Chapter 11 Vocabulary

  1. vigilance committee - was a group formed of private citizens to administer law and order where they considered governmental structures to be inadequate. The term is commonly associated with the frontier areas of theAmerican Westin the mid-19th century, where groups attacked cattle rustlers and gangs, and people atgold miningclaims. As such groups operated outside the law, they sometimes took excessive actions and killed innocent people. In the years prior to the Civil War, groups worked to free slaves and transport them to freedom.
  2. hydraulic mining -is a form ofminingthat uses high-pressure jets ofwaterto dislodge rock material or move sediment. In theplacer miningofgoldor tin, the resulting water-sediment slurry is directed throughsluiceboxes to remove the gold.
  3. open range - israngelandwherecattleroam freely regardless of land ownership, without minimal prohibition or requirement of any compensation forgrazing. Where there are "open-range" laws, individuals wanting to keep animals off their property must erect a legalfenceto keep animals out, as opposed to the "herd district" where animals must be fenced in and kept from wandering. Most eastern state require livestock to be fenced in by their owners or controlled by herders. The Western open-range tradition originated from the early practice of unregulated grazing in newly acquiredwestern territories, which was codified in the laws of Western states as they developed written statutes.
  4. long drive – the driving of cattle to market
  5. hacienda - is aSpanishword for anestate. Some haciendas wereplantations,mines, or even businessfactories. Many haciendas combined these productive activities.
  6. Barrios - a Spanish-speaking quarter in a town or city
  7. Henry Comstock- prospector who staked a claim at Six Mile Canyon, near Virginia City, Nevada. Sold his claim later because he didn’t find any gold.
  8. Boomtown – refers to the time of economic rapid growth in mining areas
  9. Homestead- a tract of public land available for settlement
  10. Dry farming – planting seeds deep into the soil where there was enough moisture to get them to grow
  11. Sodbuster – those who tried to farm the great plains area
  12. Bonanza farm - were very large farms in the United States performing large-scale operations, mostly growing and harvesting wheat. Bonanza farms were made possible by a number of factors including: the efficient new farming machinery of the 1870s, the cheap abundant land available during that time period, the growth of eastern markets in the U.S., and the completion of most major railroads.
  13. Great Plains: are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada.
  14. Stephen Long: American engineer, explorer, and military officer—explored the great plains in 1819 & called it “the American Desert” & concluded it was almost wholly unfit for cultivation
  15. Homestead Act: the government passed this law to encourage settlement on the Great Plains
  16. Wheat Belt: began at the eastern edge of the Great Plains & encompassed much of the Dakotas & parts of Nebraska & Kansas
  17. Nomads: those who wander from place to place following their food source
  18. Annuity: annual payment
  19. Allotment: share, portion; lot in life;(British) small piece of land; garden
  20. Sand Creek Massacre:was an atrocity in the Indian Wars of the United States that occurred on November 29, 1864, when a 700-man force of Colorado Territory militia attacked and destroyed a village of friendly Cheyenne and Arapaho encamped in southeastern Colorado Territory, killing and mutilating an estimated 70–163 Indians, about two-thirds of whom were women and children. The location has been designated a National Historic Site and is administered by the National Park Service.
  21. Indian Peace Commission: formed by Congress – proposed creating two large reservations on the Plains, on for the Sioux & another for the Native Americans of the southern Plains
  22. George A. Custer: Lieutenant Colonel that led the Seventh Cavalry against the Lakota & Cheyenne natives at the Battle of Little Big Horn – Custer & his men were all killed
  23. Chief Joseph: leader of the Nez Perce people – surrendered in 1877 & he & his people were moved to Oklahoma
  24. Dawes Act: 1887 policy passed by Congress was to allot to each household 160 acres of reservation land for farming; single adults received 80 acres & 40 acres were allotted for children.