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In November 1863, a ceremony was held to dedicate a cemetery in Gettysburg. There, President Lincoln spoke for a little more than two minutes. According to some contemporary historians, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address “remade America.” Before Lincoln’s speech, people said, “The United States are . . .” Afterward, they said, “The United States is . . .” In other words, the speech helped the country to realize that it was not just a collection
of individual states; it was one unified nation.
Historical Significance: is that it made people realized that the US was a group of states not individual states. |
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The Klan’s goals were
to destroy the Republican Party, to throw out the Reconstruction governments, to aid the planter class, and to prevent African Americans from exercising their political rights. To achieve these goals, the Klan and other groups killed perhaps 20,000 men, women, and children. In addition to violence, some white Southerners refused to hire or do business with African Americans who voted Republican. |
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white Southerners who joined the Republican Party. Many were small farmers who wanted to improve their economic position and did not want the former wealthy planters to regain power.
Historical Significance: is that they were resistance to the mostly deomocratic south. |
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Carpetbaggers were Northerners who moved to the South after the war. This negative name came from the misconception that they arrived with so few belongings that they carried everything in small traveling bags made of carpeting.
historical significance: is that during the time of the civil war there was so much conflict between the north and the south that people moved from where they were living to fight for what they believed in. |
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As a child, Sitting Bull was known
as Hunkesni, or Slow; he earned
the name Tatanka Iyotanka
(Sitting Bull) after a fight with the
Crow, a traditional enemy of the
Sioux. Sitting Bull led his people by
the strength of his character and
purpose. He was a warrior, spiritual
leader, and medicine man, and he was determined that whites should leave Sioux territory. His most famous fight was at the Little Bighorn River. About
his opponent, George Armstrong
Custer, he said, “They tell me I
murdered Custer. It is a lie. . . .
He was a fool and rode to his
death.” After Sitting Bull’s surrender to the federal government in 1881,
his dislike of whites did not
change. He was killed by Native
American police at Standing Rock
Reservation in December 1890.
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE:is that even in the west there was a hatred of the new settlers who kept taking land from the indians. Sitting Bull was one of the first people to really stand up and show his hatred towards the white people. |
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He reported that the Black Hills were filled with gold. In early June 1876, the Sioux and
Cheyenne held a sun dance, during which Sitting Bull had a
vision of soldiers and some Native Americans falling from their
horses. When Colonel Custer and his troops reached the Little
Bighorn River, the Native Americans were ready for them. The Indians killed most of the opposing men including George Custer, but then later they were defeated.
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE: because of the gold rush more and more indians were losing there land and they had to fight for there land but they were eventually conquered by the American Troops. |
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In 1887, Congress passed the Dawes Act aiming to “Americanize” the Native Americans. The act broke up the reservations and gave some of the reservation land to individual Native Americans—160 acres to each head of household and 80 acres to each unmarried adult. The government would
sell the remainder of the reservations to settlers, and the resulting income would be used by Native Americans to buy farm implements. By 1932, whites had taken about two-thirds of the territory that had been set aside for Native Americans. In the end, the Native Americans received no money from the sale of these lands.
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE: is that during the time of the movement westward there was a time when the government wanted to try and modernize everything and they tried to make it so that these people could fit into the every day society. However this attempt didnt do much because when the Native Americans tried to sell there land they couldnt get any money for it. |
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Term
| THE BATTLE OF WOUNDED KNEE |
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Definition
On December 28, 1890, the Seventh Cavalry—Custer’s old
regiment—rounded up about 350 starving and freezing Sioux and took them to a
camp at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota. The next day, the soldiers
demanded that the Native Americans give up all their weapons. A shot was fired;
from which side, it was not clear. The soldiers opened fire with deadly cannon.
Within minutes, the Seventh Cavalry slaughtered 300
unarmed Native Americans, including several children. The soldiers left the corpses to freeze on the ground. This event, the Battle of Wounded Knee, brought the Indian wars—
and an entire era—to a bitter end.
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE: is that this event ended the Indian Wars in a very brutal way. |
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Term
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Definition
This overland transport, or long drive, of the animals often
lasted about three months. A typical drive included one cowboy for every 250 to
300 head of cattle; a cook who also drove the chuck wagon and set up camp; and a wrangler who cared for the extra horses. A trail boss earned $100 or more a month for supervising the drive and negotiating with settlers and Native Americans.During the long drive, the cowboy was in the saddle
from dawn to dusk. He slept on the ground and bathed in
rivers. He risked death and loss every day of the drive, especially
at river crossings, where cattle often hesitated and
were swept away. Because lightning was a constant danger,
cowboys piled their spurs, buckles, and other metal objects at the edge of their camp to avoid attracting lightning bolts. Thunder, or even a sneeze, could cause a stampede.
