Download Casey Angello 10% Plan: 39. Definition: During the American Civil

Casey Angello
10% Plan:
39.
Definition: During the American Civil War in December 1863, Abraham Lincoln offered
a model for reinstatement of Southern states called the 10 percent Reconstruction plan. It
decreed that a state could be reintegrated into the Union when 10% of the 1860 vote
count from that state had taken an oath of allegiance to the U.S. and pledged to abide by
emancipation.
Description: All southerners except for high-ranking Confederate army officers and
government officials would be granted a full pardon. Lincoln guaranteed southerners that
he would protect their private property, though not their slaves. By 1864, Louisiana,
Tennessee, and Arkansas had established fully functioning Unionist governments.
Significance: This policy was meant to shorten the war by offering a moderate peace
plan. It was also intended to further his emancipation policy by insisting that the new
governments abolished slavery.
Cross Reference: Emancipation, Abraham Lincoln, Reconstruction, abolish slavery
13th Amendment:
40.
Definition: The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlaws slavery and
involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime.
Description: It was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, by the House on January 31,
1865, and adopted on December 6, 1865. On December 18, Secretary of State William H.
Seward proclaimed it to have been adopted.
Description: It was the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments adopted after the
American Civil War.
Cross Reference: Outlaws slavery/ involuntary servitude, Reconstruction Amendment
14th Amendment:
41.
Definition: The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was adopted on July 9,
1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad
definition of citizenship, overruling the Supreme Court’s decision in Dred Scott v.
Sandford (1857), which had held that people of African descent could not be citizens of
the United States.
Description: Its Due Process Clause prohibits state and local governments from depriving
persons of life, liberty, or property without certain steps being taken to ensure fairness.
Significance: This clause has been used to make most of the Bill of Rights applicable to
the states, as well as to recognize substantive and procedural rights.
Cross Reference: Citizenship, Dred Scott v. Sandford, Blacks are Citizens? Liberty
15th Amendment:
42.
Definition: The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits the federal and state
governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color
or previous condition of servitude".
Description: The 15th Amendment was ratified on February 3, 1870, as the third and final
of the Reconstruction Amendments.
Significance: “No discrimination in the exercise by any citizen of the United States of the
elective franchise, or in the privilege of holding office, shall in any State be based upon
race, color or previous condition of said citizen or his ancestors”.
Cross Reference: Suffrage, No Discrimination (race, color), Reconstruction Amendment
Black Codes:
43.
Definition: The Black Codes were laws in the U.S. passed after the Civil War with the
effect of limiting the civil rights and civil liberties of blacks.
Description: the term "Black Codes" is used most often to refer to legislation passed by
Southern states at the end of the Civil War to control the labor and movement of newlyfreed slaves.
Significance: The slave codes, in their many loosely-defined forms, were seen as
effective tools against slave unrest, particularly as a hedge against uprisings and
runaways. Enforcement of slave codes also varied, but corporal punishment was widely
and harshly employed to great effect.
Cross Reference: Limiting rights (of Blacks), Southern States, prevent slave unrest, fear
of Slaves
Robert Smalls:
44.
Definition: Robert Smalls (April 5, 1839 - February 23, 1915) was an enslaved African
American who, during and after the American Civil War, became a ship's pilot, sea
captain, and politician.
Description: Smalls freed himself, his crew and their families from slavery on May 13,
1862, by commandeering a Confederate transport ship, the CSS Planter, in Charleston
harbor, and sailing it to freedom beyond the Federal blockade.
Significance: Small’s example and persuasion helped convince President Lincoln to
accept African-American soldiers into the Union Army. He is also notable as the last
Republican to represent South Carolina's 5th congressional district until 2010.
Cross Reference: Successful African-American (captain and politician), Influential,
African-Americans accepted into Union Army
Freeman’s Bureau:
45.
Definition: The Freedmen's Bureau, was a U.S. federal government agency that aided
distressed freedmen (freed slaves) in 1865–1872, but it was very weak by 1870 during
the Reconstruction era of the United States.
Description: The Freedmen's Bureau Bill, which created the Freedmen's Bureau in March
1865, was initiated by President Abraham Lincoln and was intended to last for one year
after the end of the Civil War.
