Knowledge 7: Westward Expansion

Students should be able to identify the proper use of the following vocabulary words: 

• hardships: difficulties that cause discomfort or suffering

• pioneers: the name for the people who first settled in the West

• communicate: how we tell people things

• settle: when you move to a new place and make a new home there

• territory: a region or area of land

• transportation: ways of moving from one place to another

• route: the path you take to get from one place to another

• wagon train: the name for how families in covered wagons traveled together in a line across the west

• canal: a waterway used to move things from place to place using boats

• landmarks: places on land that are easily recognizable

• back: opposite of the front

• create: making something that did not exist before

• convenient: something is easy and does not require a lot of effort or trouble

• endurance: having the strength to do something for a long time without a break

• voyage: a trip or journey

Students should recognize and understand the following terms and People:

• "iron horse": The nickname given to locomotive trains

• Oregon Trail: the difficult and long trail from the East to the West in Oregon

• Sequoyah: the Cherokee man who created a written language for his tribe to be able to write down and share their culture

• Robert Fulton: the inventor of the steamboat

• Erie Canal: a manmade canal between Lake Erie and the Atlantic Ocean that ran across the state of New York

• Trail of Tears: the name for when the Cherokee were forced by the US Government to leave their homes in Georgia and endure the difficult journey to "Indian Territory" in Oklahoma

• Pony Express: the faster mail system where riders on horses would travel in small sections across the west to deliver mail more quickly- it only lasted about 18 months before the telegraph was widespread