Donner Party - Tumblr Posts
Oh... oh, bless the poor soul who put this list together.
Oh no.
I need to see something.
Please reblog this and put in the tags if the surname “Donner” means anything to you (without looking it up first), and if it does, give one or two words that describe what you know. Please also include where you grew up, including the state if you grew up in the US.
Headcanon:
Don's full name is Donatello Chizzleton, and his nicknames are:
Don (standard) Donnie (Courtesy of Josh) Donovan Donald Donner party (courtesy of Chris) The Don Dondon Don Bluth (Courtesy of Chef) Dona-kiss-and-tell-o (Courtesy of Chris and Blaineley) Donner (As in the reindeer)
the colors are funky cause it's inverted for sensory reasons but THE JUXTAPOSITION-
Nah. I think we'll wait a few exits before we think about stopping for food. Thanks anyway,
The first group of rescuers reached the Donner Party on February 19, 1847.
Today I learnt that Abraham Lincoln was almost a part of the Donner Party
so. I grew up California a few hours drive away from where the Donner Party got stuck and I've driven through Donner Pass multiple times (beautiful area! highly recommend even if u don't wanna go see the surviving cabins or stuff) so it was very much mentioned throughout my childhood, and one of the things that has been turning over in my head since Fitzjames's id'ing brought the Franklin Expedition back into my thoughts more is like... the survivors and the reaction. It was varied (though the news latched onto it very quickly) with some sympathy and horror but even over 150 years later with time as distance, as a kid I know people who, when I asked about the story, cockily asserted they personally would never, and seemed offended by what the survivors had done (not referring to the few actual murders that happened but the others who ate the many already dead to survive). One of my aunt's childhood friends' mother was a survivor of the Donner Party as a child and my dad always made a point to differentiate her and her family, who are some of the few who never ate anyone, and the ones who had, saying she wasn't decended from ~cannibals~ so essentially not to worry, like the others. and this is years and years and years later, the way things followed the survivors at the time I am told was nightmarish.
and while I know a lot of the initial reaction to the knowledge and whatnot of The Eating stemmed from racism and denial, in the FE's case? I keep wondering what would have happened if some of them had been found, and resscued, AFTER they had started resorting to eating the dead. the sheer vitriol towards even the suggestion they may have eaten each other, even out of necessity, makes me think it wouldn't have been pretty. and there's something so painful about that, that even if some of them had survived and managed to get home, traumatised but alive, their countrymen may have rejected them as if there HAD been murder. as if it had been anything other than desperation. and obvs we will never know what exactly happened but there's something so tragic abt that to me, that even had some of them survived, they would have been othered for the way they survived. Even if they had no other choice.