1. Westward Expansion Vocabulary

2. FRONTIER: a place that has never been seen. MANIFEST DESTINY: the belief that the US had the right and duty to control all of the land between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

3. ANNEX/ANNEXATION: to add land to a country CEDE/ CESSION: to give land to another country

4. CARAVAN: a group traveling together on a long journey. The wagons would travel in a straight single line and then circle at night for protection. CONESTOGA: a covered wagon used to carry freight across the prairies. PRAIRIE SCHOONER: another word for covered wagon, so called because they looked like ships sailing across a sea of grass.

5. HOMESTEADING: to settle on public land to use as a home. RANCHO: huge properties for raising livestock BOOMTOWN: communities that quickly grow in population

6. MOUNTAIN MAN: a person who lived in the mountains and was usually a trapper or a hunter. PIONEERS: someone who went to an area before it was settled. FORTY-NINER: people who went to California during the Gold Rush of 1849. EMIGRANT: a person who leaves to go live somewhere else.