Donner Party Term Paper

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The episode of the Donner Party is one of the most mesmerizing in the history of the American West. The study of the historical evidence presents this event as a tale of how a group of common people fought back almost to their journey’s end only to face greater hardship, even death. Since the time this incident took place, the Donner story has been narrated, written, explained by many different people in many different ways, but much of what has been written about the Donner Party is creative writing. Out of the many groups of people that come to Mexican California, none experienced more suffering than the Donner party. A group of people was organized in Springfield, Illinois, and in the early spring of 1846 it started westward across the plains. It afterward lost precious time by adopting what was supposed to be a shortcut south of the Great Salt Lake.

A large, well equipped wagon train rolled toward California in extremely comfortable way and when it crossed the plains without difficulty, but as it neared Fort Bridger a dispute arose. They had read Lansford Hastings' book, The Emigrants Guide to Oregon and California, which had recommended a shorter route and advertised that Hastings would guide those interested himself. The route that headed west from Fort Bridger through the Wasatch Mountains was non-explored. The route around the southern end of the Great Salt Lake, across the Salt Desert and on to the Humboldt River was untried by wagons. Yet still, many desired to take it. When the group arrived in Wyoming, they also came to know of a shortcut that could shorten their trip by about 300 miles. Most of them chose to remain on the traditional California trail, by Fort Hall.

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Donner and 80 people decided to take the Hastings´ shortcut and went to the Great Salt Lake. Everything went incorrect from then on. Hastings, the guide, was not in the Fort at Salt Lake to lead them through the mountains. They had to proceed with out the guide. During the journey on the unknown route most of the cattle’s were lost due to poisonous water and to the Indians; and they had to pass the Salt Lake Desert, an 80-mile- long desert made of salt where no bush or grass could grow in the vicinity. After the journey of two days it, eventually became weeks of painful activities. It is absorbing to read the journals or letters written by some pioneers adults and children. It is almost feeling like moving with them, while the party of Donners and Reeds were fearing, hoping, waiting for the new life, and just desiring the long troubled journey to be end.

The Donner party commenced its ascent of the Sierra Nevada in October and had the bad luck of being caught near the summit during the heaviest snowfall in thirty years. The weather, looked initially comfortable to negotiate, but it was not easy. All the problems they had, plus internal fights, tragically delayed the Donner party to reach the Sierra Nevada. It was then late September, the beginning of the worst winter in one century. They party got lost in the mountains during the winter, with little food and no way out, back or forth. What is found in different journals is a history of bravery and cowardice as the snow attained a depth of more than twenty feet; the group lived in crude log cabins and bended forward. When foods provisions shortened and ultimately ended, the animals used for beast of burdon were eaten, then the hides and the boiled leather from their snowshoes, and finally the flesh of those who died. The story has tragic elements of cruelty as well which are seen through the series of events. For example an old sick man was left behind to die along the track; another was killed after a non-useful fight. In the mountains, they when left with nothing to eat ultimately resorted to cannibalism. Out of the 85 original members of the Donner party, only 47 could survive. They arrived in the mountains in September and the last survivor was rescued in April who had gone wild and somewhat mad.

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There was great deal of heroism as well as horror during the dreadful winter in the Sierra. James Reed who had left the party to seek help had returned along with a relief expedition. When saviors arrived, Tamsen Donner declined to leave her husband George who was excessively weak to travel. Three daughters of the family were saved, but George and Tamsen died. This tragedy was no stranger to western trails, but the sad experience of this ill-fated group has come to symbolize the hardships of all. The company which had a very comfortable journey split and the majority took the longer northern route, the original on which all had to travel. The smaller division, joined by several small groups and individuals, headed for Hastings' Cutoff. They were eighty-seven men, women and children with twenty wagons led by Jacob Donner and James Reed.

At the Weber River they found a note from their guide directing them to turn south and cut a road over the mountain, in the mocking words of Reed's journal, "instead of the canyon which is impassible although 60 wagons passed through." They camped there four days while Reed rode down the Weber to find Hastings and obtain better guidance. Hastings was guiding two other trains and declined to go back. However, he gave precise orders on the track he had used two months earlier. By 10 August the new way looked shorter and less worrying. But instead of three days negotiating over the Weber Canyon stones and rocks, they spent twelve days cutting a road through brush and timber into the Salt Lake Valley.

Moving quickly South of the Great Salt Lake, they took the rest for one day to take on water and grass, and then pushed into the Great Salt Lake Desert on 30 August. Driving day and night, they did not stop. But the ground was obviously softer than it had been for the preceding companies. The crossing took six days rather than the two envisaged by the guide Hastings. Four of their wagons and many of the animals were lost at this stage of the journey. [Party dale Beecherutah]

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Having known that time was dangerous, they made a swift run across Nevada, but with no rest the stock could not make the pull over the Sierras before early snows blocked the high passes in late October. Thirty-five had perished in the snow and cold of the Sierra Nevada’s, while five died before they reached the mountains. Two Indians also lost their lives in the rescue attempts. The Donner Party's fate insured that the Hastings cutoff would not be used by later wagon trains. However the track they cut through the Wasatch Mountains was the main road into Utah for a decade, also to act as memoirs for the Donners Party.

There were so many errors they made right from the beginning. First of all they took too long in the Wasatch Mountains. They hanged around too long in Reno before going into the mountains. Their fatal flaw is that they could not act as a unified unit. They were not a team, a company, and a group. They were just independent families who at times traveled together. The rich people: the Donners and Reeds stood separately from everyone. They didn’t go into it thinking they had to stick together or they will be lost. That was their chief blunder. It shows the eventual result of that kind of internal strife and independent thinking when there is no cohesive group. If the same mistakes are going to be repeated allowing the same divisions of class, race, national origin, and wealth to keep us apart, then no cohesion is going to come up in the days of natural calamities homeless people can be seen filling sand bags beside casinos bosses downtown.


 

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