon trail#gold rush#manifest destiny

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

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