Virginia reed donner party biography of barack

19th-century group of American emigrants who became trapped

For other uses, see Donner Party (disambiguation).

The Donner Party, sometimes called the Donner–Reed Party, were a group of American pioneers who migrated to California in a wagon train from the Midwest.

Delayed by a multitude of mishaps, they spent the winter of 1846–1847 snowbound in the Sierra Nevada. Some of the migrants resorted to cannibalism to survive, mainly eating the bodies of those who had succumbed to starvation, sickness, or extreme cold, but in one case two Native American guides were murdered and eaten.^[1]

The Donner Party originated from Springfield, Illinois, and departed Independence, Missouri, on the Oregon Trail in the spring of 1846.

The journey west usually took between four and six months, but the Donner Party was slowed after electing to follow a new route called the Hastings Cutoff, which bypassed established trails and instead crossed the Rocky Mountains' Wasatc