The Western Frontier

  • Homestead Act

    Homestead Act
    B) Supplied millions of acres of free land for a low price. Any man who had never taken up arms against the U.S. government was eligible. Women and immigrants who had applied for citizenship were eligible. African Americans were encouraged to migrate after the act was amended in 1866.
  • Pacific Railway Act

    Pacific Railway Act
    A) Congress pushed the implementation of a transcontinental railroad to connect the East to the West. The Acts promoted the creation of the Pacific railroad (northern), which would allow easier expansion and international trade with the Western frontier.
  • Battle of Little Bighorn

    Battle of Little Bighorn
    C) When gold was discovered in the Black Hills Indian Reservation in South Dakota, whites invaded the Indians' lands and drove them on the warpath. The war culminated in June 1876, when Colonel George A. Custer and all his men were killed by Sioux Indians at the Battle of Little Bighorn (Custer's Last Stand)in southern Montana.
  • Surrender of Chief Joseph

    Surrender of Chief Joseph
    D) He was chief of the Nez Perce Indians of Idaho. People wanting gold trespassed on their beaver river. To avoid war, and save his people he tried retreating to Canada with his people. They were cornered 30 miles from safety and he surrendered in 1877.
  • Battle of Bear Paw Mountain

    Battle of Bear Paw Mountain
    C) The Nez Perce indians resisted relocation from their home in Washington to a reservation. The Battle of Bear Paw Mountain was the last effort by the Nez Perce to resist being forced into a reservation. The battle had many casualties on both sides, it was ended by a surrender from the Nez Perce the night it started. The Nez Perce were relocated to an Idaho reservation and the United States government seized their land.
  • Carlisle Indian School

    Carlisle Indian School
    E) Pennsylvania school for Indians funded by the government; children were separated from their tribe and were taught English and white values/customs. Motto of founder: "Kill the Indian and save the man."
  • Pap Singleton & Exodusters

    Pap Singleton & Exodusters
    B) Pap was born a slave, and after post war reconstruction he led hundreds of freedmen to Kansas from 1877 to 1879. Establishing the first black settlement in the west.
  • Chinese Exclusion Act

    Chinese Exclusion Act
    C) To calm west coast tensions between Chinese & western Americans, Congress instituted a restriction on the number of chinese immigrants allowed to enter America
  • Dawes Act

    Dawes Act
    E) Allowed President Cleveland to divide up native tribal land and grant it to individual natives. Natives who accepted the land and lived separately from their tribe were granted U.S. citizenship. This was an attempt to incorporate Native americans as productive tax paying workers.
  • Surrender of apaches led by Geronimo

    Surrender of apaches led by Geronimo
    D) Goyathlay A.K.A. Geronimo was a native american leader of the apaches. Him and his tribe defended his land from american expansion. They were the last tribe to not be in a reservation and Geronimo was the last Native American to surrender to the american military.
  • Battle of Wounded Knee

    Battle of Wounded Knee
    C) The Wounded Knee Massacre, also known as The Battle at Wounded Knee Creek, was the last major armed conflict between the Lakota Sioux and the United States, subsequently described as a "massacre" by General Nelson A. Miles in a letter to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
  • Ghost Dance movement

    Ghost Dance movement
    E) The last effort of Native Americans to resist US domination and drive whites from their ancestral lands came through a religious movement known as the Ghost Dance. In the government's campaign to suppress the movement, the famous Sioux medicine man sitting Bull was killed during his rest. Thought in the afterlife they could return to a time before white men