Dysentery, cholera, and trail of trash — the 2000-mile Oregon Trail symbolized a transformative time of American history, but the trek wasn't easy.
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00:00Dysentery, cholera, and a trail of trash, the 2,000-mile Oregon Trail symbolized a transformative
00:06time of American history. The trek wasn't easy.
00:09Just because a family was traversing the Oregon Trail, that didn't necessarily mean their
00:12final destination was Oregon. Those journeying west had several prime locations in mind.
00:17After all, California was supposedly flooded with gold. By 1848, thousands of Americans
00:22were hoping to score their shot at wealth by heading toward the soon-to-be state. Most
00:26of them would arrive a year later and get a football team named after them.
00:30Settlers heading to California would follow the Oregon Trail only until they reached Idaho.
00:34From there, they'd be forced to contend with Nevada's scorching deserts and challenging
00:38mountains. Many Mormon travelers seeking refuge from religious persecution also made use of
00:43the Oregon Trail, but only after they reached Fort Laramie in present-day Wyoming.
00:48Mormon pioneers often preferred staying north of the Flat River in an effort to avoid competition
00:52and confrontations with non-Mormon travelers. From Fort Laramie, they'd embark on the Oregon
00:56Trail for nearly 400 miles before heading into the final stretch of their journey, 160
01:02miles of terrible mountainous terrain that ultimately led to Utah.
01:05Overall, the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails were part of a larger emigrant network
01:10that joined together to create multiple routes westward.
01:13When thinking of the Oregon Trail, it might be easy to imagine a bloody period where travelers
01:17were locked in a cycle of conflict with any Native American tribe they came across. Yes,
01:22gruesome encounters did occur, but historical accounts show that fighting between the two
01:26groups was more of the exception than the rule. In fact, on the Oregon Trail, travelers
01:30and Native Americans were more often likely to engage in trade than they were to raise
01:34arms against one another, though they may not have engaged in the casual conversations
01:39that modern TV implies.
01:41"...I like your horse."
01:44During the early days of the Oregon Trail, when settlers began making the move toward
01:47the Pacific Northwest, Native American tribes more or less left wagon trains alone. While
01:52hostilities escalated after the outbreak of the Civil War, statistics don't tell a story
01:56of insistent violence. Between 1840 and 1860, Native American tribes likely killed around
02:02362 emigrants, while the settlers trekking the Oregon Trail killed around 426 indigenous
02:08people.
02:09Statistically speaking, the thousands wandering westward on the Oregon Trail had much graver
02:13threats to worry about than a random raid from a nearby tribe. It may be a meme now,
02:18but dysentery wasn't a joke to the emigrants making the journey west. The Oregon Trail
02:23was riddled with terrible diseases that plagued travelers at every turn. Measles, influenza,
02:28scurvy, tuberculosis, pneumonia, smallpox, cholera, and yes, our dear friend dysentery.
02:34All these stalked emigrants relentlessly as they crossed the 2,000-mile stretch westward.
02:38On the trail, the combination of terrible sanitary conditions, general exhaustion, and
02:42a lack of adequate drinking water created the perfect environment for these diseases
02:46to thrive. The National Park Service estimates that disease likely killed around 30,000 settlers.
02:51On top of all this, the medicine available to pioneers was more aligned with treating
02:56symptoms rather than causes. Whiskey, rum, vinegar, castor and peppermint oils, turpentine,
03:02and doses of opium were some of the remedies emigrants had to look forward to — nothing
03:06like some dehydrating cures to get you over being dehydrated. No wonder so many perished.
03:12As if deadly diseases weren't enough to worry about, pioneers on the Oregon Trail also had
03:16to watch out for a wide range of fatal accidents. Fatigue was often a problem due to the poor
03:21conditions.
03:22Long stretches of travel and general negligence led to many avoidable deaths. A firearm in
03:35the wrong hands could prove just as fatal as a disease for those joined in a wagon train.
03:39Being killed by a sudden and unintended gun discharge was not exactly an uncommon occurrence.
03:44Drowning while attempting a rough river crossing was also all too real a possibility.
03:50Another terrifyingly common way to die was being crushed by a moving wagon, and this
03:53was especially true for children. Certain historical accounts cite tragic instances
03:58where a child's injured and infected limb had to be amputated, without the use of any
04:02general anesthetic, only for the child to not survive the ordeal.
04:07Beginning in 1841, at least 300,000 settlers journeyed across the Oregon Trail. The white
04:12pioneers making the trek westward were empowered by the growing belief of Manifest Destiny,
04:17the philosophy rooted in the conviction that continental expansionism was an American right
04:21ordained by God. But such optimism was in spite of Native Americans, and was certainly
04:26not meant to be felt by Black pioneers, free or otherwise. Enslaved people, whether they
04:31wished to or not, had to follow the families they served across the Oregon Trail. While
04:35free and enslaved African Americans had a nightmarish conundrum awaiting them in the
04:39territory.
04:40In 1844, Oregon had outlawed enslavement. That gave settlers three years to free their
04:45enslaved people, while also enacting a series of laws that made it illegal for Black people
04:49to live in Oregon. George Washington Bush, who was what they used to call a free person
04:54of color, left Missouri in 1844 with his Irish wife and five children for Oregon. Little
04:59did they all realize that the territory of Oregon had no care for their legal standing.
05:03They soon found out of something called the Lash Law, whereby any Black person who remained
05:07in Oregon would receive at least 20 lashings. This caused Bush to lead his party north of
05:12the Columbia River, where he'd find his own land to settle in what is present-day Washington.
