In 1850, Congress passed the Donation Land Act which granted free land to white settlers in Oregon as a way to encourage Americans to go west. The act ushered in a wave of migrants and carved Oregon up into plots of land, largely at the expense of Native American tribes.
A survey that gauged Oregonian’s perceptions on the Donation Land Act revealed that rural people view the act as unfair in larger percentages than people living in urban areas.
According to the survey, 77% of people polled in rural areas said that the Donation Land Act was not fair to people who were not white. For the same question, 70% of people in urban areas also responded that the act was not fair. The percentages were even higher in Oregon’s suburbs, where 80% of people said the policy was unfair.
The online survey was conducted by the independent, nonpartisan Oregon Values and Beliefs Center. It polled 1,584 Oregonians and had a margin of error of 1.5% to 2.5%.
Jermayne Tuckta, an archivist at the Museum at Warm Springs, finds irony in the numbers.
“It’s interesting that a lot of rural people would find this unfair because they are the ones who benefited from the Donation Land Act the most,” said Tuckta, a member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs.
Tuckta said the difference between rural and urban attitudes could come down to which side is more exposed to Native American issues on a daily basis. People in urban areas do not regularly see the impacts of the Act on Native Americans, he said.
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