Editing Homestead Acts (section)

=== Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 ===
{{main|Donation Land Claim Act}}
The Donation Land Claim Act allowed settlers to claim land in the [[Oregon Territory]], then including the modern states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and parts of Wyoming. The Oregon Donation Land Claim Act was passed in 1850 and allowed white settlers to claim 320 acres or 640 to married couples between 1850 and 1855 when the act was repealed. Before it was repealed in 1855, the land was sold for $1.25 per acre.<ref>{{cite web |title=Donation Land Claim Act, spur to American settlement of Oregon Territory, takes effect on September 27, 1850. |url=https://www.historylink.org/File/9501 |access-date=8 March 2021 |website=www.historylink.org}}</ref> After the creation of the Oregon territory in 1848, the US government had passed the most generous land distribution bill in US history.

The Oregon Land Donation Act of 1850 had many negative effects on Indigenous people as well as Black people in the [[Pacific Northwest]]. Not only did the act use the land taken away from the Indigenous people in the Pacific Northwest, but the act also barred Black citizens from owning land and real estate. The act guaranteed land for White settlers and "half-breed" Indian men to the Oregon territory.<ref>{{cite journal |author-last=Coleman |author-first=Kenneth R. |date=2019 |title="We'll All Start Even": White Egalitarianism and the Oregon Donation Land Claim Act |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.5403/oregonhistq.120.4.0414 |journal=Oregon Historical Quarterly |volume=120 |issue=4 |pages=414 |doi=10.5403/oregonhistq.120.4.0414 |s2cid=214402016 |issn=0030-4727}}</ref> This act followed the passing of the 1848 territorial [[organic act]] which allowed any white settler to claim a maximum of six hundred and forty acres.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bergquist |first=James M. |date=1957 |title=The Oregon Donation Act and the National Land Policy |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20612302 |journal=Oregon Historical Quarterly |volume=58 |issue=1 |pages=17–35 |jstor=20612302 |issn=0030-4727}}</ref> The Land Donation Act, however, also acknowledged women's property rights due to Congress allowing the donation of four hundred acres to settlers—land that could be claimed by heads of households—including women.<ref>{{cite journal |author-last=Chused |author-first=Richard H. |date=1984 |title=The Oregon Donation Act of 1850 and Nineteenth Century Federal Married Women's Property Law |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/743910 |journal=Law and History Review |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=44–78 |doi=10.2307/743910 |jstor=743910 |s2cid=146633518 |issn=0738-2480}}</ref> This act differed from the Homestead Act of 1866 due to the ineligibility of Black citizens from applying.<ref>{{cite book |author-last=Frymer |author-first=Paul |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1vxm7rr |title=Building an American Empire: The Era of Territorial and Political Expansion |date=2017 |publisher=Princeton University Press |doi=10.2307/j.ctt1vxm7rr |jstor=j.ctt1vxm7rr}}</ref>