Significance: The Freedmen's Bureau was an important agency of the early
Reconstruction, assisting freemen in the South. The Bureau was part of the United States
Department of War. Headed by Union Army General Oliver O. Howard, the Bureau was
operational from 1865 to 1872. It was disbanded under President Ulysses S. Grant.
Cross Reference: Government agency, aided distressed Freemen, Department of War
Thaddeus Stevens:
46.
Definition: (April 4, 1792 – August 11, 1868), of Pennsylvania, was a leader of the
Radical Republican faction of the Republican Party and a fierce opponent of slavery.
Description: As chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, Stevens, a
witty, sarcastic speaker and flamboyant party leader, dominated the House from 1861
until his death.
Significance: He wrote much of the financial legislation that paid for the American Civil
War. Stevens and Senator Charles Sumner were the prime leaders of the Radical
Republicans during the war and Reconstruction era. He was one of the most influential
members in the history of Congress.
Cross Reference: Radical Republican faction, Reconstruction Era, influential, flamboyant
Charles Sumner:
47.
Definition: (January 6, 1811 – March 11, 1874) was an American politician and senator
from Massachusetts.
Description: An academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the
antislavery forces in Massachusetts and a leader of the Radical Republicans in the United
States Senate during the American Civil War working to destroy the Confederacy, free all
the slaves and keep on good terms with Europe.
Significance: Sumner's expertise and energy made him a powerful chairman of the Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations.
Cross Reference: Senator from Massachusetts, beat by a cane by Preston Brooks,
antislavery
Andrew Johnson:
48.
Definition: (December 29, 1808 – July 31, 1875) was the 17th President of the United
States, serving from 1865 to 1869. As Abraham Lincoln's vice president, Johnson became
president when Lincoln was assassinated.
Description: A Democrat who ran with Lincoln on the National Union ticket, Johnson
came to office as the Civil War concluded. The new president favored quick restoration
of the seceded states to the Union. His plans did not give protection to the former slaves,
and he came into conflict with the Republican-dominated Congress, culminating in his
impeachment by the House of Representatives.
Significance: The first American president to be impeached, Johnson was acquitted in the
Senate by one vote.
Cross Reference: 17th President, Vice President to Abe Lincoln, impeached, no freemen
protection, restoration
Radical Reconstruction:
49.
Definition: In the history of the United States, Reconstruction has two senses: the first
covers the complete history of the entire U.S. from 1865 to 1877 following the Civil War;
the second sense focuses on the transformation of the Southern United States from 1863
to 1877, as directed by Washington, with the reconstruction of state and society.
Description: The views of Lincoln and Johnson prevailed until the election of 1866,
which enabled the Radicals to take control of policy, remove former Confederates from
power, and enfranchise the Freedmen.
Significance: “What remains certain is that Reconstruction failed, and that for blacks its
failure was a disaster whose magnitude cannot be obscured by the genuine
accomplishments that did endure.”
Cross Reference: Abe Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Freemen rights, South back to normal,
freedom, reparations
Presidential Reconstruction:
50.
Definition: From 1863 to 1869, Presidents Abraham Lincoln, and Andrew Johnson took a
moderate position designed to bring the South back to normal as soon as possible, while
the Radical Republicans used Congress to block the moderate approach, impose harsh
terms, and upgrade the rights of the Freemen.
Description: In July 1862, under the authority of the Confiscation Acts and an amended
Force Bill of 1795, he authorized the recruitment of freed slaves into the Union army and
seizure of any Confederate property for military purposes.
Significance: Reconstruction was a significant chapter in the history of civil rights in the
United States, but most historians consider it a failure because the region became a
poverty-stricken backwater and whites re-established their supremacy, making the
Freedmen second-class citizens by the start of the 20th century.
Cross Reference: Abe Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, freemen, white supremacy, civil rights,
failure?
“Black Republicans”:
51.
Definition: The term "Black Republican" was coined by Democrats in 1854 to describe
the newly formed Republican Party.
Description: Though the majority of Republicans at the time were white, the Republican
Party was founded by abolitionists and generally supported racial equality. Southern
Democrats used the term as one of derision, believing that a Lincoln victory in 1860
would lead to widespread slave revolts.
