Definitions:
By: Adriene Miller
Definition:
Placer mining: A spanish technique where miners shoveled loose dirt into boxes and then ran water over the dirt to seperate it from gold or silver particles. This was invinted because while miners were searching for for metal in which miners scooped dirt and water and swished it around and left the gold behind. In order for the people to collect gold and metal they created the placer mining.
Quartz mining: : the mining of gold on veins or bodies in place as distinguished from surface digging or washing : underground mining in rock
Vigilance committee: an organization of citizens using extralegal means to control or intimidate blacks and abolitionists and, during the Civil War, to suppress Union loyalists.
Open Range: refers back to the time when ranchers did not fence their property. The cattle roamed free with only brands to identify them to a rancher.
Long Drive: was the herding of thousands of cattle to railway centers scattered across the plains. Thousands of cattle were moved from the plains to towns at one time. Cowboy's lives on the move were very dangerous because they had to encounter bad weather, theives, Indians, dangerous animals, and stampedes. Most long drives took about two weeks.
Barbed wire: a wire or strand of wires having small pieces of sharply pointed wire twisted around it at short intervals, used chiefly for fencing in livestock, keeping out trespassers, etc.
Homestead: A law passed in the 1860s that offered up to 160 acres of public land to any head of a family who paid a registration fee, lived on the land for five years, and cultivated it or built on it.
Dry farming: works to conserve soil moisture during long periods primarily through a system of tillage, surface protection, and the use of drought-resistant varieties. Dry farming has a very long history of use.
Sodbuster: is a slang term for a farmer who moved west out of the original 13 colonies
Bonanza farms: were very large farms in the united states performing large-scale operations, mostly growing and harvesting wheat. Bonanza farms were made possible by a number of factors including: the efficient new farming machinery of the 1870s
Nomad: a member of a people or tribe that has no permanent abode but moves about from place to place, usually seasonally and often following a traditional route or circuit according to the state of the pasturage or food supply.
Annuity: a fixed amount of money that is paid to someone each year
Assimilate: The process of becoming similar to others by taking in and using their customs and culture
Allotment: a piece of land deeded by the government to a Native American, as part of the division of tribally held land.