Desperate Passage: The Donner Party’s Perilous Journey West- Blogpost #3

Desperate Passage: The Donner Party’s Perilous Journey West- Blogpost #3

            Stanton, one of the men who went ahead for supplies weeks before, was returning back to the camp. After parting ways with Reed, he and two accompanying Indians appeared before the group. The materials he brought were low, but the group was relieved and thought that their hardships had pasted; they now have food and guides to lead them back into civilization. They thought wrong. Winter approached the party and their traveling pace slowed down by the soft snow that was piling up. Near the top of the mountain is a small passage that families traveled through to get to the other side. It was nighttime by the time the Donner party arrived there and it was snowing really hard; tired and exhausted, the team decided to past through in the morning and camped at their current place. During the night, the snow piled up so much that passing through was impossible and the party, discouraged, descended down the mountain to a lake below. All of their travels were meant to pass that point before winter came and they failed; now they have to stay there for the winter. While the team was climbing the mountains, Reed reached Sutter’s Fort and found McCutchan, the man that was too sick to travel back to the party before. They traveled back to the group but the snow and current conditions made it impossible; they reassured themselves that the group had enough cattle and food to provide them until the spring. Somehow, the families within the Donner Party separated into two; one stayed at the cabins while another at Alder Creek. At first, someone with enough strength would go out to hunt, giving them a bit more food, but not enough. The families soon became desperate and they sent out a team of people strong enough to travel ahead for rescue. The rescue failed and the group returned, sulking. One person who wrote a diary during the ordeal at the site was Patrick Breen, who wrote small notes about each day. He mentioned the snow falling for days, where they couldn’t even go out. This snowfall caused a decrease in the food stock and the cattle and mules were buried under the snow, making it impossible to find the frozen corpses. One day in December, Franklin Graves noted that they would have to try for a rescue attempt again. This group was called the “Forlorn Hope” and Graves created weaved snowshoes that they could use. Everyone knew that if this party didn’t go receive aid, then they would all die.  Then Rarick talked about cannibalism and how even before the Donner party, other people were doing it too. They had their own reasons; either for their religion of sacrificing or for the sake of their survival. In the Forlorn Hope’s situation, the second reason would be the case. Their food supply soon depleted and half of the members died as they made their way to help. Starving, the remaining group began ravishing their dead companions’ decaying flesh. They had the difficult decision on who to eat first, and this stalled any killings before someone recently died and that person became their sacrifice. The problem soon popped up; they ran out of food. This kept going until they made it back to civilization on January 17 with only seven members; they started out with seventeen, two returned to the camps, and eight died. Back at the camps, the emancipated families were starving. A few people died and they had to lock themselves in their dark makeshift holes where they live. The Forlorn Hope group was mostly made out of young adults, so about half the camp was filled with young children and teens. The Margaret Reed had an idea; she and her children would set out for help like the Forlorn group. She took her two oldest children with her and left her other children with the Breens. The attempt failed and when they returned to the camps, their home was not suitable for living since the roof was gone. They roomed with the Breens and they had a little meat left, which they gave small nibbles to the children.

“Now the emigrants had proven it was possible to break free” (Rarick 143).

            I chose this quote because it signified that there was hope for the remaining Donner party after all. The party started out as a group that was behind on the trail and in a series of unfortunate events, they are in this hopeless, jail-like situation with no food and trapped in cramp holes in the snow. In many failed attempts to get in touch with help, this group went into extremes and took up cannibalism between those who they spent their travels with recently. They started with inexperience emigrants that wanted a better life for themselves and their families in the west, but their journey took a wrong turn. They were trapped in an isolated part of the mountains were no one was around and taking a risk, part of the Donner party finally arrived at their goal.