Glossary

  • BIA Indian Agent

    federally appointed official who served as the primary representative of the U.S. government to Native American communities; primarily served during 1800s, position eliminated by Theodore Roosevelt’s administration.

  • Bipartisan

    involving cooperation, agreement, and compromise between two major political parties.

  • Blockade

    an act or means of sealing off a place to prevent goods or people from entering or leaving.

  • Bloodletting

    The purposeful removal of a patient’s blood in an effort to promote healing.

  • Bloody Sunday

    Alabama Highway Patrol troopers attacked peaceful civil rights demonstrators who were marching outside Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965.

  • Boarding houses

    A house providing food and lodging for paying guests.

  • Bond

    a fixed investment in a company or government that is paid back with interest on a specific date.

  • Bonds

    a fixed investment in a company or government that is paid back with interest on a specific date.

  • Booker T. Washington

    An influential Black author, educator, and speaker during the late 19th century who founded the Tuskegee Institute.

  • border state

    slave states that remained in the Union rather than seceding to join the Confederacy during the American Civil War (Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia).