Westward Expansion

4. – Settlers who legally raced to claim land during the Oklahoma Land Rush.
6. Act – Law that attempted to assimilate Native Americans by dividing tribal lands into individual plots.
11. Silver – A policy supported by the Populists that advocated for unlimited coinage of silver.
12. Americans – The indigenous peoples who lived in North America before European settlement.
13. Pacific Railroad company – The company that built the railroad westward from Omaha, Nebraska.
15. – People who snuck onto land before the official start of the Oklahoma Land Rush.
16. town – A once-thriving settlement that was abandoned when economic activity declined.
17. house – A home built from dirt and grass due to a lack of trees on the plains.
19. wire – Invention that helped fence off land and end the open range system.
20. Act – Law that gave settlers 160 acres of land if they farmed it for five years.
21. Knee – The site of a massacre where U.S. troops killed hundreds of Lakota Sioux.
22. Plains – The vast, grassy region in the central United States where many settlers moved.
24. Pacific Railroad company – The company that built the railroad eastward from California.

1. Party – A political movement that represented farmers and laborers in the late 1800s.
2. farming – A method of growing crops with minimal water in arid regions.
3. – Rock that contains valuable metals and minerals.
5. Destiny – The belief that the United States was meant to expand from coast to coast.
7. boom or bust – The cycle in which towns rapidly grew when gold was discovered, then declined when it was gone.
8. railroad – The railway that connected the eastern U.S. to the western U.S.
9. Peak – The site of a major gold discovery in Colorado in 1858.
10. – A famous Apache leader who resisted U.S. military forces.
14. Rush – The massive migration of people to areas where gold was discovered, like California in 1849.
18. – Large deposits of valuable minerals like gold and silver.
23. – Areas of land where the U.S. government forced Native Americans to live.