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, legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, including a Lower house, lower body, the United States House of Representatives, ...

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 United States, Union as the Oreg ...

. 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 Federal lands, government land or the American frontier, public domain, typically called a Homestead (buildings), homestead. In all, mo ...

, 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 Westward Expansion Trails, emigrant trail in North America that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon Territory. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail crossed what ...

. 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 land under their own name. 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 in a brief amount of time. It can also refer to short sales in which the speculator hopes for a decline ...

. The

Organic Act In United States law, an organic act is an act of the United States Congress that establishes an administrative agency or local government, for example, the laws that established territory of the United States and specified how they are to ...

of the Oregon Territory had granted 640 acres (1 square mile, 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, 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. 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 Survey System, Public Lands Surveys to ...

for the city of

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, which had to be sent up the coast from

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

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

Final year and aftermath

After the 1855 cutoff 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 were largely designed to encourage settlement of the

Great Plains The Great Plains is a broad expanse of plain, flatland in North America. The region stretches east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, and grassland. They are the western part of the Interior Plains, which include th ...

states but applied to Oregon as well.

References

External links