Several people died from malnutrition, but the rest managed to subsist on morsels of boiled leather and tree bark until rescue parties arrived in February and March 1847. They slaughtered their pack animals, cooked their dogs, gnawed on leftover bones and even boiled the animal hide roofs of their cabins into a foul paste. Not all of the emigrants engaged in cannibalism.Īs their supplies dwindled, the Donner emigrants stranded at Truckee Lake resorted to eating increasingly grotesque meals. It was the only time during the entire winter that people were murdered for use as food. The Indians were then butchered and eaten by the hikers.
Indeed, when the duo was found days later, exhausted and lying in the snow, a hiking party member named William Foster shot both of them in the head. The natives refused to engage in cannibalism, and Salvador and Luis later ran off out of fear that they might be murdered once the others ran out of meat. Rather than saving them time, Hasting’s “shortcut” ended up adding nearly a month to the Donner Party’s journey.Ī Donner Party member murdered two people for use as food.ĭuring the “Forlorn Hope” expedition, the hiking party included a pair of Indians named Salvador and Luis, both of whom had joined up with the Donner emigrants shortly before they became snowbound. The emigrants were forced to blaze much of the trail themselves by cutting down trees, and they nearly died of thirst during a five-day crossing of the salt desert. Despite the obvious risks-and against the warnings of James Clyman, an experienced mountain man-the 20 Donner Party wagons elected to break off from the usual route and gamble on Hastings’ back road. There was just one problem: no one had ever traveled this “Hastings Cutoff” with wagons, not even Hastings himself.
In 1846, however, a dishonest guidebook author named Lansford Hastings was promoting a straighter and supposedly quicker path that cut through the Wasatch Mountains and across the Salt Lake Desert. They fell behind schedule after taking an untested shortcut.Īfter reaching Wyoming, most California-bound pioneers followed a route that swooped north through Idaho before turning south and moving across Nevada.
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