Доннер Парти

Ванбли рассказал мне, что в Америке есть гора, названная в честь группы пионеров, которые там погибли , около сотни человек.... Погибли от... голода... Вот то, что невыразимо удивляет индейцев! Они даже начали есть друг друга и все равно умерли от голода! Ванбли говорит:"Как это возможно?! В прекраснейшей стране, где полно дичи и всяких фруктов умереть от голода? Среди них были мужчины с оружием.... Они что , не охотились? Я не могу себе представить такого, чтобы умереть от голода в раю!... Даже если вдруг еды вообще нет и дичи нет... Там есть деревья... А под КАЖДЫМ деревом под корнями всегда живут червяки, съедобные личинки. Я бы лучше стал есть личинок, чем какую-нибудь мужскую задницу... Это скорее говорит о том, каковы эти белые.."

Википедия пишет об этом: "В дневнике Патрика Брина он записывал свои наблюдения в конце февраля 1847 года, в том числе: «Вчера миссис Мерфи сказала, что она думала, что она собирается съесть Милтона. Я не думаю, что она уже это сделала, это ужасно...».

Ну в общем, они ВСЕ умерли от ... голода....
А затем другие Вашичу в честь этих "героев" назвали гору....
Ха-ха-ха! Логика Вашичу!

Белые обвиняют разных коренных народов в канибализме. А ведь, это они сами - канибалы и дикари.


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Donner Party
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Donner Party (disambiguation).

Page 28 of Patrick Breen's diary, recording his observations in late February 1847, including "Mrs. Murphy said here yesterday that she thought she would commence on Milton and eat him. I do not think she has done so yet; it is distressing."

The Donner Party (sometimes called the Donner–Reed Party) was a group of American pioneers led by George Donner and James F. Reed who set out for California in a wagon train in May 1846. They were delayed by a series of mishaps and mistakes, and spent the winter of 1846–47 snowbound in the Sierra Nevada. Some of the pioneers resorted to cannibalism to survive.

The journey west usually took between four and six months, but the Donner Party was slowed by following a new route called Hastings Cutoff, which crossed Utah's Wasatch Mountains and Great Salt Lake Desert. The rugged terrain and difficulties encountered while traveling along the Humboldt River in present-day Nevada resulted in the loss of many cattle and wagons and splits within the group.

By the beginning of November 1846, the settlers had reached the Sierra Nevada where they became trapped by an early, heavy snowfall near Truckee (now Donner) Lake, high in the mountains. Their food supplies ran extremely low and, in mid-December, some of the group set out on foot to obtain help. Rescuers from California attempted to reach the settlers, but the first relief party did not arrive until the middle of February 1847, almost four months after the wagon train became trapped. Of the 87 members of the party, 48 survived to reach California, many of them having eaten the dead for survival.

Historians have described the episode as one of the most bizarre and spectacular tragedies in Californian history and western-US migration.

Contents

1 Background
2 Families
3 Hastings Cutoff
3.1 Wasatch Mountains
3.2 Great Salt Lake Desert
4 Rejoining the Trail
4.1 Reed banished
4.2 Disintegration
5 Snowbound
5.1 Donner Pass
5.2 Winter camp
5.3 "The Forlorn Hope"
6 Rescue
6.1 Reed attempts a rescue
6.2 First relief
6.3 Second relief
6.4 Third relief
6.5 Response
6.6 Survivors
7 Legacy
7.1 Mortality
7.2 Claims of cannibalism
8 See also
9 Notes
10 Citations
11 Bibliography
12 Further reading
13 External links

Background

An encampment of tents and covered wagons on the Humboldt River in Nevada, 1859

During the 1840s, the United States saw a dramatic increase in pioneers, people who left their homes in the east to settle in Oregon and California. Some, such as Patrick Breen, saw California as a place where they would be free to live in a fully Catholic culture, but many were inspired by the idea of Manifest Destiny, a philosophy which asserted that the land between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans belonged to Americans and they should settle it. Most wagon trains followed the Oregon Trail route from Independence, Missouri to the Continental Divide, traveling at about 15 miles (24 km) a day on a journey that usually took between four and six months. The trail generally followed rivers to South Pass, a mountain pass in Wyoming, which was relatively easy for wagons to negotiate. From there, wagon trains had a choice of routes to their destination.

