American History to 1877 - HIST 121 Resource Guide

The Battle of the Little Bighorn took place on 25 June 1876. It resulted in the death of about 265 officers and troops of the 7th Cavalry under the command of General George Armstrong Custer...

In US history, the influx of prospectors to the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, following the discovery of gold in the American River by US surveyor James Marshall in January 1848. Within two years over 100,000 people had flooded into California in the hopes of making their fortunes. San Francisco was transformed from a coastal village to the largest city in the West. The miners of 1849, known as the '49ers, forged pioneering wagon trails over the Great Plains and through the Rocky Mountain

Bill that became law on May 30, 1854, by which the U.S. Congress established the territories of Kansas and Nebraska...

Series of conflicts between the Plains Indians and the US Army 1850–90, during the era of US westward expansion.

Slaughter of 450 Cheyenne and Arapaho by the 3rd Colorado Volunteers under Col John Chivington, during an unprovoked attack on Cheyenne peace chief Black Kettle's camp at Sand Creek, Colorado, on 29 November 1864...

The Second Great Awakening permanently changed the face of religion in the USA; it saw a rise in the numbers of Baptists and Methodists relative to that of the Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists in the colonial period...

Forced march of Indian tribes from the eastern United States to Oklahoma...

The largest civil engineering project in western history to that date, the railroad was over 4,800 km/3,000 mi long and crossed deserts, canyons, and mountains, requiring the development of new construction techniques...

1801–77, American religious leader, early head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, b. Whitingham, Vt....

1811–72, American newspaper editor, founder of the New York Tribune, b. Amherst, N.H.

Frontiersman and showman, born in Scott Co, Iowa, USA. After his father died when he was 12, and with little formal education, he worked as a wagoner, trapper, and prospector before joining the Pony Express at age 14. During the Civil War, he served as a scout for the Union army’s Ninth Kansas Cavalry (1863) and then with the Union forces in Tennessee and Missouri (1864–5).

In US history, the belief that Americans had a providential mission to extend both their territory and their democratic processes westwards across the continent...

In U.S. history, the border area of settlement of Europeans and their descendants; it was vital in the conquest of the land between the Atlantic and the Pacific...

Major westward migration route in the USA used by pioneer settlers in the 19th century. The Trail, which covered some 3,200 km/2,000 mi and took six or seven months to travel...

Of people, geographical movements of individuals or groups for the purpose of permanently resettling...