Valencia M.

Enter content here

Ghost Dances-	A religious movement that arose in the late nineteenth century under the prophet Wavoka, a Paiute Indian. Belived it would causes white men to disappear and restore lands to the Native Americans.
Wounded Knee Massacre-	In December 1890, troopers of the Seventh Calvary, under to stop the Ghost Dance religion among the sioux, took Cheif Big Foot and Followers to camp on wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota.
Dawes Severalty Act-	Legislation passed by congress in 1887 that aimed at breaking up traditional Indian life by promoting individual land ownership. It divided tribal lands into small plots that were distributed among memebers of each tribe.
Gold Rush of 1849-	Individual prospectors made the first gold strikes along the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1849, touching off a mining boom that helped shape the development of the West and set the pattern for subsequent strikes in other regions.
Overland Trail-	The route taken by thousands of travelers from the mississippi Valley to the Pacific Coast in the half of the nineteenth century.
Homestead Act of 1862-	Legislation granting 160 acres of land to anyone who paid a $10 fee and pledged to live on and cultivate the land for five years.
National Reclamation Act (Newlands Act)-	Passed in 1902, this legisaltion set aside the majority of the proceeds from the sale of public land in sixteen Western states to fund irrigation projects in the arid states.
Placer mining-	A form of mining that required little technology or skill, placer mining techniques included usings a shovel and a washing pan to seperate gold from the ore in streams and riverbeds.
Comstock Lode-	discovered in1859 near Virginia City, Nevada, this ore deposit was the richest discovery on the history of mining.
Exodusters-	A group of baout six thousands African Americans who left their homes in Louisiana,Mississippi, and Texas in 1879, seeking freer lives in Kansas, where they worked as farmers or laborers.
Dry Farming-	A farming technique developed to allow farming in the more arid parts of the West, where settlers had to deal with far less rainfall then they had east of t Mississippi.
Bonanza Farms-	Huge farms covering thousands of acres on the Great Plains.
Turner's Thesis-	Put forth by historian Federick Jackson Turner in this1893 paper, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" this thesis asserted that the existence of a frontier and its settlement had shaped American Character;