Lansford W. Hastings, an early immigrant, went to California in 1842 and saw the promise of the undeveloped country. To encourage settlers, he published The Emigrants' Guide to Oregon and California. He described a direct route across the Great Basin which would bring emigrants through the Wasatch Mountains and across the Great Salt Lake Desert. Hastings had not traveled any part of his proposed shortcut until early 1846 on a trip from California to Fort Bridger. The fort was a scant supply station run by Jim Bridger and his partner Pierre Louis Vasquez in Blacks Fork, Wyoming. Hastings stayed at the fort to persuade travelers to turn south on his route. As of 1846, Hastings was the second of two men documented to have crossed the southern part of the Great Salt Lake Desert and neither had been accompanied by wagons.

The most difficult part of the journey to California was the last 100 miles (160 km) across the Sierra Nevada. This mountain range contains 500 distinct peaks over 12,000 feet (3,700 m) high, and because of their height and proximity to the Pacific Ocean they receive more snow than most other ranges in North America. The eastern side of the range is also extremely steep. After leaving Missouri to cross the vast wilderness to Oregon or California, timing was crucial to ensure that wagon trains would not be bogged down by mud created by spring rains, nor by massive snowdrifts in the mountains from September onwards, and also that their horses and oxen would have enough spring grass to eat.

Families

In the spring of 1846, almost 500 wagons headed west from Independence. At the rear of the train, a group of nine wagons containing 32 members of the Reed and Donner families and their employees left on May 12.George Donner, born in North Carolina, had gradually moved west to Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois, with a one-year sojourn to Texas. In early 1846, he was about 60 years old. With him were his 44-year-old wife Tamsen and their three daughters Frances (6), Georgia (4), and Eliza (3), and George's daughters from a previous marriage: Elitha (14) and Leanna (12). George's younger brother Jacob (aged 56) also joined the party with his wife Elizabeth (45), teenaged stepsons Solomon Hook (14) and William Hook (12), and five children: George (9), Mary (7), Isaac (6), Lewis (4), and Samuel (1). Also traveling with the Donner brothers were teamsters Hiram O. Miller (29), Samuel Shoemaker (25), Noah James (16), Charles Burger (30), John Denton (28), and Augustus Spitzer (30).

James and Margret Reed

James F. Reed, a 45-year-old native of present-day Northern Ireland, had settled in Illinois in 1831. He was accompanied by his wife Margret (32), stepdaughter Virginia (13), daughter Martha Jane "Patty" (8), sons James and Thomas (5 and 3), and Sarah Keyes, Margret Reed's 70-year-old mother, who was in the advanced stages of consumption and died on May 28; she was buried by the side of the trail. In addition to leaving financial worries behind, Reed hoped that California's climate would help Margret, who had long suffered from ill health. The Reeds hired three men to drive the ox teams: Milford (Milt) Elliot (28), James Smith (25), and Walter Herron (25). Baylis Williams (24) went along as handyman and his sister Eliza (25) as the family's cook.

Within a week of leaving Independence, the Reeds and Donners joined up with a group of 50 wagons nominally led by William H. Russell. By June 16, the company had traveled 450 miles (720 km), with 200 miles (320 km) to go before Fort Laramie, Wyoming. They had been delayed by rain and a rising river, but Tamsen Donner wrote to a friend in Springfield, "indeed, if I do not experience something far worse than I have yet done, I shall say the trouble is all in getting started." Young Virginia Reed recalled years later that, during the first part of the trip, she was "perfectly happy".

Several other families joined the wagon train along the way. Levinah Murphy (37), a widow from Tennessee, headed a family of thirteen. Her five youngest children were John Landrum (16), Meriam ("Mary", 14), Lemuel (12), William (10), and Simon (8). Levinah's two married daughters and their families also came along: Sarah Murphy Foster (19), her husband William M. (30) and son Jeremiah George (1); Harriet Murphy Pike (18), her husband William M. (32) and their daughters Naomi (3) and Catherine (1). William Eddy (28), a carriage maker from Illinois, brought his wife Eleanor (25) and their two children James (3) and Margaret (1). The Breen family consisted of Patrick Breen (51), a farmer from Iowa, his wife Margaret ("Peggy", 40) and seven children: John (14), Edward (13), Patrick, Jr. (9), Simon (8), James (5), Peter (3), and 11-month-old Isabelle. Their neighbor traveled with them, 40-year-old bachelor Patrick Dolan. German immigrant Lewis Keseberg (32) joined with his wife Elisabeth Philippine (22) and daughter Ada (2); son Lewis Jr. was born on the trail. Two young single men named Spitzer and Reinhardt traveled with another German couple, the Wolfingers, who also had hired driver "Dutch Charley" Burger. An older man named Hardkoop rode with them. Luke Halloran was passed from family to family, a young man who seemed to get sicker with tuberculosis every day, as none could spare the time or resources to care for him.

