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The Donner Party vs. The Paiutes

By Diana Harrison

The story of the Donner Party is one of the most researched and documented incidents in western history but the story has always been told from the point of view of whites who traveled in that ill fated wagon train. Historians have blamed the tragedy of the Donner party upon such things as the time that was wasted on Lansford Hastings's "short-cut" to California, poor leadership and conflict among the members of the wagon train, or the simple effect of bad luck in choosing a year when there was an early snow fall. Members of the wagon train were never accused of bringing trouble upon themselves by starting a war with a small band of Paiute Indians.

When the Donner party started out from Springfield, Illinois, in the spring of 1846, George Donner was a 62 year old man who had already riased one set of children and started another with his second wife, Tamsen Donner. His older brother Jacob was 65 and traveling with his wife and seven children, 5 of his own, and two by his wife's first marriage. Compared to the heads of most families who traveled west by wagon train the Donner brothers were quite old but that probably didn't bother Jacob and George very much because they had plenty of money and were able to hire young men to do the work an older man might shun.

The Donner brothers' friend and neighbor James Frazier Reed left Illinois carrying his profits from selling a large farm and a business. Reed was also traveling with servants and carried a letter of introduction from the Governor of Illinois that described him as a man of substance. For his trip west, Reed had put together an outfit like no one had ever seen. His family was riding in a two story wagon called the "Prairie Palace" that had steps on the side to make it easy for the women to climb into a stove heated little room where they could sit and sew while their servants worked. Before the wagon train was on the trail for very long, some of the others were beginning to feel resentful of the Reeds' comfort and irritated by the awkwardness of the Prairie Palace which slowed them down at rough points in the trail.

Despite the delays, the wagon train made it to Fort Laramie in eastern Wyoming territory by July 1st and that was where they met a man named Bonnie who was headed east to lead his family back to their new homestead. Bonnie was carrying a letter from Lansford Hastings that invited all the emigrants who were headed to California to wait for him at Fort Bridger so he could lead them across a short-cut that would slice 200-300 miles off of their trip.

The Donners already knew about Lansford Hastings because he had written a book called The Emigrant's Guide to Oregon and California and so far, everything in the book had turned out to be true. What they didn't know was that Hastings was a hustler who hoped to get enough U.S. citizens to move to California for him to start a revolt against the Mexicans. When the fighting was over, Hastings hoped that people would elect him President of the Independent State of California, but even if that failed he was certain that a large population of U.S. settlers would insure annexation of California by the U.S. government. When that happened, Hastings planned to get rich by selling land to the people who would swarm into the new state.

Either plan needed a large number of U.S. citizens so the enterprising Hastings wrote a book encouraging people to move to California, telling them exactly what to bring and how to get there. The Donners were impressed. Hastings had already helped them plan their trip and now he was going to personally show them a quick, safe and EASY way to California along a trail that his letter described as smooth and level, with good camp sites, plenty of grass, wood and water and no bad canyons. And if that wasn't enough, Hastings' letter also claimed that if they took his route they wouldn't run into any hostile Indians. The only problem was that Hastings was lying. When he wrote the letter he had never traveled the route and had no idea what the wagon train would find.

Except for the short trip from Springfield, Illinois to Independence, Missouri, the Donner Party was never a separate wagon train until about twenty miles west of the Little Sandy River in Wyoming. That was where California bound travelers turned southwest toward the Humbolt River while the remainder of the wagon train turned onto the Greenwood cut-off to Oregon. However, after reading Lansford Hastings' letter, the Donner Party had a third option to consider. If they followed Hastings' suggestion, they could take the old trail to Fort Bridger and then turn onto the Hastings Cut-off which promised quick and easy travel across the Wasatch Mountains, around the Great Salt Lake and across the salt desert to a point where the trail would rejoin the traditional route to California along the Humbolt River. Once they were back on the old trail to California, the travelers would still face another 50 miles of desert travel before reaching the foothills of the Sierras but Hastings promised that his short cut would get them there faster and easier than the traditional route. By the time they reached Wyoming, the Donner brothers were probably feeling their years and looking forward to reaching a place where they could bask in front of a warm fire and sleep in a soft bead. Hastings' letter promised what they wanted to hear and over the objections and warnings of seasoned western travelers, they took off across Hastings' cut-off toward California.

By the time the Donner Party reached the Great Salt Desert on the western side of the Great Salt Lake, the wagon train had begun to deteriorate. The Donnor and Reed families had fallen to the end of the train because their wagons were too heavy and awkward to lead through the rough, hot desert and by September 8th when they reached the end of the desert, half of Reed's stock had either stampeded or died, and two of his elaborate wagons had been lost. By September 18th, it was clear that the wagon train might not make it through the Sierras by winter and two men from the group were sent ahead to Sutter's Fort to get supplies to supplement their dwindling provisions. Meanwhile, the rest of the group continued down the south fork of the Humboldt River, reaching the junction with the main trail to California on September 1st, 1846.

