APUSH Chapter 26 Terms – Flashcards

(1850s-1880s) system that allotted land with designated boundaries to Native American tribes in the west. Ended with the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887. Most land was used communally, rather than owned individually. The U.S. government encouraged and sometimes violently coerced Native Americans to stay on the land at all times.

(1887) act that broke up Indian reservations and distributed land to individual households. Leftover land was sold for money to fund U.S. government efforts to “civilize” Native Americans. Of 130 million acres held in Native American reservations before the Act, 90 million were sold to non-Native buyers.

(1834) first invented by Hiram Moore, revised several times after that. Machine that harvests grain crops such as wheat, oats, rye, barley, corn, soybeans, and flax. Combines reaping, threshing, and winnowing into a single process. Significant invention because it was one of the most economically important labor saving inventions. It enabled just a small fraction of the population to have to be engaged in agriculture, opening room for more other jobs.

After gold and silver strikes in CO, Nevada, and other Western territories in the 2nd half of the nineteenth century, fortune seekers by the thousands rushed to the West to dig. After surface metals were removed, people sought ways to extract from underground, leading to the development of heavy mining machinery. Significant because the metals (gold and silver) were essential to U.S. industrial growth and were also sold into world markets. The development of heavy mining machinery led to the consolidation of the mining industry, because only big companies could afford to buy and build the necessary machines.

(June 25-26, 1876) a violent example of the warfare between whites and Native Americans, also known as “Custer’s Last Stand.” The combined forces of over 2,000 Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians defeated and killed more than 250 U.S. soldiers, including Colonel George Custer. The battle came as the U.S. gov. tried to compel Native Americans to remain on the reservations and Native Americans tried to defend territory from white gold-seekers. The Indian advantage didn’t last long, as the union of Indian fighters proved tenuous and the U.S. Army soon exacted retribution.

(1862) a federal law that gave settlers 160 acres of land for about $30 if they lived on it for 5 years and improved it by, for example, building a house on it. Significant because it helped make land accessible to hundreds of thousands of westward-moving settlers, however, many people were disappointed when their land was infertile or other people grabbed up the best land.

(1800s) American soldier, geologist, explorer of the West, professor, and director of scientific and cultural institutions. Famous for 1869 Powell Geographic Expedition, 3-month river trip down the Green and Colorado rivers and first known passage through the Grand Canyon.

(1893) essay written by American historian Frederick Jackson Turner. Shares his views on how the idea of the frontier shaped the American being and characteristics.

(1890) battle between the U.S. Army and the Dakota Sioux, in which several hundred Native Americans and 29 U.S. soldiers died. Tensions erupted violently over two major issues: the Sioux practice of the “Ghost Dance,” which the U.S. government had outlawed, and the dispute over whether Sioux reservation land would be broken up because of the Dawes Act. Marked the last showdown between Native Americans and the U.S. Army.

(1867-today) fraternal organization in the U.S. which encourages families to band together to promote the economic and political well-being of the community and agriculture.

(1866-1886) 20 million cattle were herded from TX to railheads in KS for shipments to stockyards in Chicago and points east. Significant to American history because the long distances covered, the need for rests by riders and animals, and the establishment of railheads led to development of “cow towns” across the West. It also contributed to the cowboy becoming an iconic image in America.