What If the Donner Party Didn't Resort to Cannibalism?

In the spring of 1846, a caravan of pioneers left Independence, Missouri, and began the long trek toward California. The group mostly comprised of families who hoped to start a better life out West. 

The pioneers initially followed the Oregon Trail until Wyoming. Relying on advice from a guidebook, they took what promised to be a shortcut. But the new route was longer than expected and trapped them in the Sierra Nevada mountains over the winter.

“By the time they got back on the established trial, they were a month behind, and they were exhausted,†says Bill Schutt, a biologist and the author of Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History. 

Half the group had died by February 1847, and survivors resorted to eating the dead. Historians have long accepted the group descended into cannibalism. But in recent years, misinformation sparked a debate that some historians call unfounded.

Campsite Finds

In 2003, research teams from the University of Montana and Appalachian State University (ASU) found remains of a campsite at Alder Creek that dated to the 1840s. The remains included a hearth, cooking utensils, and pottery fragments. They also found thousands of bone fragments, which analysis determined to be animal, not human bones. 

In 2010, the researchers prepared to publish their findings, but the ASU public affairs office beat them to it. In a press release, they announced the discovery of the animal bones meant there was no evidence of cannibalism. 

News outlets quickly picked up the story and described the Donner Party survivors as exonerated from false accusations of cannibalism. 

Who Was the Donner Party?

Named after George Donner — the group’s leader— the 87 pioneers became known as the Donner Party. The pioneers didnâ€t necessarily know each other, but they teamed up to make the long journey west.

Westward travels were slow-moving ordeals. Pioneers had teams of oxen pull-covered wagons. To lighten the load, most pioneers walked alongside the wagon and averaged about one mile per hour. The journey was typically 2,500 miles long and took as long as seven months. 

Westward migration began five years earlier, in 1841, and the Donner Party initially followed the Oregon Trail, which had led many others to Oregon and California. In Wyoming, they had to choose to follow the established route or try a shortcut that had been promoted by Lansford Hastings in his book, The Emigrants†Guide to Oregon and California. 

It turns out that the shortcut was actually 125 miles longer than the established route, and it took the pioneers through the Wasatch Mountains and across the Great Salt Lake Desert. 

The Doomed Donners 

The Donner Partyâ€s timing was fatal. They made it to the Sierra Nevada mountains just as winter arrived.

“The thing about this westward trail, if you didnâ€t get across the Sierra Nevada [range] before the first snow, you were in trouble,†Schutt says. 

Other troubles were brewing. “There was a lot of bickering,†Schutt says. “They split into two groups.â€

One group included Donner, who was injured. They remained at Alder Creek meadow. The other group continued to the mountain pass but stopped to rest for the night at a lake now known as Donner Lake. 

“That night, something like five feet of snow passed, and it blocked their ability to pass the Sierra,†Schutt says. 

Read More: Living Through the Donner Party

The group at the lake found a cabin and then built two more. “That was a mistake. They should have gotten out of the mountains,†Schutt says. 

Both groups were only about 50 miles from civilization, and there were attempts by members to go for help. There were also several relief expeditions that tried to help the stranded pioneers. But it wasnâ€t enough, and by February 1847, desperate survivors had resorted to eating their dead. 

“They were at ultimate starvation,†Schutt says.

Survival and the Debate of Cannibalism

Half of the doomed Donner Party died during the harsh winter. Young children under six had the highest morbidity, as did single men who were traveling without family. Men and boys also died at a higher rate than women and girls.

Rescuers described the survivors as gaunt and ghastly. They lived among the corpses of their dead relatives, and cannibalism was evident.

By summer, an American general and his soldiers happened through the abandoned camp at Alder Creek and were horrified to see the still unburied dead who had been mutilated by their starving relatives. 

Based on eyewitness accounts, historians long accepted the Donner Party had been reduced to cannibalism. Understanding why they turned to cannibalism became clearer as scientists learned more about starvation and how it changed both the body and mind. 

But in the two decades, researchers began suggesting there wasnâ€t evidence of cannibalism. It sparked a debate that grabbed headlines and bothered researchers. 

Read More: Ancient Humans May Have Turned to Cannibalism For A Deeper Meaning

Combating Misinformation

The hearth discovery meant the Donner Party members were recooking animal bones to get every last bit of nutrition from them, Schutt says. 

Human bones, however, were handled differently once cannibalism began in February 1847. “By then, there was no need to cook and cook the bones because there was plenty of dead to eat,†Schutt says.

The cooked bones were preserved better than the gnawed-upon human bones, which is likely why the archeology team did not find any during their dig. Just because the Donner party initially cooked animal bones didnâ€t mean they didnâ€t resort to cannibalism at a later time.

ASU replaced the sensational press release with an updated, accurate version, but Schutt says the damage was done. 

Misinformation about the Donner party continues to suggest they werenâ€t cannibals, which Schutt says researchers still have to address when publishing or giving interviews.

“There is really no debate among serious Donner party researchers whether cannibalism occurred or not,†Schutt says.

Read More: Cannibalization May Have Been a Last Resort for Survivors of the Lost John Franklin Expedition

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Emilie Lucchesi has written for some of the country’s largest newspapers, including The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and an MA from DePaul University. She also holds a Ph.D. in communication from the University of Illinois-Chicago with an emphasis on media framing, message construction and stigma communication. Emilie has authored three nonfiction books. Her third, A Light in the Dark: Surviving More Than Ted Bundy, releases October 3, 2023, from Chicago Review Press and is co-authored with survivor Kathy Kleiner Rubin.