Significance: The use of the term continued after the Civil War to reflect most
Southerners' opinions of the Radical Republicans during Reconstruction.
Cross Reference: Slave revolts? Reconstruction, abolitionists, racial equality, opp. to
southern Democrats
Impeachment of Andrew Johnson:
52.
Definition: The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, the 17th President of the United
States, was one of the most dramatic events in the political life of the United States
during Reconstruction and the first impeachment in history of a sitting United States
president.
Description: The impeachment was the consummation of a lengthy political battle
between the moderate Johnson and the Radical Republican movement that dominated
Congress and sought control of Reconstruction policies.
Significance: Johnson was impeached on February 24, 1868, in the U.S. House of
Representatives on eleven articles of impeachment detailing his "high crimes and
misdemeanors", in accordance with Article 2 of the United States Constitution. The
House's primary charge against Johnson was with violation of the Tenure of Office Act,
passed by Congress the previous year.
Cross Reference: Johnson v. Radical Republicans, Tenure of Office Act, Edwin Stanton
Tenure in Office Act:
53.
Definition: The Tenure of Office Act was a federal law (in force from 1867 to 1887) that
was intended to restrict the power of the President of the United States to remove certain
office-holders without the approval of the Senate.
Description: The law was enacted on March 3, 1867, over the veto of President Andrew
Johnson. It purported to deny the president the power to remove any executive officer
who had been appointed by the president, without the advice and consent of the Senate,
unless the Senate approved the removal during the next full session of Congress.
Significance: In 1887, the Tenure of Office Act was repealed.
Cross Reference: Andrew Johnson, restrict power of President, Senate approval
Carpetbaggers:
54.
Definition: In United States history, carpetbagger was a pejorative term Southerners gave
to Northerners (also referred to as Yankees) who moved to the South during the
Reconstruction era, between 1865 and 1877.
Description: The term referred to the observation that these newcomers tended to carry
"carpet bags," a common form of luggage at the time (sturdy and made from used carpet).
It was used as a derogatory term, suggesting opportunism and exploitation by the
outsiders. Together with Republicans they are said to have politically manipulated and
controlled former Confederate states for varying periods for their own financial and
power gains.
Significance: In sum, carpetbaggers were seen as insidious Northern outsiders with
questionable objectives meddling in local politics, buying up plantations at fire-sale
prices and taking advantage of Southerners.
Cross Reference: newcomers, Northern outsiders, suitcase material, Yankees
Scalawags:
55.
Definition: In United States history, scalawags were southern whites who supported
Reconstruction and the Republican Party after the Civil War.
Description: Like similar terms such as "carpetbagger" the word has a long history of use
as a slur against southerners considered by other conservative or pro-federation
Southerners to betray southern values by supporting policies considered Northern such as
desegregation and racial integration.
Significance: Despite actually being a minority, Scalawags gained power by taking
advantage of the Reconstruction laws of 1867, which disenfranchised the majority of
Southern white voters as they could not take the Ironclad oath, which required they had
never served in Confederate armed forces or held any political office under the state or
Confederate governments.
Cross Reference: Southern Whites, Reconstruction, Republican
Ku Klux Klan:
56.
Definition: The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is the name of three distinct past and present farright organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary
currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically
expressed through terrorism.
Description: the Ku Klux Klan made frequent reference to the USA's Anglo-Saxon blood,
harking back to 19th-century nativism and claiming descent from the original 18thcentury British colonial revolutionaries.
Significance: The Klan attacked black members of the Loyal Leagues and intimidated
southern Republicans and Freedmen's Bureau workers. When they killed black political
leaders, they also took heads of families, along with the leaders of churches and
community groups, because these people had many roles in society.
Cross Reference: Anti-communist, white supremacy, anti-immigration, terrorism,
freemen, nativists
Lynching:
57.
Definition: Lynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by
hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged
transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people.
Description: Lynchings have been more frequent in times of social and economic tension,
and have often been the means used by the politically dominant population to oppress
social challengers. Lynching during the 19th century in the United States coincided with
a period of violence which denied people participation in white-dominated society on the
basis of race or gender after the Emancipation Act of 1833.