Hastings Cutoff

To promote his new route, Hastings sent riders to deliver letters to traveling emigrants. On July 12, the Reeds and Donners were given one of these letters. Hastings warned the emigrants that they could expect opposition from the Mexican authorities in California, and advised them therefore to band together in large groups. He also claimed to have "worked out a new and better road to California", and said that he would be waiting at Fort Bridger to guide the emigrants along the new cutoff.

J. Quinn Thornton traveled part of the way with Donner and Reed, and in his book From Oregon and California in 1848 declared Hastings the "Baron Munchausen of travelers in these countries". Tamsen Donner, according to Thornton, was "gloomy, sad, and dispirited" at the thought of turning off the main trail on the advice of Hastings, whom she considered "a selfish adventurer".

Map of the route taken by the Donner Party, showing Hastings Cutoff—which added 150 miles (240 km) to their travels—in orange.

On July 20 at the Little Sandy River, most of the wagon train opted to follow the established trail via Fort Hall. A smaller group opted to head for Fort Bridger and needed a leader. Most of the younger males in the group were European immigrants and not considered to be ideal leaders. James Reed had been living in the U.S. for a considerable time, was older, and had military experience, but his autocratic attitude had rubbed many in the party the wrong way, and they saw him as aristocratic, imperious, and ostentatious. By comparison, the mature, experienced, American-born Donner's peaceful and charitable nature made him the group's first choice. The members of the party were comfortably well off by contemporaneous standards. Although they are called pioneers, all but a few lacked specific skills and experience for traveling through mountains and arid land, and had little knowledge about how to deal with Native Americans.

Journalist Edwin Bryant reached Blacks Fork a week ahead of the Donner Party. He saw the first part of the trail, and was concerned that it would be difficult for the wagons in the Donner group, especially with so many women and children. He returned to Blacks Fork to leave letters warning several members of the group not to take the shortcut. By the time the Donner Party reached Blacks Fork on July 27, Hastings had already left, leading the forty wagons of the Harlan–Young group.Jim Bridger's trading post would fare substantially better if people used the Hastings Cutoff, and he told the party that the shortcut was a smooth trip, devoid of rugged country and hostile Native Americans, and would therefore shorten their journey by 350 miles (560 km). Water would be easy to find along the way, although a couple of days crossing a 30–40-mile (48–64 km) dry lake bed would be necessary.

Reed was very impressed with this information, and advocated for the Hastings Cutoff. None of the party received Bryant's letters warning them to avoid Hastings' route at all costs; in his diary account, Bryant states his conviction that Bridger deliberately concealed the letters, a view shared by Reed in his later testimony.

On July 31, 1846, the party left Blacks Fork after four days of rest and wagon repairs, eleven days behind the leading Harlan–Young group. Donner hired a replacement driver, and the company was joined by the McCutcheon family, consisting of 30-year-old William, his 24-year-old wife Amanda, 2-year-old daughter Harriet, and a 16-year-old named Jean Baptiste Trudeau from New Mexico, who claimed to have knowledge of the Native Americans and terrain on the way to California.

Wasatch Mountains

Big Cottonwood Canyon, located several miles south of the Donner route in the heart of the Wasatch mountains of Northern Utah

The party turned south to follow the Hastings Cutoff. Within days, they found the terrain to be much more difficult than described, and the drivers were forced to lock the wheels of their wagons to prevent them from rolling down steep inclines. Several years of migrant traffic on the main Oregon Trail had left an easy and obvious path, whereas the Cutoff was more difficult to find. Hastings wrote directions and left letters stuck to trees. On August 6, the party found a letter from Hastings advising them to stop until he could show them an alternative route to that taken by the Harlan–Young Party. Reed, Charles Stanton, and William Pike rode ahead to get Hastings. They encountered exceedingly difficult canyons where boulders had to be moved and walls cut off precariously to a river below, a route likely to break wagons. Hastings had offered in his letter to guide the Donner Party around the more difficult areas, but he rode back only part way, indicating the general direction to follow.

Stanton and Pike stopped to rest, and Reed returned alone to the group, arriving four days after the party's departure. Without the guide they had been promised, the group had to decide whether to turn back and rejoin the traditional trail, follow the tracks left by the Harlan–Young Party through the difficult terrain of Weber Canyon, or forge their own trail in the direction that Hastings had recommended. At Reed's urging, the group chose the new Hastings route. Their progress slowed to about a mile and a half (2.4 km) a day, and all the able-bodied men were required to clear brush, fell trees, and heave rocks to make room for the wagons.

