In April 1846 , a grouping of pioneers who come to be recognise as the Donner - Reed Party go Springfield , Illinois , headed for the Mexican province of Alta California . aware of the severe cholera epidemics across the state and the loiter result of the fiscal panic of 1837 , they were also inhale to head up Cicily Isabel Fairfield by America ’s grand expansionist movement , Manifest Destiny .
The Donner Party ’s collective dream , however , became a collective incubus thanks to wretched timing , direful advice , and even worseweather . After becoming snowbound in the Sierra Nevada Mountains on the border between Nevada and California , the party before long ran out offoodand ultimately resort to feeding off the flesh of their bushed familiar and family members so as to come through . It ’s this aspect of the Donner Party story that makes it so monstrously fascinating , and one of the most haunting to do out of the settlement of the American West .
1. The Donner Party’s dream was spawned by Manifest Destiny.
The striking backdrop to the Donners ’ storied trek is the expansionist social movement knight Manifest Destiny — the belief , widely heldin 1840s America , that Anglo - Saxon citizens of the United States had been mandated by God to enter on a mission to distribute its figure ofgovernmentand way of life-time across the intact continent , from sea to glow ocean . As some of the first foot soldier of the movement , the Donner Party revealed the foibles and follies of the arrogant feeling that the continent was meant for Anglo - Americans to possess since no other humankind lived there . In truth , much of the land belonged to scores of sovereign autochthonic nations as well as Mexico .
2. Abraham Lincoln briefly considered going with them.
While run as a attorney in Springfield , Abraham Lincolncontinued his friendship with James Reed , one of the chief members of the Donner - Reed Party . They had first meet many long time before , when they were messmate in the Blackhawk War . When Reed ’s businesses began to fail due to a national economical downswing , Lincoln counseled his friend , and just before the wagon caravan part for the far West , Lincoln help Reed through failure proceedings . Reed was able to squirrel away away a considerable amount of cash that he later used to purchase land in California .
Many age after the Donner Party tragedy , one of Reed ’s girl revealed that Lincoln seriously consider join the wagon train but ultimately did n’t go due to opposition from his married woman . rather , Lincoln come in the political arena .
3. The Donner Party got some very bad directions.
If not for some incorrect turn , intragroup strife , and a series of unprecedented winter storm , the Donner Party would have been an unremarkably successful wagon caravan . That , of track , was not the case .
One of the chief architects of their misfortune was Lansford Hastings , an other California commonwealth promoter who write a democratic Bible , The Emigrant ’s Guide to Oregon and California . Besides check many inaccuracy , Hastings ’s guidebook extol the virtues of a shortcut , the Hastings Cutoff , that he take would lay aside much time . Little did the emigrants have a go at it that Hastings had never taken the shortcut himself . They decided to take his advice only to find the itinerary he hint actually added more precious fourth dimension to their journey , contributing to their unfitness to cross the Sierras before the grievous wintertime snow .
As a final result , they became snowbound in the mountains in other November 1846 . They could go no farther until the snow melted in springiness .
4. It’s often said that none in the Donner Party killed a person for the purpose of cannibalism—but there was one horrific exception.
In mid - December , a modest group set out from the nose candy - buried camps on crude snowshoes in Leslie Townes Hope of making it over the pass to summon help . They later came to be lie with as the Forlorn Hope . Included in the group were two Miwok guide , Luis and Salvador , who had been transmit by other California settler John Sutter to serve the snare emigrants . They fetch poorly require supplies and helped provide authoritative wintertime survival advice .
This party was the first to be pull to repair tocannibalismwhen all their supplies were plump . finally , when even the ( dead ) human sources of food dwindled , it was decided that Luis and Salvador would be killed . Both men were fritter and their flesh consume . The remainder of the party rationalise the murders because they believe Native Americans less desirable of survival than white people , an obviously racist view that resulted in the deaths of two unacquainted people .
5. At the snowbound camp, cannibalism began when every other source of protein had been consumed.
Once the Donner Party was snare on the east side of the High Sierras , they killed and ate all the horse and ox . They boil the hides to make a gelatinous concoction and pick all the marrow from the animal off-white . They gobbled up any mice they could enchant in their jury-rigged cabin . Then , one by one , they pour down all their favorite dogs and eat them . Finally , do-or-die and delirious , they masticate on pine barque and pine cones . As a last resort , while watching their children and others perish , they turn to the dead bodies bury in the snowdrifts .
6. Four separate relief parties rescued the survivors at the two Donner Party camps.
It took the four relief party more than two month to rescue the survivors . When phallus of the First Relief reached the camps it was sound out they project no signs of human activity until a woman , gaunt from famishment , emerged from a hole in the snow . When they approached her , the woman asked , “ Are you man from California or do you come from heaven ? ”
In the end , 41 people died and 46 survived . Five pop off before get to the Sierras , 35 died at the clique or undertake to cover the sight , and one die just after get hold of the valley at the foot of the westerly gradient . Many of the subsister lost toes to frostbite and suffered continuing physical and psychological disorders .
7. More Donner Party men died than women.
male yield at a higher rate than females and also died sooner . Mothers in the wagon train made every elbow grease to keep their families live , but the younger single hands of the party , who exert more vigour and had no category ties to support them , died early on . Overall , the death bell was highest among the very untested and the senior . Older nipper and teens fared well than adult . All the Donner adults — brothers George and Jacob and their married woman — drop dead , but several of their offspring subsist . Two intact house — the Reeds and the Breens — also outlive , and the Reeds were the only ones in the integral party who never ate human flesh .
8. The Donner Party story passed from truth to legend almost immediately.
Even before the last survivor was rescue from the snowy Sierras , myths about the Donner trial by ordeal were created , and overdone newspaper accounts distorted the trueness . Wild tales told of emigrant feasting on human flesh out of pleasure rather of survival . These abusive level went unchecked and unquestioned for many years . In fact , the party ’s acts of natural selection cannibalism demonstrated to the world that the morally righteous colonist were no better than animals .
Michael Wallis is the author ofThe Best Land Under Heaven : The Donner Party in the Age of Manifest Destiny .
A version of this story ran in 2017 ; it has been updated for 2022 .
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