The Donation Land Claim Act of 1850, sometimes known as the Donation Land Act, was a statute enacted by the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is Bicameralism, bicameral, composed of a lower body, the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives, and an upper body, ...

in late 1850, intended to promote homestead settlements in the

Oregon Territory The Territory of Oregon was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from August 14, 1848, until February 14, 1859, when the southwestern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Oregon. O ...

. It followed the Distribution-Preemption Act 1841. The law, a forerunner of the later

Homestead Act The Homestead Acts were several laws in the United States by which an applicant could acquire ownership of government land or the public domain, typically called a homestead. In all, more than of public land, or nearly 10 percent of t ...

, brought thousands of settlers into the new territory, swelling their ranks along the

Oregon Trail The Oregon Trail was a east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail in the United States that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of what is now the state of Kans ...

. 7,437

land patent A land patent is a form of letters patent assigning official ownership of a particular tract of land that has gone through various legally-prescribed processes like surveying and documentation, followed by the letter's signing, sealing, and publi ...

s were issued under the law, which expired in late 1855. The Donation Land Claim Act allowed white men or partial Native Americans (mixed with white) who had arrived in Oregon before 1850 to work on a piece of land for four years and legally claim the land for themselves. Along with other US land grant legislation, the Donation Land Claim Act discriminated against nonwhite settlers and had the effect of dispossessing land from Native Americans.

History

The passage of the law was largely due to the efforts of Samuel R. Thurston, the Oregon territorial delegate to Congress. The act, which became law on 27 September 1850, granted of designated areas free of charge to every unmarried white male citizen eighteen or older and to every married couple arriving in the Oregon Territory before 1 December 1850. In the case of a married couple, the husband and wife each owned half of the total grant under their own names. The law was one of the first that allowed married women in the United States to hold property under their own name. American " half-breed Indians" were also eligible for the grant. A provision in the law granted half the amount to those who arrived after the 1850 deadline but before 1854. Claimants were required to live on the land and to cultivate it for four years to gain ownership title to it.

Limitations

The provisional government formed at Champoeg had limited the land claims offered in the hope of preventing

land speculation In finance, speculation is the purchase of an asset (a commodity, goods, or real estate) with the hope that it will become more valuable shortly. (It can also refer to short sales in which the speculator hopes for a decline in value.) Many ...

. The

Organic Act In United States law, an organic act is an act of the United States Congress that establishes a territory of the United States and specifies how it is to be governed, or an agency to manage certain federal lands. In the absence of an organ ...

of the Oregon Territory had granted 640 acres (2.6 km²) to each married couple. The new law voided the previous statutes but essentially continued the same policy and was worded in such a way as to legitimize existing claims. One such claim legitimized by the act was that of

George Abernethy George Abernethy (October 7, 1807 – March 2, 1877) was an American politician, pioneer, notable entrepreneur, and first governor of Oregon under the provisional government based in the Willamette Valley, an area later a part of the American sta ...

, who had been elected to the governorship in the days of the provisional government. His claim became famous for

Abernethy Green Abernethy may refer to: Places Scotland * Abernethy, Perth and Kinross, a village ** Abernethy (NBR) railway station, a former railway station in this village * Nethy Bridge, Highland, a village formerly known as Abernethy * Abernethy Forest, ...

, where new emigrants camped at the end of the

while seeking a piece of land for themselves.

Details

Claims under the law were granted at the federal land office in

Oregon City ) , image_skyline = McLoughlin House.jpg , imagesize = , image_caption = The McLoughlin House, est. 1845 , image_flag = , image_seal = Oregon City seal.png , image_map ...

. The most famous patent granted at the Oregon City Land Office was the

plat In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Surveys to show the distance and bea ...

for the city of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

, which had to be sent up the coast from

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

by ship. The claims of the land were surveyed by the Surveyor General of Oregon, an office created out of the law. As part of the general survey, the

Willamette Stone The Willamette Stone was a small stone obelisk originally installed by the Department of Interior in 1885 in the western hills of Portland, Oregon in the United States to mark the intersection and origin of the Willamette meridian and Willamet ...

was placed just west of Portland, defining the Willamette Meridian.

Last year and aftermath

After the 1855 cut-off date, the designated land in Oregon was no longer free but was still available, selling at $1.25 an acre ($3.09/hectare), with a limit of 320 acres (1.3 km²) in any one claim. The law expired on December 1, 1855. In the following years, the price was raised and the maximum size of claims was progressively lowered. The government's only goal was to raise the population in that area. In 1862, Congress passed the first of the "

Homestead Acts The Homestead Acts were several laws in the United States by which an applicant could acquire ownership of government land or the public domain, typically called a homestead. In all, more than of public land, or nearly 10 percent of t ...

," which was largely designed to encourage settlement of the

Great Plains The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, a ...

states, but applied to Oregon as well.

References

External links