As the Donner Party made its way across the Wasatch Mountains, they were caught up by the Graves family, who had set off to find them. The Graves family consisted of 57-year-old Franklin Graves, his 47-year-old wife Elizabeth, their children Mary (20), William (18), Eleanor (15), Lovina (13), Nancy (9), Jonathan (7), Franklin, Jr. (5), Elizabeth (1), and married daughter Sarah (22), plus son-in-law Jay Fosdick (23), and a 25-year-old teamster named John Snyder, traveling together in three wagons. Their arrival brought the Donner Party to 87 members in 60–80 wagons. The Graves family had been part of the last group to leave Missouri, confirming that the Donner Party was at the back of the year's western exodus.

It was August 20 by the time that they reached a point in the mountains where they could look down and see the Great Salt Lake. It took almost another two weeks to travel out of the Wasatch Mountains. The men began to argue, and doubts were expressed about the wisdom of those who had chosen this route, in particular James Reed. Food and supplies began to run out for some of the less affluent families. Stanton and Pike had ridden out with Reed but had become lost on their way back; by the time that the party found them, they were a day away from eating their horses.

Great Salt Lake Desert

Great Salt Lake Desert

Luke Halloran died of tuberculosis on August 25. A few days later, the party came across a torn and tattered letter from Hastings. The pieces indicated that there were two days and nights of difficult travel ahead without grass or water. The party rested their oxen and prepared for the trip. After 36 hours they set off to traverse a 1,000-foot (300 m) mountain that lay in their path. From its peak, they saw ahead of them a dry, barren plain, perfectly flat and covered with white salt, larger than the one which they had just crossed, and "one of the most inhospitable places on earth" according to Rarick. Their oxen were already fatigued and their water was nearly gone.

The party pressed onward on August 30, having no alternative. In the heat of the day, the moisture underneath the salt crust rose to the surface and turned the soil to a gummy mass. The wheels of their wagons sank into it, in some cases up to the hubs. The days were blisteringly hot and the nights frigid. Several of the group saw visions of lakes and wagon trains, and believed that they had finally overtaken Hastings. After three days, the water was gone, and some of the party removed their oxen from the wagons to press ahead to find more. Some of the animals were so weakened they were left yoked to the wagons and abandoned. Nine of Reed's ten oxen broke free, crazed with thirst, and bolted off into the desert. Many other families' cattle and horses had also gone missing. The rigors of the journey resulted in irreparable damage to some of the wagons, but no human lives had been lost. Instead of the promised two days journey over 40 miles, the journey across the 80 miles of Great Salt Lake Desert had taken six.

None of the party had any remaining faith in the Hastings Cutoff as they recovered at the springs on the other side of the desert. They spent several days trying to recover cattle, retrieve the wagons left in the desert, and transfer their food and supplies to other wagons. Reed's family incurred the heaviest losses, and Reed became more assertive, asking all the families to submit an inventory of their goods and food to him. He suggested that two men should go to Sutter's Fort in California; he had heard that John Sutter was exceedingly generous to wayward pioneers, and could assist them with extra provisions. Charles Stanton and William McCutchen volunteered to undertake the dangerous trip. The remaining serviceable wagons were pulled by mongrel teams of cows, oxen, and mules. It was the middle of September, and two young men who went in search of missing oxen reported that another 40-mile (64 km) long stretch of desert lay ahead.

Their cattle and oxen were now exhausted and lean, but the Donner Party crossed the next stretch of desert relatively unscathed, and the journey seemed to get easier, particularly through the valley next to the Ruby Mountains. Despite their near hatred of Hastings, they had no choice but to follow his tracks, which were weeks old. On September 26, two months after embarking on the cutoff, the Donner Party rejoined the traditional trail along a stream that became known as the Humboldt River. The shortcut had probably delayed them by a month.

Rejoining the Trail

Reed banished

Along the Humboldt, the group met Paiute Native Americans, who joined them for a couple of days but stole or shot several oxen and horses. By now, it was well into October, and the Donner families split off to make better time. Two wagons in the remaining group became tangled, and John Snyder angrily beat the ox of Reed's hired teamster Milt Elliott. When Reed intervened, Snyder turned the whip on him. Reed retaliated by fatally plunging a knife under Snyder's collarbone.

That evening, the witnesses gathered to discuss what was to be done. United States laws were not applicable west of the Continental Divide (in what was then Mexican territory) and wagon trains often dispensed their own justice. But George Donner, the party's leader, was a full day ahead of
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