Vocabulary

 Chapter 4 Vocabulary

Arsenal-storage or repair place for firearms or other weapons.

Assessor- one who determines the value of land or other property.

Bolls- the fruit of cotton plants that is picked and spun into cotton thread.

Bonds- interest-bearing certificates of public or private indebtedness; a method of borrowing money.

Capital- money available for investment, construction, or expansion of business.

Charter- a guarantee of privilege granted by the power of a state or country.

Chopping cotton- hoeing rows of cotton to keep down weeds.

Common School Law- setting aside of public lands for sale to raise cash to build schools.

Compress- a device that pressed loose cotton into bails.

Constitution- fundamental laws of a state or nation.

Dogtrot- popular pioneer style of home consisting of two square cabins connected by a breezeway.

Dynasty- another name for the “Family,” the Democratic power elite of territorial and early statehood days in Arkansas; in general, the term means a group of rulers related by birth or marriage.

Elite- a small, wealthy (or otherwise gifted), and powerful group of individuals.

Excursion- a short trip or voyage, usually for pleasure.

Forty-Niners- gold hunters who traveled to California in the Gold Rush of 1849.

Free state- a state of the U.S. in which slavery was illegal.

Hominy- hulled corn with the germ removed, from which grits are made.

Itinerants- workers who travel, offering their services in one place and then moving on to the next.

Manifest Destiny- the belief that Americans had a right to expand westward all the way to the Pacific coast.

Overseer- boss of a group of slaves, usually a white man.

Plantation- a very large farm devoted to production of one chief crop, such as cotton or sugar, associated with a slave labor force; a farm with at least a thousand acres and twenty slaves was considered a plantation.

Privy- outdoor toilet or “outhouse.”

Receivership- placing a bankrupt institution into the hands of new management, often appointed by a court.

Slave state- a state of the U.S. in which slavery was legal.

Southern consciousness- the belief that the southern way of life was distinct from and incompatible with the northern, Yankee way of life. Specie- hard currency, namely gold or silver, as opposed to paper money.

Squatters- residents on land who do not hold legal title to the land.

Transport- means of moving from one place to another.

Wheelwright- one who makes wheels.

Yeoman- independent farmer; small farmer; family farmer.