The Donation Land Claim Act of 1850, sometimes known as the Donation Land Act, 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.
Along with other US land grant legislation, the Donation Land Claim Act discriminated against nonwhite settlers and dispossessed 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. A provision in the law granted half the amount to those who arrived after the 1850 deadline but before 1854.