The Donner Party is one of the most famous events in American history. The grisly story of a group of west-seeking settlers who, through a combination of poor planning, bad luck, and stubborn leaders, ultimately resorted to cannibalism while trapped in a vicious winter storm. You might think you already know the broad strokes of the story, but it's the specific details that really paint the picture of what happened to these poor souls. Was it hubris? Was it naivete? Was it a plan so wild, it just might work — except it didn't? This is the untold truth of the Donner Party.
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00:00Was it hubris? Was it naïveté? Was it a plan so wild it just might work? Up until
00:06the moment everyone realized it hadn't, there were many factors that led to the tragic end
00:10suffered by the Donner Party, and they may have been doomed from the start.
00:14While the western part of North America had seen permanent European settlements dating
00:18back to the earliest days of the fur trade, the early 19th century was the start of the
00:22United States' large push to fully settle the western part of the continent. Starting
00:25with Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase and continuing through the century, the American
00:29frontier began pushing farther and farther west. By the 1840s, there were a lot of people
00:34looking to migrate west, and almost as many reasons for wanting to make the trip. Some
00:38of the settlers were in search of land, which was becoming more scarce in the eastern part
00:42of the country, while others later sought the get-rich-quick scenario that came with
00:46finding gold.
00:47Still others, namely a large number of Mormons that made their way west, were searching for
00:51a place to freely practice their religion. With so many motives for journeying west,
00:55there were also several ways to get there.
00:58According to National Geographic, several popular trails served as guides to settlers.
01:02Perhaps the most famous of all is the Oregon Trail, which started around the border of
01:06Missouri and Kansas before trudging across the Great Plains and snaking through the Rocky
01:10Mountains. There was also the Mormon Trail, which started in western Illinois and followed
01:14a similar path to the Oregon Trail. This one, however, ended up near what became Salt Lake
01:19City, Utah. They were tried and true routes, but even 19th century Americans weren't content
01:24to settle.
01:25The California Trail Center says that Lansford Hastings was one of the people who made his
01:28way west, doing so in 1842 along the Oregon Trail. His story was a little different than
01:34most. While many settlers had taken to the western trails to escape difficult lives,
01:38having been born the son of a doctor, Hastings had a comparatively comfortable life. After
01:42attending law school, Hastings made the trek to Oregon, but by 1843, he had made his way
01:46south to California. At the time, California was mostly Mexican territory, and Hastings
01:51recognized that there were immense opportunities there. In order to encourage settlers to carve
01:56a piece of land out for America, he published a book called The Immigrant's Guide to Oregon
02:00and California.
02:01In the book, he laid out a shortcut to California that he claimed would shave off nearly 400
02:06miles over easy terrain. Was it too good to be true? Yes.
02:09"...could we have looked into the future and seen the misery before us? These lines would
02:14never have been written. But we were full of hope."
02:17Legends of America says that Hastings never tested the route. Little did he know that
02:21his shortcut would inspire one of the American West's greatest tragedies.
02:26The idea for the group that would become infamously known as the Donner Party was started by an
02:30Illinois businessman named James Frazier Reed. Reed, like so many before him, wanted to travel
02:35west in search of riches. But he was also incentivized by the prospect of a better life
02:39for his wife, Margaret. She experienced severe headaches, and Reed thought that perhaps the
02:43West Coast climate would help her health. Reed read through a copy of Hastings' The
02:47Immigrant's Guide to Oregon and California and was inspired to put together a group for
02:51a westward journey.
02:52The initial group consisted of nine wagons and 32 people. Nine of those people were members
02:56of the Reed Party, which includes James, Margaret, their four children, Margaret's mother, and
03:01a pair of hired servants. While the trip was no doubt going to be arduous, James Reed paid
03:05to make sure that his family traveled comfortably. They did so in a two-story wagon that took
03:10eight oxen to pull, and featured a stove, cushioned seats, and even bunks. It was so
03:15extravagant that Virginia Reed, who was 12 years old at the start of the trek, called
03:19it the Pioneer Palace Car. Over time, the group would expand as several other families
03:23joined what became known as the Donner Party.
03:26According to Legends of America, the group set out from Springfield, Illinois, on April
03:3016, 1846. And the first waypoint was the town of Independence, Missouri, the starting point
03:35for both the Oregon and California trails. Among the group were two brothers in their
03:39families, Jacob and George Donner, and their families.
