The American West

Front

This act approved the building of a transcontinental railroad that would transform the West by linking the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific.

Back

Pacific Railway Act

Front

The 19th-century doctrine or belief that the expansion of the United States throughout the American continents was both justified and inevitable.

Back

Manifest Destiny

Front

Organized in Pennsylvania to assimilate Indians into the white culture; changed their clothes, hair, language, taught them academics as well as a skill

Back

Carlisle Indian Industrial School

Front

An act that allowed a settler to acquire as much as 160 acres of land by living on it for 5 years, improving it, and paying a nominal fee of about $30

Back

Homestead Act

Front

An act passed by Congress breaking up Native American reservation land and distributing it to each Native American family. Any leftover land was sold. It ended up being referred to as forced assimilation.

Back

Dawes Act

Front

This was the first significant law restricting immigration into the United States. This act provided an absolute 10-year ban on Chinese laborers immigrating to the United States.

Back

Chinese Exclusion Act

Front

What did historian Frederick Jackson Turner state in 1893 about the settlement and colonization of the rugged American frontier?

Back

The Frontier Thesis