Donner Party you will never be forgotten by my 8th graders...

The Gorier the Better! 

I've realized that the goriest stories from history tend to tip the interest of my students. When we studied factories I told them how women's hair could be ripped completely off their scalp by the machines, or children's hands could be crushed or fingers cut off, I told them how a slave once was found in a cage strung up in a tree and had been partially eaten by the birds, worst part he was still alive. I told them how women had so few rights that when they were divorced from their husbands all their property, money and even children were given directly to their husband. That last one isn't necessarily gory but it is a dramatic history fact.

No I was not searching for Golden Fleece

This last chapter has some of the best stories and because I was an Argonaut in another life I tend to know a lot of them. Our last chapter has been about Westward expansion. I LOVE THE WEST!!! I have Rocky Mountain run off running through my blood, and it ties me to this beautiful place of possibilities. I love the stories of pioneers seeking a better life, and trying to make something new for their family way out west. I love all the stories of hardship and the stories of truly fulfilling Manifest Destiny. I like my students love the stories that make you a little bit disgustedly interested. One of the most famous of stories of the west is that of the Donner Party.

Patrick Breen vs. Piggy

Oh the Donner Party, you infamous cannibals, who will forever go down in history for taking a wrong route to California and ending up eating each other. Well at least your trek helped us map out I-80. Now to be fair to the Donner Party, they did not actually start hunting each other and then hunker down for a nice homo sapiens steak. This isn't Lord of the Flies for heaven's sakes, there was no one named Piggy, although if there had been he would have been the first to go.

What truly happened to the Donner Party is a little less disgusting than that. Once they had take the wrong route to Sacramento, they found themselves stuck in the Sierras much too late to make it through. Almost 20 feet of snow had fallen, so they set up camp until they could make it through. They went through all their livestock then decided that drastic measures needed to be taken to keep them all alive. They drew straws and one unlucky man drew the short straw. The party felt too bad and did not kill the poor guy but instead waited until he froze to death one night. When they discovered him perfectly preserved, a guy cut off a hunk of meat from him and threw it on the fire, and then cannibalism took hold. We know most of this from a guy named Patrick Breen who was with the party and kept a journal during the time in the Sierras.

Candy on Cannibalism

I personally think that Cannibalism in extreme circumstances is completely justifiable. I believe it is hard for us to say, 'I would never do that no matter what!" But I don't think most of us have felt the kind of hunger that these people felt. I don't think a lot of us have faced dying of hunger so it is easy for us to say that it is morally wrong, but if it came down to dying or eating a person who has already died, I would definitely eat them. Now killing someone to eat them is another thing, but if they are already dead which all of the people in the Donner Party incident were, then it's not a problem with me. Read The Road it will change how you think about Cannibalism, in fact it will make you think about Cannibalism which you probably don't do too much.