Significance: Nearly 3,500 African Americans and 1,300 whites were lynched in the
United States between 1882 and 1968, mostly from 1882 to 1920.
Cross Reference: extrajudicial execution, mobs, white-dominated society, economic
tension
Share Cropping:
58.
Definition: Share cropping is a system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a
tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on the land.
Description: The share cropping system focused on cotton, which was the only crop that
could generate cash for the croppers, landowners, merchants and the tax collector. Poor
white farmers, who previously had done little cotton farming, needed cash as well and
became share croppers.
Significance: Share cropping has benefits and costs for both the owners and the croppers.
It encourages the cropper to remain on the land throughout the harvest season to work the
land, solving the harvest rush problem. At the same time, since the cropper pays in shares
of his harvest, owners and croppers share the risk of harvests being large or small and
prices being high or low.
Cross Reference: Cotton, cheep labor, shared risks, investment
Redeemers:
59.
Definition: In United States history, Redeemers were a term used by white Southerners to
describe a political coalition in the Southern United States during the Reconstruction era
which followed the American Civil War.
Description: Redeemers were the southern wing of the Bourbon Democrats, the
conservative, pro-business faction in the Democratic Party.
Definition: Redeemers sought to oust the Republican coalition of freedmen,
carpetbaggers, and scalawags.
Cross Reference: political coalition, Reconstruction era, Democrats, South
Populists:
60.
Definition: The Populists were a short-lived political party in the United States
established in 1891 during the Populist movement in the 19th Century.
Description: Based among poor, white cotton farmers in the South (esp. North Carolina,
Alabama, and Texas) and hard-pressed wheat farmers in the plains states (esp. Kansas
and Nebraska), it represented a radical crusading form of agrarianism and hostility to
banks, railroads, and elites generally.
Significance: The Populists were most important in 1892-1896, and then rapidly faded
away.
Cross Reference: 19th Century Populist Movement, cotton farmers, South
Reconstruction Governments:
61.
Definition: The Reconstruction policy that Johnson initiated on May 29, 1865, created
some uneasiness among the Radicals, but mist Republicans were willing to give it a
chance.
Description: Johnson placed North Carolina and eventually other states under appointed
provisional governors chosen mostly from among prominent southern politicians who
had opposed the secession movement and had rendered no conspicuous service to the
Confederacy.
Significance: Johnson sought to prevent his longtime adversaries, the wealth planters,
from participating in the Reconstruction of southern state governments.
Cross Reference: Reconstruction, wealthy planters, secession, Confederacy, Radicals
Greenbacks:
62.
Definition: The Greenbacks were an American political party with an anti-monopoly
ideology which was active between 1874 and 1889. The party fielded Presidential tickets
three times in the elections of 1876, 1880, and 1884, before fading away.
Description: The party's name referred to the non-gold backed paper money, commonly
known as greenbacks, issued by the North during the American Civil War and shortly
afterward.
Significance: The party opposed the deflationary lowering of prices paid to producers
entailed by a return to a bullion-based monetary system, the policy favored by the
dominant Republican Party.
Cross Reference: anti-monopoly, paper money, Republican Party
Elizabeth Cady Stanton:
63.
Definition: Elizabeth Cady Stanton (November 12, 1815 – October 26, 1902) was an
American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early women's rights
movement.
Description: Her Declaration of Sentiments, presented at the first women's rights
convention held in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, is often credited with initiating the
first organized women's rights and women's suffrage movements in the United States.
Significance: Stanton died in 1902 having authored both The Woman's Bible and her
autobiography, along with many articles and pamphlets concerning female suffrage and
women's rights.
Cross Reference: Women’s Rights Movement, social activist, abolitionist, Declaration of
Sentiments, women’s suffrage, women’s rights
Susan B. Anthony:
64.
Definition: Susan Brownell Anthony (February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906) was a
prominent American civil rights leader who played a prominent role in the 19th century
women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States.
Description: She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with
Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President. She also co-founded the women's rights journal,
The Revolution. She traveled the United States and Europe, and averaged 75 to 100
speeches per year.
Significance: Susan B. Anthony was one of the important advocates in leading the way
for women's rights to be acknowledged and instituted in the American government.