03:42This trip wasn't the first for the Donners. They were of German descent and had started
03:45traveling before this event began, starting in North Carolina and moving progressively
03:50farther west each time with stops in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois. It's believed that
03:54the Donners were also intrigued by Hastings' proposed shortcut to the West Coast, as Jacob
03:59Donner kept a copy of his book in his saddlebag.
04:01What those in the Donner Party didn't realize was that a strange coincidence with some serious
04:05irony to it was taking place across the country. On the same day as they left Springfield,
04:10Lanceford Hastings was departing California to see his proposed shortcut for himself.
04:15Reed and the Donner Party reached Independence, Missouri, three weeks later. There, they resupplied
04:19and started again, eventually joining another wagon train about 100 miles west of Independence.
04:24This expanded the group to 87 people. Weeks later, the group would reach Fort Laramie,
04:29Wyoming. There, James Reed met a friend from Illinois who had traveled with Hastings eastward.
04:33This friend advised Reed not to take Hastings' shortcut, telling him that they would never
04:37make it using wagons, as the route was barely traversable on foot. He also warned Reed of
04:41the dangers posed by the desert and the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
04:45More wagons joined the group in Fort Laramie, and upon reaching the Continental Divide at
04:49the Rocky Mountains, a man with a letter from Hastings met them. The letter said that Hastings
04:53himself would meet them in Fort Bridger, Wyoming, to show them where to take his shortcut, which
04:57was becoming known as Hastings' Cut-Off.
05:00They had no way of knowing it at the time, but the decision that would cost many in the
05:04Donner Party their lives happened near Wyoming's Little Sandy River. To that point, the group
05:08had followed the established trail, but Little Sandy River marked the point where the trail
05:12split with Hastings' Cut-Off. A schism occurred in the group, with some of the pioneers heeding
05:17the warning James Reed had received in Fort Laramie and opting to continue on the California
05:21Trail. Meanwhile, the other group who were willing to risk it on the unproven alternative
05:25route selected a new leader, George Donner.
05:28The Donner Party followed the Hastings' Cut-Off to Fort Bridger, but instead of meeting Lansford
05:31Hastings himself, they found only a letter that had been left with a group of other travelers.
05:36History says that this note said that Hastings had joined another group and had gone ahead,
05:40encouraging the Donner Party to catch up, and saying that he would mark the trail for
05:43them. Feeling confident about Hastings' proposition, the group — consisting at this point of
05:4789 people and 20 wagons — left Fort Bridger.
05:51If any member of the Donner Party was still hopeful that the rest of their journey to
05:55California along Hastings' Cut-Off would be smooth sailing, they would have been having
05:59second thoughts by the time the group reached Weber Canyon. According to History, Hastings
06:03had promised them that Weber Canyon would provide them with a safe way of traversing
06:06the Wasatch Mountains, a rugged part of the Rocky Mountains located in modern-day Utah.
06:11But upon reaching the canyon, the members of the Donner Party found yet another note
06:15from Hastings. This note warned them that this part of the route was more dangerous
06:18than he had initially believed. He advised them to wait there until he could return and
06:22show them a better way through the mountains.
06:24This put the Donner Party in a bind. To backtrack to Fort Bridger would cost them days. They
06:29decided to wait for Hastings, but when he still hadn't shown up after eight days, they
06:32sent a messenger into the canyon to find him. The party's messenger returned with instructions
06:36for an alternative route, which would take them through. The Donner Party traversed this
06:40path successfully, but it turned out that it was more difficult than Weber Canyon would
06:44have been, as the members of the Donner Party were faced with thick trees and massive boulders.
06:49While returning to Fort Bridger would have cost the Donner Party a lot of time, it paled
06:53in comparison to what Hastings' alternative through the Wasatch Mountains route cost them.
06:57By the time they reached Utah's Great Salt Lake, the detour had cost them 18 days. Wasting
07:02so much time meant wasting valuable supplies. Making matters even worse, the party had several
07:07wagons get stuck in the mud and were forced to abandon them, losing them even more supplies.
07:11Next, the party traversed the Great Salt Lake desert, which Hastings told them would take
07:15two days. Not only did it take more, but soft, wet sand caused more wagons to be abandoned.
