On February 19, 1847, the first rescue party reached 45 pioneers stuck in the snowy Sierra Nevada mountains of northeast California. They’d been stranded there with virtually no food or supplies for four months, and lost 36 companions, many of whom they ate in order to stay alive.
You’ve likely heard of the Donner party and understand that phrase simply to mean cannibalism, even if you don’t know the how and the why. But the initial journey into the mountains was also rife with struggle and misfortune.
170 years later, the thing that lingers in the mind is how avoidable it all seems in retrospect. No one misstep or misfortune was catastrophic at face value, but, beginning with their arrival at their departure point just one week late, things began adding up slowly and unnoticeably in the background. In the words of journalist Ethan Rarick (author of Desperate Passage, a book on the subject):
“It’s the cumulative nature of it—when you begin to add it [their lateness in arriving at their departure point] to the next little problem and the next little problem, and then it begins to snowball and it becomes a big problem.”
First, they arrived late to their departure point. Then, scheming adventurer Lansford Hastings and self-interested entrepreneur Jim Bridger persuaded them to take the former’s direct but dangerous Hastings Cutoff route (which passed Bridger’s supply fort) instead of the more established Oregon Trail.
Meanwhile, a fellow pioneer’s letter, stating that the Donner party should avoid the dangerous Hastings Cutoff, didn’t actually find its way into the hands of the party. By the time they were on the Hastings route, Hastings himself promised and failed to personally guide the party through some dangerous terrain.
Throughout, there was infighting, group splintering, and misuse of supplies. Finally, on November 4, a massive snowstorm started and didn’t stop for eight days. Their fate was sealed.
Read the Remainder at All that Is Interesting
Even history we don’t like to hear, needs to be remembered.