Cross Reference: Civil Rights leader, women’s rights movement, women’s suffrage
Lucy Stone:
65.
Definition: Lucy Stone (August 13, 1818 – October 19, 1893) was a prominent American
abolitionist and suffragist, and a vocal advocate and organizer promoting rights for
women.
Description: In 1847, Stone became the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college
degree. She spoke out for women's rights and against slavery at a time when women were
discouraged and prevented from public speaking. Stone was the first recorded American
woman to retain her own last name after marriage.
Significance: Stone's organizational activities for the cause of women's rights yielded
tangible gains in the difficult political environment of the 19th century. Stone helped
initiate the first National Women's Rights Convention and she supported and sustained it
annually along with a number of other local, state and regional activist conventions.
Cross Reference: Abolitionist, women’s suffrage, vocal advocate, National Women’s
Rights Convention
Grant Administration Scandals:
66.
Definition: An examination of the Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant reveals many scandals
and fraudulent activities associated with his administration and a cabinet that was in
continual transition divided by the forces of political patronage and reform.
Description: The unprecedented way that Grant ran his cabinet, in a military style rather
than civilian, contributed to the scandals. For example, in 1869, Grant's private secretary
Orville E. Babcock was sent to negotiate a treaty annexation with Santo Domingo rather
than an official from the state department.
Significance: Certain historians believe that charges of corruption were exaggerated by
reformers, since President Grant was the first President to initiate Civil Service reform
and that several of Grant's Cabinet members made solid advances towards ending abuses
that occurred in previous administrations.
Cross Reference: Ulysses S. Grant, unprecedented, military-like, cabinet
Whiskey Ring:
67.
Definition: In the United States, the Whiskey Ring was a scandal, exposed in 1875,
involving diversion of tax revenues in a conspiracy among government agents,
politicians, whiskey distillers, and distributors.
Description: The Whiskey Ring began in St. Louis but was also organized in Chicago,
Milwaukee, Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Peoria. Before they were caught, a group of
mostly Republican politicians were able to siphon off millions of dollars in federal taxes
on liquor; the scheme involved an extensive network of bribes involving distillers,
storekeepers, and internal revenue agents.
Significance: The Whiskey Ring scandal, along with other alleged abuses of power by the
Republican Party, contributed to national weariness of Reconstruction, which ended after
Grant's presidency with the Compromise of 1877.
Cross Reference: Scandal, Grant, diversion of tax revenues, Republican Party,
Compromise of 1877
Belknap Case:
68.
Definition: William W. Belknap was impeached by the House after an investigation
revealed he had taken bribes for the sale of Indian trading posts.
Description: Grant fought hard to protect Belknap, to the point of participating in what a
later generation might call a cover-up.
Significance: He avoided conviction in the Senate only by resigning from office before
his trial.
Cross Reference: bribes, Indian trading post, impeached, Senate, Ulysses S. Grant
Credit Mobilier:
69.
Definition: An American railroad construction company setup by the Union Pacific
Railroad to build the First Transcontinental Railroad in the 1860s.
Description: In 1868 Congressman Oakes Ames had distributed Credit Mobilier shares of
stock to other congressmen, in addition to making cash bribes, during the Andrew
Johnson presidency.
Significance: The story was broken by the New York newspaper, The Sun, during the
1872 presidential campaign, when Ulysses S. Grant was running for re-election.
Cross Reference: Rail Road, scam, cash bribes, stock, Andrew Johnson, Oaks Ames
Election of 1876:
70.
Definition: The United States presidential election of 1876 was the 23rd quadrennial
presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 7, 1876, between Rutherford B. Hayes
and Samuel J. Tilden.
Description: The results of the election remain among the most disputed ever, although
there is no question that Samuel J. Tilden of New York outpolled Ohio's Rutherford B.
Hayes in the popular vote. After a first count of votes, it was clear that Tilden had won
184 electoral votes to Hayes's 165, with 20 votes unresolved.
Significance: This was the first presidential election in 20 years in which the Democratic
candidate won a majority of the popular vote. This is also the only election in which a
candidate for president received more than 50 percent of the popular vote but was not
elected president by the Electoral College, and one of four elections in which the person
receiving the largest proportion of the popular vote lost the electoral vote.