07:21The stretch of the journey was 80 miles, and during the journey they lost 32 oxen.
07:25The attitude of party members began to shift, as they began getting frustrated with both
07:29Lansford Hastings and the man who had started many of them on the journey in the first place,
07:33James Frazier Reed. Lost time also meant that by the time the Donner Party reached the Sierra
07:37Nevada Mountains, it was late in the year, when the weather in the mountains is, and was,
07:41at its most treacherous.
07:43The Donner Party had finally made it to the Sierra Nevada Mountains, but because of the
07:47many delays they had faced, they got there as fierce weather started to appear. According to
07:52history, heavy snowfall on October 28, 1846 blocked the trail the party needed to take and
07:57trapped them in the mountains. Around this time, a broken axle on George Donner's wagon caused the
08:02group to split up, with most of the Donner family staying behind.
08:05"'Monday 30th, snow and fast wind. About four or five feet deep.
08:11No living thing without wings can get about."
08:14Multiple attempts to traverse the trail anyway failed, and the remaining party members were
08:18forced to build shelters to wait out the winter. Multiple families were forced to share hastily
08:22built cabins, crowding together for warmth. Food dwindled further, and they were forced to
08:26kill and eat the last remaining ox that November. After that, they ate whatever they could find,
08:31including bones and bark.
08:32By mid-December, a group of five men, nine women, and one child took a chance and left
08:37the camp to try to make it over the mountains. This group quickly ran out of food and was caught
08:41in a blizzard. As members of this group died, the survivors turned to cannibalism.
08:45In early February of 1847, several search parties, including one led by James Reed,
08:50left to look for survivors. Two weeks later, they found what they thought was a deserted camp,
08:54but quickly learned it wasn't. Not yet, at least. Many of those still there were close to death,
08:59and as rescue efforts dragged into March, the scenic locale would be dubbed Starved Camp.
09:04The party really did eat everything else first — oxen, then their hides,
09:08leather, bones cooked and re-cooked. Michael Wallace, author of The Best Land Under Heaven,
09:13The Donner Party, and The Age of Manifest Destiny, explained to NPR,
09:17they ate literally everything before they had to turn to human flesh. They, of course,
09:21killed the great oxen, the horses, everything, and ate that meat. They boiled the hides,
09:26they picked out the bone marrow, they made this gelatinous, awful goo from the hides,
09:30and it had very little, if any, nutritional value. After everything else was gone,
09:34they were then left with each other. It's unclear who might have been
09:37deliberately murdered to provide meat for the survivors. It's certain that
09:40two Native Americans were shot and butchered. In a February 2017 interview in Smithsonian,
09:45Bill Schutz, author of Cannibalism, A Perfectly Natural History,
09:49explained why we shouldn't be so quick to judge.
09:51We have these sets of rules we try to follow, but when the going gets tough,
09:55that stuff eventually goes out the window. There's a biological directive to survive,
09:59and at that point, when you reach that extreme, you're not worried about the
10:02fact that there's a taboo — you simply want to live.
10:05The misery we endure would make the coldest heart ache. We are so weak, we can scarcely walk.
10:12Rescue parties spent more than two months trying to find and save those who survived.
10:16Of the 81 trapped by the snow, 45 walked out alive. Roughly half had engaged in cannibalism.
10:22Only two of the original dozen families made it out to California without suffering a death.
10:28The grisly tale of the Donner Party found its way into newspapers in 1847,
10:32where those who survived the ordeal were painted as murderers and derided for poor conduct,
10:37including alleged cannibalism.
10:38Survivors' accounts of what happened during the winter of 1846 and 1847 varied a great deal.
10:43Blame was placed on Lansford Hastings for his shortcut, which fell out of use almost immediately,
10:48while others blamed James Reed for ignoring the warnings he had received at Fort Laramie.
10:52The Donner Party incident and the publicity it received caused a significant reduction
10:56in the number of people traveling across the continent, but that dip wouldn't last long.
11:00In 1848, just a year later, gold was discovered in California. It was the beginning of the gold
11:05rush, and by 1849, thousands of people were once again racing out to California in search of riches.
11:11Ironically, many of these people traveled to the Sierra Nevada mountains and the surrounding areas,
11:16the same place where many members of the Donner Party met their deaths.