Donner Party
The Donner Party was a group of California-bound American settlers in the 1840s who were famous for resorting to cannibalism while snowbound in the Sierra Nevada. It was made up of 87 emigrants in 23 wagons traveling along the California Trail. The nucleus of the group consisted of the Donner and Reed families and their hired hands, some 31 people, from Springfield, Illinois. They traveled in a larger wagon train until July 19, 1846, when those emigrants who wanted to take the new Hastings Cutoff formed their own wagon train, electing George Donner captain.
The Donner Party encountered great hardships crossing the Wasatch Mountains and the Great Salt Lake Desert in the present state of Utah. By the first of November they were trapped by heavy snow in the Sierra. About two-thirds of the party camped at a small lake (now called Donner Lake), while the Donner families camped about six miles away at Alder Creek.
In mid-December fifteen of the trapped emigrants set out for Sutter's Fort, about 100 miles (160 km) away, with only a few days' rations. They soon ran out of food. Caught without shelter in a raging blizzard, four of the company died. Their surviving companions reluctantly resorted to cannibalism. They continued their journey, in the course of which four more died. After a month of harsh travel, seven survivors — two men and five women — reached safety over the mountains on January 19, 1847, nearly naked and close to death.
Californians rallied to save the Donner Party and equipped a total of four rescue parties. On April 29, 1847, the last refugee arrived at Sutter's Fort. Of the original 87 emigrants, 41 died and 46 survived; about half of the survivors had been compelled to resort to cannibalism.
In August 2003 archaeologists found possible confirmation that cannibalism actually took place at Alder Creek, where the Donner families camped: they recovered from a campfire pit a bone fragment of a "large mammal" bearing butcher marks from an axe. Later excavations in July 2004 also recovered numerous fragments of bone. As of this writing (March 2005), none of the bone fragments have yet been identified as human.
The Donner Camp has been designated a National Historic Landmark.
Cannibalism per se is not a crime, and no legal action was ever taken against the survivors. During the Mexican War Northern California had been governed by U.S. naval commanders stationed in San Francisco Bay. Legal jurisdiction would shortly pass to the United States when California became a territory of the United States in 1848; it attained statehood in 1850.
In another notorious case, the Colorado cannibal Alferd Packer was tried and found guilty of murder, not cannibalism.