05:17With immigrants packing countless pounds and traveling for thousands of miles, it's only
05:21natural that the Oregon Trail led to the creation of its own unique economy. The average family
05:26trekking out West likely carried with them between 200 and 600 pounds of flour, 150 to
05:31400 pounds of bacon, ample amounts of sugar, lard, and coffee, along with a broad assortment
05:36of other necessities.
05:37Frontier towns like Independence, Missouri, and Council Bluffs, Iowa had an absolute field
05:42day with pioneer families. Rival towns would employ messengers to travel east to talk trash
05:47about one another, all in an attempt to make sure their town gained the most traffic. Once
05:51settlers were in the frontier town, the merchants pounced, convincing families they needed anything
05:56and everything.
05:57Some things never change. Just as today, when one might overpack for a weekend road trip,
06:02settlers in the 1800s often overestimated just how much they'd need, or how much their
06:06animals and wagons could haul. The solution? Start tossing items out. This turned out to
06:12be a goldmine for prowling scavengers. All one needed to do was wait for a wagon train
06:16to leave a starting point like Independence and soon follow. They'd likely be met with
06:20a cast-iron stove or barrels of food. Dumping provisions was simply a tragic, reoccurring
06:25theme on the Oregon Trail.
06:27Wherever a wagon train went, it nearly always left a trail of discarded supplies and goods.
06:32-"That was my mother's." -"I know."
06:38-"It's only weight now."
06:40In 2024, making a wrong turn or missing an exit is irritating. In 1800s America,
06:45when trekking westward, going the wrong way could mean a death sentence.
06:49And, unfortunately for 19th century pioneers, they had a wide selection of guidebooks filled
06:53with misleading directions. American expansion out west meant that there was money to be made
06:58in the trail guide market. In early 1848, as soon as folks began hearing all that talk
07:03of gold in California, heaps and heaps of guides began being printed at a rapid rate.
07:08And, of course, most of them were terrible. They eagerly gave flowery prose when it came
07:13to descriptions of their potential destinations. But in terms of legitimate directions on how
07:17to actually get there, they'd either offer nothing or just be flat-out wrong.
07:22For example, pioneers would read that there'd be no water in one area,
07:25only to find a fresh spring once they arrived. Or, much worse, the opposite.
07:30Such erroneous advice culminated in the Tragedy of the Donner Party, an expedition that followed
07:34the unreliable writings of Lanceford Hastings, the author of The Emigrant's Guide to Oregon
07:39and California. Talking about the Oregon Trail conjures up images of hardy animals and sturdy
07:44wagons plodding along endless meadows, dirt passes, and rocky mountain terrain.
07:49It's true that both animals and vehicles served as indispensable tools for an emigrant's journey
07:54out west. However, this doesn't mean that most travelers had the luxury of hopping onto the
07:58wagon or atop a horse whenever they felt like it. Instead, the main mode of locomotion for
08:03many on the Oregon Trail, especially children, was endless walking. This meant a family's wagon
08:08could be packed with as much as possible. A ride inside the wagon wouldn't have exactly
08:12been a delight anyways. The paths out west weren't paved with any fancy network of roads,
08:17and it's not like the wagons were Toyota Camrys. Being crammed inside a crate on wheels with no
08:22suspension system was a wobbly nightmare. Overall, a good day for a wagon train was when
08:26it completed at least 18 miles. Emigrants on the Oregon Trail started around 4 in the morning and
08:32stopped to rest around 5 in the evening, which meant several hours of walking every day in
08:36unpredictable terrain, while likely wearing less than adequate footwear. For 2,000 miles and for
08:42several months, this is what an emigrant had to look forward to on the Oregon Trail.
08:45Add some dysentery on top of this hardship, and you've got yourself a terrible time.
08:50The 19th century wasn't a time when married women were making decisions about their household's
08:54future. If their husband wished to uproot the family's life and make the 2,000-mile trek across
08:59the Oregon Trail, then that was the end of it. On the trail itself, a woman's life was strenuous
09:04just like everyone else's, but maybe doubly so due to the work expected of them. Not only was
09:08it her duty to prepare the day's meals, often with limited supplies, but if her husband or
09:12other men in the wagon train fell ill, they'd soon find that they had to step up for guard duty.
09:17It also wasn't a rarity for women to partake in other manly jobs,
09:21such as herding the livestock and driving the wagon. Men were much more likely to be
09:25apprehensive and mindful about accidentally performing any task that was traditionally
09:29reserved for women. Indeed, the mere act of a husband fetching water for the day's laundry
09:34could garner camp attention. From tending to camp, to caring for children, to performing
09:38any and every task asked of them, women on the Oregon Trail were the ultimate unsung heroes.
09:44The real reason the Oregon Trail diminished in popularity was progress,
09:48namely, the first transcontinental railroad. Somewhere around 12,000 Chinese immigrants,
09:53along with Irish immigrants and Civil War veterans, built the railroad,
09:56linking Sacramento, California with Omaha, Nebraska. For the first time in the nation's
10:00history, the West truly met the East, and with more rail lines not far off,
10:05this meant saying a gradual goodbye to the Oregon Trail. In what originally may have
10:09taken pioneers six months, passengers could now arrive at their destination in mere days.
10:14Immigrants trekking the trail with their wagon trains were still a common enough sight in the
10:181880s, as not everyone could afford this new mode of travel. However, soon enough,
10:23the sight of endless columns of oxen-led wagon trains became a symbol of a bygone era,
10:27and an emblem forever etched in American legend.