After more than 160 years it’s finally time to drag cannibalism from beneath the rug, dust it off and take a good hard look at it. Recent reports of archaeological findings from the Donner Party camp at Alder Creek have given rise to a startling new perception: There was no cannibalism in the Donner Party. Cannibalism was the “last extremity,” the short-lived culmination of a long chain of events, they insist the real story is the human drama-the combination of personalities and events, of good intentions, questionable decisions and sheer bad luck that created a situation in which the unthinkable became reality. Right-minded historians and history buffs have downplayed the Donner Party’s most memorable feature. The first news of the Donner Party to reach the world beyond the snowy mountains that trapped them was a sensational tale of starvation, death and cannibalism.Ĭannibalism has been the Donner Party’s hallmark ever since. Nothing further was heard from the company he left behind until late January 1847, when a skeletal figure staggered into Johnson’s Ranch, 40 miles north of Sutter’s. Reed was banished from George Donner’s wagon train and set out across the Nevada desert for California, reaching Sutter’s Fort in the Sacramento Valley three weeks later. Were the Donner Party Really Cannibals? CloseĪt the door of the Murphy cabin lay a corpse with most of the flesh missing inside were partially eaten limbs and scattered bones
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