The Transcontinental Railroad

transcontinental railroad = Linked the Atlantic and pacific coasts of the United States; complete in 1869 Dawes Act / Allotment Act = A law enacted in 1887 that intended to “Americanize” Native Americans by distributing reservation land to individual owners checkerboarding = As a result of railroad land grants, railroads would be given every other section along a rail corridor Friends of the Indians = Group that believed it was necessary to “assimilate the Indians or they will be destroyed by The United States of America”