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| Nicknames | Donation Land Act |
|---|---|
| Enacted by | the 31st United States Congress |
| Effective | September 27, 1850 |
The Donation Land Claim Act of 1850, sometimes known as the Donation Land Act,[1] was a statute enacted by the United States Congress in late 1850, intended to promote homestead settlements in the Oregon Territory. It followed the Distribution-Preemption Act 1841. The law, a forerunner of the later Homestead Act, brought thousands of settlers into the new territory, swelling their ranks along the Oregon Trail. 7,437 land patents 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.[2]
Along with other US land grant legislation, the Donation Land Claim Act discriminated against nonwhite settlers[3] and had the effect of dispossessing land from Native Americans.[4]
- ^ Ch 76–9 Stat. 496
- ^ Scott, John. "Oregon Donation Land Law (ODLL)" (PDF). Willamette Heritage Center. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-09-08.
- ^ Bernstein, David; Magoc, Chris J, eds. (2015). Imperialism and Expansionism in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia and Document Collection. ABC-CLIO. pp. 24–25. ISBN 9781610694308. Retrieved 13 June 2020.
- ^ Coleman, Kenneth R. "White Man's Territory". Oregon Humanities. Retrieved 13 June 2020.
As for full-blood Native people, Thurston successfully lobbied Congress to authorize the president to appoint commissioners who would negotiate treaties with Native groups "for the extinguishment of their claims to lands lying west of the Cascade Mountains." This was the first stage in a process that later resulted in the removal of several Native groups from their ancestral lands.