Donner Party Research Papers

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The Donner Party The Donner Party shows the next generation of Americans that cutting corners never leads to beneficial outcomes. The Donner Party wanted a shorter route to where they were going and thought it would be a lot easier, but it turned out many of them died and even had to end up eating each other's corps because they were lost, stuck and starving. If they would've took the the long way, those things would've never happened. A group of about 90 pioneers from Springfield Illinois, led by James F. Reed and George Donner wanted to find a better place to live. So they packed up their stuff in 20 wagons and began on there way on May 1846. Little did they know things wouldn't turn out the way they wanted it too. They wanted to get to California. Once they went onto their journey to California they decided they wanted to take a shortcut through Utah to Nevada. The group then decided to try Hasting Cutoff, an alternate route to get to the gold rush faster. But once they got onto that route they discovered it wasn't meant for weapons. But they still went down the Hasting Cutoff anyways. …show more content…

So they started to limit themselves. There second main struggle was when they got to The Great Salt Lake Desert. In the desert, the donner party's ate the rest of their food and drank the remaining of their water. SInce it was so hot there. They also decided to leave their wagons behind to decrease the weight they were carrying and to able to travel easier. Soon the member resorted to eating animals to stay alive. They made it through the desert but a lot of the member began to get sick and were slowing dying from starvation and