At that point, the group split in two parts with the Donners leading the first portion of the wagon train, leaving the others to follow under the leadership of James Reed. By then, conflict had increased among the travelers, slowing them down and causing tension. The separation placed major enemies in different camps but problems continued in both groups, until serious trouble finally erupted on October 5th, 1846.

Early on the morning of October 5th, James Reed and William Eddy went out hunting for antelope but not far into their hunt, the two were shot by Paiute Indians. It was noon before the hunters returned to the wagon train where they found Milton Elliott, James Reed's teamster, in the middle of trying to pull Reed's wagon up a steep hill that was made slippery by its gravel surface. John Snyder, a teamster for the Graves family, was driving his wagon up the hill behind Elliot and he was impatient with the way Elliot was handling the hillclimb. When Snyder attempted to pass Elliot's wagon on the hillside, Reed intervened and he and Snyder began to argue and exchanged insults. At least two versions of the story were offered by witnesses: The first was that Snyder struck Reed and Reed retaliated by stabbing Snyder and the second story was that Snyder struck Reed with his whip and accidentally hit Reed's wife, Margaret. Enraged by the injury to his wife, Reed stabbed Snyder to death. In any event, Snyder ended up dead and Reed was judged by his peers and banished from the wagon train on the morning of the 6th of October.

Eliza Donner Houghton was traveling in the first section of the wagon train and recalled that James Reed arrived in her father's camp on October 8th and reported what happened at the other camp, two days ride behind them. Houghton's account of the incident made a connection between Snyder's death, Reed's banishment from the wagon train and subsequent problems with a group of Paiute Indians. "On the morning of October 5th" she wrote, "when Mr. Reed's section broke camp, he and Mr. Eddy ventured off to hunt antelope and were shot at a number of times by Indians … empty handed and disappointed, the two overtook their companions about noon at the foot of a steep hill near "Gravely Ford" where the teams had to be doubled for the ascent." (Houghton, 1920, p.47) It was at Gravely Ford that Reed killed Snyder and was forced out of the wagon train.

Most accounts of the Donner Party mention that much of the story but none have included Sarah Winnemucca's account of other events that had occurred on October 5th, 1846. Sarah Winnemucca was the granddaughter of Chief Trukee who had served as a guide for Charles Fremont, an early explorer of the American west. During visits to California with her grandfather, Sarah learned to speak English and later served as a mediator between whites and Paiutes during the Modoc and Bannock Indian was. In the introduction to her autobiography, Winnemucca recalled the first appearance of Fremont, who camped along the Truckee River on November 25th, 1843. Because of her first hand memories of Fremont, it is reasonable to assume that Winnemucca was at least three years old in 1843 and therefore, around six when her father's small band of Paiutes encountered the Donner Party in 1846.

Although Sarah's maternal grandfather, Chief Truckee, was comfortable with whites, her father, Chief Winnemucca was not and she spent most of her childhood among people who felt great fear of the whites who traveled through their territory. Although the Paiute Indians were highly adapted to their desert environment, their nakedness and nomadic lifestyle seemed so primitive to the whites that many emigrants had killed Paiute Indians with the same lack of concern they might have felt about killing animals.

As the Donner Party was traveling down the Humboldt River Valley in the late fall of 1846, Sarah Winnemucca's family was camped along the river where the women were gathering seeds and the men were hunting for meat that would be dried and eaten during the winter. It was a pleasant time of year and Sarah remembered that she was enjoying her play with the other children when her mother came running to tell them that they must hide because a wagon train was coming. Sarah and her cousin were two of the youngest members of the group and couldn't run fast enough to reach the hills before the wagon train would arrive so her aunt and mother hid them in holes that they quickly dug in the earth and covered with sage brush. That was where the two little girls spent the day of October 5th, 1846, terrified that at any moment they might be discovered and killed. Later in the day, after the wagon train had passed, Winnemucca remembered hearing elders talk about a terrible thing that had happened that day. Someone had discovered the place where the Indians stored food that was being saved for the winter and burned it. That meant that the Indians were facing starvation during the winter months when there was nothing for them to hunt or gather. Sarah went on to say that the wagon train was the last to pass that year and she had later heard that the whites had gone on to die in the mountains from starvation.

The combined reports of Houghton and Winnemucca established that the time of the year was late fall (the Indians were prepared for winter and the Donner Party was hurrying to cross the Sierras before winter). The Donner Party was the last to pass through the area that year as all of the other wagon trains that had stayed on the main trail had passed the intersection with Hastings' cut-off before it was reached by the Donner Party. Also, the Donner wagon train had been the last group of that year to leave Fort Bridger for California using Hastings' cut-off.

