apparently native american tribes were in contact with the donner party and offered them food when they saw the colonists were starving and the donner party turned them down and decided to go the whole “cannibalism” route instead.
Until now the Native American perspective has been left out of the telling of the Donner tragedy, not because the wel mel ti did not remember the pioneers, but because they were never asked, or perhaps were not ready to share. Their oral tradition recalls the starving strangers who camped in an area that was unsuitable for that time of year. Taking pity on the pioneers, the northern Washoe attempted to feed them, leaving rabbit meat and wild potatoes near the camps. Another account states that they tried to bring the Donner Party a deer carcass, but were shot at as they approached. Later, some wel mel ti observed the migrants eating human remains. Fearing for their lives, the area’s native inhabitants continued to watch the strangers but avoided further contact. These stories, and the archaeological evidence that appears to support them, certainly complicated my interpretation of the Donner Party event. The migrants at Alder Creek were not surviving in the mountains alone—the northern Washoe were there, and they had tried to help. (source)
tfw a group of unprepared strangers show up, refuse the food you offer them, start fucking cannibalizing each other, and then call you the savages
The story of the Donner Party is hilarious to me because like, everybody talks about them like these brave pioneers who made the ultimate sacrifice in pursuit of their destiny or whatever the fuck, but they were just complete dumbasses.
Like, have you ever heard of the Murphy Party? Sometimes called the Stephens-Townsend-Murphy Party? They were the first wagon train of the pioneers to make it over the Sierra Nevada, two full years before the Donners tried it, first of the american pioneers to reach the shores of lake Tahoe, first licensed physician in California, etc. etc. Ten families, about fifty people, not a single casualty (they actually arrived with more people than when they left). Because when the Donners picked the most charismatic city boy as their leader, the Murphys picked a mountain man. Where the Donners decided to take a “shortcut” that was completely impassable based on a letter they got from somebody who wanted to drum up business for a trading post he was building but who had never actually driven a wagon, the Murphys scouted properly and stuck to paths their vehicles could actually traverse. Where the Donners decided to shoot at the people who were already living in the area, the Murphys asked the natives for directions. When they got snowed in, they sent a few men on ahead to bring back supplies to the rest of the party after building a sturdy cabin for shelter, instead of trying to hole up in shoddy tents and lean-tos before eating each other.
Not to mention all the idiotic in-fighting in the Donner party; they were constantly brawling or stabbing each other or exiling people or just leaving old men on the side of the path to die or “accidentally” shooting their rivals while cleaning weapons, while literally hundreds of other wagon trains somehow made it through the same trials without any murder.
So naturally, the Donners got a lake and a pass and a state park named after them and became household words, while anybody who wasn’t a complete moron got maybe a local park or a small creek.
Daaaaaaaaaamn.
It gets even better!
Donner was not the original leader of the group- the expedition started out under the leadership of a man named Reed, who did know what he was doing and had lead several groups safely to the Oregon Territory before.
When they reached the point where the new “California Trail” diverged from the Oregon Trail Donner convinced a large portion of the group to join him and travel across the Sierras.
Reed knew this was a very, very bad idea but Donner was apparently just- extremely charismatic and persuasive. Not only did the Reed Party safely make it to Oregon, as originally planned, but Reed immediately headed south as fast as he humanly could, and upon reaching Sacramento recruited a rescue party to bring emergency supplies up from the other side of the pass.
Unfortunately, it was already too late in the year and the weather forced the rescue party to turn back. Despite knowing the odds against the Donner Party surviving Reed refused to assume their deaths and stayed in Sacramento waiting for the mountain trail to clear.
So not only did Reed warn them not to, he was also the one that found the survivors afterwards.
Fuck Donner.