Cross Reference: Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel J. Tilden, Democrat, popular votes
Committee of Fifteen:
71.
Definition: The Committee of Fifteen was a New York City citizens' group that lobbied
for the elimination of prostitution and gambling established in November 1900.
Description: The Committee hired investigators who visited city locations where
prostitution and gambling was alleged to have taken place and filed reports on each site.
The investigators visited bars, pool halls, dance halls, and tenements during the year
1901. The investigators posed as clients to determine the locations where prostitution
took place.
Significance: The Committee disbanded in 1901 after evaluating the investigations and
reporting to Governor Benjamin Barker Odell, Jr. It was succeeded by the Committee of
Fourteen.
Cross Reference: prostitution, gambling, investigators, bars, pool halls, dance halls,
tenements, Benjamin Barker
The Compromise of 1877:
72.
Definition: The Compromise of 1877 was a purported informal, unwritten deal that
settled the intensely disputed 1876 U.S. presidential election, pulled federal troops out of
state politics in the South, and ended the Reconstruction Era.
Description:
1. The removal of all federal troops from the former Confederate States. (Troops
remained in only Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida, but the Compromise
finalized the process.)
2. The appointment of at least one Southern Democrat to Hayes's cabinet. (David M.
Key of Tennessee became Postmaster General.)
3. The construction of another transcontinental railroad using the Texas and Pacific
in the South (this had been part of the "Scott Plan," proposed by Thomas A. Scott,
which initiated the process that led to the final compromise).
4. Legislation to help industrialize the South and get them back on their feet after the
terrible loss during the Civil War.
Significance: Through the Compromise, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was awarded
the White House over Democrat Samuel J. Tilden on the understanding that Hayes would
remove the federal troops whose support was essential for the survival of Republican
state governments in South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana.
Cross Reference: end to Reconstruction Era, Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel J. Tilden,
Southern help
“The Unfinished Revolution”:
73.
Definition: The “Unifinished Revolution” referes to the amount of racial inequality which
occurred even though slavery was abolished after the War.
Description: As examples, the Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United
States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated racial segregation in all public
facilities in Southern states of the former Confederacy, with, starting in 1890, a "separate
but equal" status for African Americans.
Significance: This conflict led to many disputes and upset the abolitionists. No one really
did anything about this issue for a while until just recently (Martin Luther King Jr.)
Cross Reference: Jim Crow Laws, segregation, “separate but equal”, discrimination,
racial inequality
Chapters: 17, 18, 19, 20
Frederick Jackson Turner’s Frontier Thesis of American History:
1.
Definition: Turner's "Frontier Thesis", was put forth in a scholarly paper in 1893, "The
Significance of the Frontier in American History", read before the American Historical
Association in Chicago during the World's Columbian Exposition (Chicago World's
Fair).
Description: He believed the spirit and success of the United States was directly tied to
the country's westward expansion.
Significance: As each generation of pioneers moved 50 to 100 miles west, they
abandoned useless European practices, institutions and ideas, and instead found new
solutions to new problems created by their new environment. Over multiple generations,
the frontier produced characteristics of informality, violence, crudeness, democracy and
initiative that the world recognized as "American".
Cross Reference: Westward Expansion, “American”, frontier
Great Plains:
2.
Definition: The northern and southern 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.
Description: This area covers parts of the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Montana,
Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming,
and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Significance: After 1870, the new railroads across the Plains brought hunters who killed
off almost all the bison for their hides. The railroads offered attractive packages of land
and transportation to European farmers, who rushed to settle the land. They (and
Americans as well) also took advantage of the homestead laws to obtain free farms.
Cross Reference: Rail Roads, “West of the Mississippi”, bison, homestead, farmland
Rocky Mountains:
3.
Definition: The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America.
Description: The Rocky Mountains stretch more than 3,000 miles from the northernmost
part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United
States.
Significance: After 1802, American fur traders and explorers ushered in the first
widespread Caucasian presence in the Rockies south of the 49th parallel.
Cross Reference: Gold Rush, Transcontinental Rail Road, Fur Trade, Oregon Trail,
wagon trains, forestry, agriculture