The Donation Land Claim Act of 1850, sometimes known as the Donation Land Act, was a statute enacted in late 1850 by the United States Congress. It was intended to promote homestead settlements in the Oregon Territory in the Pacific Northwest (comprising the present-day states of Oregon,  Washington, Idaho and part of Wyoming). The law, a forerunner of the later Homestead Act, brought thousands of white settlers into the new territory, swelling the ranks of settlers traveling along the Oregon Trail. 7,437 land patents were issued under the law, which expired in late 1855.