Westward Expansion Vocabulary

period from 1849 - 1860 when thousands of people came to California in search of gold. So many people moved in 1849 that they were given the name, Forty-Niners.

• Pacific Railway Act

• The Pony Express

• California Gold Rush

• property rights

riders who rode across the country on horseback to deliver the mail; it ended when the telegraph was invented.

• Pacific Railway Act

• The Pony Express

• California Gold Rush

• Indian Removal Act

the unsettled part of a country

• frontier

• immigrant

• boomtown

• pioneers

a person form one country who goes to live in another country

• frontier

• immigrant

• boomtown

• pioneers

a city that grows quickly because of a certain industry such as gold

• frontier

• immigrant

• boomtown

• pioneers

19th century Americans who settled the frontier

• frontier

• immigrant

• boomtown

• pioneers

a long strop of grass that is held together in the dirt by its roots

• sod

• cattle drives

• homesteader

• sodbuster

a railroad that runs across the entire continent that was built in the 1860s; it took 7 years to build

• California Gold Rush

• Indian Removal Act

• Pacific Railway Act

• Transcontinental Railroad

gave two railroad companies land to build a railroad across the continental U.S.

• California Gold Rush

• Indian Removal Act

• Pacific Railway Act

• Transcontinental Railroad

allowed the U.S. to move Native Americans to reservations so that the land could be given to settlers

• California Gold Rush

• Indian Removal Act

• Pacific Railway Act

• Transcontinental Railroad