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE: was that during the old west people had to do some really dangerous jobs to support their families. |
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Term
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Definition
In 1862, Congress passed the Homestead Act, offering
160 acres of land free to any citizen or intended citizen who was head of the
household. From 1862 to 1900, up to 600,000 families took advantage of the government’s
offer. Several thousand settlers were exodusters—African Americans
who moved from the post-Reconstruction South to Kansas.
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE: was that it gave people a chance to make it in the new society and it gave them a chance to raise a family and start off new. |
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Definition
The Morrill Act of 1862 and 1890 gave federal
land to the states to help finance agricultural colleges, and the Hatch Act of 1887
established agricultural experiment stations to inform farmers of new developments.
Agricultural researchers developed grains for arid soil and techniques for
dry farming, which helped the land to retain moisture. These innovations enabled the dry eastern plains to flourish and become “the breadbasket of the nation.”
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE: this act allowed the dry plains to become the breadbasket of the nation and let the aread florish even though there wasnt even that much good stuff to work with. |
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Term
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Definition
In 1867, Oliver Hudson Kelley started the Patrons of Husbandry, an organization for farmers that became popularly
known as the Grange. Its original purpose was to provide
a social outlet and an educational forum for isolated
farm families. By the 1870s, however, Grange members
spent most of their time and energy fighting the railroads.
The Grange’s battle plan included teaching its members
how to organize, how to set up farmers’ cooperatives, and
how to sponsor state legislation to regulate railroads.
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE: Oliver Kelly educated people on what they could do to produce better food and with his creation of the Grange he helped people discover that there they could fight the big corperations including the railroad. |
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Term
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Definition
the movement of
the people—was born with the founding of the Populist, or People’s, Party, in
1892. On July 2, 1892, a Populist Party convention in Omaha, Nebraska, demanded
reforms to lift the burden of debt from farmers and other workers and to give
the people a greater voice in their government. |
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Term
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Definition
The economic reforms proposed by the
Populists included an increase in the money supply, which would produce a rise
in prices received for goods and services; a graduated income tax; and a federal
loan program. The proposed governmental reforms included the election of U.S.
senators by popular vote, single terms for the president and the vice-president,
and a secret ballot to end vote fraud. Finally, the Populists called for an eight-hour
workday and restrictions on immigration.
The proposed changes were so attractive to struggling farmers and desperate
laborers that in 1892 the Populist presidential candidate won almost 10 percent
of the total vote. In the West, the People’s Party elected five senators, three governors,
and about 1,500 state legislators. The Populists’ programs eventually
became the platform of the Democratic Party and kept alive the concept that the
government is responsible for reforming social injustices. |
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Term
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Definition
During the 1880s, farmers were overextended with debts
and loans. Railroad construction had expanded faster than markets. In February 1893, the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad went bankrupt, followed by the Erie, the Northern Pacific, the Union Pacific, and the Santa Fe. The government’s gold supply had worn thin, partly due to its obligation to purchase silver. People panicked and traded paper money for gold. The panic also spread to Wall Street, where the prices of stocks fell rapidly. The price of silver then plunged, causing silver mines to close. By the end of the year, over 15,000 businesses and 500 banks had collapsed Investments declined, and consumer purchases, wages, and prices also fell. Panic deepened into depression as 3
million people lost their jobs. By December 1894, a fifth of the work force was unemployed. Many farm families
suffered both hunger and unemployment.
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICNACE: people were loosing money and they were becoming unemplyed and wait i smell great depression |
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Term
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN
1860–1925
and
CROSS OF GOLD |
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Definition
William Jennings Bryan might be
considered a patron saint of lost
causes, largely because he let
beliefs, not politics, guide his
actions. He resigned his position
as secretary of state (1913–
1915) under Woodrow Wilson, for
example, to protest the president’s
movement away from neutrality
regarding the war in Europe.
Near the end of his life, he went
to Tennessee to assist the prosecution
in the Scopes “monkey trial,”
contesting the teaching of evolution
in public schools. He is perhaps
best characterized by a quote from
his own “Cross of Gold” speech:
“The humblest citizen in all the
land, when clad in the armor of a
righteous cause, is stronger than
all the hosts of error.” |
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