Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/278

CHAPTER X.

LAND LAWS AND LAND TITLES.

1851–1855.

The Donation Law—Its Provisions and Workings—Attitude of Congress—Powers of the Provisional Government—Qualification of Voters—Surveys—Rights of Women and Children—Amendments—Preëmption Privileges—Duties of the Surveyor General—Claimants to Lands of the Hudson's Bay and Puget Sound Companies—Mission Claims—Methodists, Presbyterians, and Catholics—Prominent Land Cases—Litigation in Regard to the Site of Portland—The Rights of Settlers—The Caruthers Claim—The Dalles Town-site Claim—Pretensions of the Methodists—Claims of the Catholics—Advantages and Disadvantages of the Donation System.

 

A subject which was regarded as of the highest importance after the passage of the donation act of September 27, 1850, was the proper construction of the law as applied to land claims under a variety of circumstances. A large amount of land, including the better portions of the Willamette Valley, had been taken, occupied, and to some extent improved under the provisional government, and its land law; the latter having undergone several changes to adapt it to the convenience and best interests of the people, as I have noted elsewhere.

The provisional legislative assemblies had several times memorialized congress on the subject of confirming their acts, on establishing a territorial government in Oregon, chiefly with regard to preserving the land law intact. Their petition was granted with regard to every other legislative enactment excepting that affecting the titles to lands; and with regard to

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