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Irish immigrants
Many Irish fled to America after the potato famines of the late 1840s in Ireland. Most of the immigrants from Ireland were young, female, poor, from rural communities, and Roman Catholic. They built Catholic churches and schools, and established networks of charitable and social organizations. -
Chinese immigrants - 1860s
Chinese immigrants came in through California because of
political freedom in America; were trying to escape the Qing Dynasty. They worked in: railroads, laundromats, etc.
Mot jobs were short term with low wages. They
were "anti-union" and wanted to work so they could bring family over. -
Homestead Act of 1862
Allowed a settler to acquire 160 acres of land by living on it for 5 years, improving it, and paying a fee of about $30 to encourage rapid filling of empty spaces and to provide a stimulus to the family farm, however, farmers were kind of ripped off since the land had terrible soil and the weather was dry. -
Sand Creek Massacre
This was an attack on a village of sleeping Cheyenne Indians by a regiment of Colorado militiamen on 29 November 1864 that resulted in the death of more than 200 tribal members. -
Treaty of Ft. Laramie
The U.S. government agreed not to build roads in Sioux territory (Wyoming, South Dakota, and Montana) and to abandon 3 forts if the Sioux agree to live on a U.S. reservation, cultivating the land, creating competition, and undergoing and English education. Led to Black Hills War. -
Battle of Little Big Horn
Took place in the Black Hills of South Dakota Territory where General Custer's Seventh Cavalry was massacred when they tried to stop the Sioux and return them to their reservation; Crazy Horse, the leader of the Sioux, killed everyone of Custer's men but was later crushed in a seruies of battles -
Exodusters
Exodusters was the name given to African Americans who migrated from the South to Kansas in order to escape the Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow Laws. -
Helen Hunt Jackson
She was a poet/author who became an activist for Native American rights. She detailed the adverse effects of government actions in her history A Century of Dishonor and dramatized the treatment of Native Americans in her nove, Ramona. -
Dawes Allotment Act
This Act dismantled Native American tribes, set up individuals as family heads with 160 acres, and attempted to assimilate the Native American population into that of the American.