Since there is no single account that tells the whole story, we can only imagine a scenario that would include all that is known: Reed and Eddy went hunting early in the morning of October 5th, most likely riding ahead of the party because the dust and noise of the passing wagons would spook the game and make hunting in the wake of the wagon train more difficult than hunting in front of it. Also, a hunter who hoped to kill antelope might prefer to be in front of the wagon train so that the others would catch up with him after the kill rather than having to catch up with the retreating wagon train from behind while dragging a dead animal.

Sarah's father and the other men hunted separately from the women and children and when they saw the hunters, they probably sent a runner to warn the women that the wagon train was coming. The confrontation between Reed and Eddy and the Indians would have occurred somewhere between the approaching wagon train and the area where the women were hunting seeds. The Indians could see the hunters approaching on horseback from a distance and that would have given them a chance to hide in preparation for ambush (probably in a sagebrush covered hole in the ground, which was a common blind for Paiute hunters). Their motive would have been to scare the two men back to the wagon train while giving the runner enough time to warn the women and children.

Once the women were warned of the approaching wagon train and everyone was hidden, all the Indians had to do was wait until the whites had passed but unfortunately, that's not the way it happened. Someone found their cache of winter food and burned it and as far as anyone knows, the latter half of the Donner Party was the only group of people in the area other than the Paiutes themselves. Since Reed and Eddy were known to have left the main party to go hunting and were attached by the Paiutes, it seems reasonable to guess that one or both of them retaliated for the Indian's attach by burning the Paiute food cache.

Sarah Winnemucca's story about the destruction of her family's winter supplies explains the unrelenting attacks by the desert Indians against the second half of the Donner Party. Paiute tradition also supports that theory. Because their lifestyle was nomadic and the various family groups rarely come together, there was no need for centralized government among the Paiutes. The head man or chief was a man of wisdom and influence but he had no way of controlling the small groups that fanned out over the land in their constant quest for food and water. Eye for an eye was the accepted rule of conduct among the Paiutes and when a crime occurred, the victim's family was expected to carry out some form of retaliation soon after the crimes was discovered. Chief Winnemucca's people began to attack the Donner Party about a week after their winter supplies were burned.

The first half of the Donner Party got beyond the Humboldt sink and reached Geyser Springs on the other side of the desert without any problems with Indians. In contrast, the second half of the wagon-train, after camping at the Humboldt sink on the night of October 12th, was attacked at dawn by Indians who swooped down and killed twenty-one head of cattle, including all of Mr. Eddy's stock. Eddy survived the winter of starvation to describe how he had felt when he saw all of his cattle lying dead on the ground. The moment was made even more terrible for him by the sound of laughter echoing down from adjacent hillsides where groups of Paiutes had gathered to watch his distress.

It is interesting to note that the Paiute attacks were limited to the second half of the wagon train, the part where Reed and Eddy had traveled. Eliza Donner rode with her father and wrote about her journey across the Great Salt Desert from the perspective of traveling in the front portion of the wagon train. She recalled seeing Indians in the distance, but they did no harm and in one incident, Paiute Indians actually entered their camp to reassure the travelers that they were headed in the right direction to reach water. Heinrich Leionhard was traveling only 10 days to two weeks ahead of the Donner Party in the Harlan-Young wagon train that was being led across the desert by the Lansford Hastings. Leionhard reported similar experiences with peaceful Paiutes and kept a diary in which he described the Indians as somewhat shy and cautious but when approached, were helpful and non-threatening. That observation stands in marked contrast to the experience of the latter half of the Donner Party. They were repeatedly attacked by the Indians and eventually lost most of their cattle and oxen to the raiders. This wanton waste of the animals was not common behavior for the Paiutes who were usually very careful about preserving food resources. However, when they attacked the second half of the Donner Party, the Indians killed the animals with poisoned arrows and allowed the dead carcasses to rot on the ground.

By the time the Donner Party reached Trukee and began the arduous climb through the canyons of the Eastern Sierra Mountains, they were severely weakened by the Indian attacks and had a very limited supply of animals for pulling the remaining wagons over the cliffs. Mismatched pairs of oxen and cows were yoked together to pull the wagons up the side of the mountain and there were so few teams that the animals were forced to rest before returning to the bottom of the cliff to pull the next wagon over the top. Much time was wasted in the effort and snow began to fall before the wagon train had barely began its trek over the mountain. Thus, the Donner Party was forced to endure the same cold winter of starvation that faced Chief Winnemucca's family of Paiutes in the valley below.

The Donner Party was made up of a brave group of adventurous individuals who viewed the west as an unclaimed place of unlimited opportunity, a place that was waiting to be settled by anyone who was willing to invest their energy in the future. Mostly of European decent, the emigrants had a long tradition of land ownership that extended back to 15th century serfdom. In contrast, Indian culture viewed land as the setting where life activities were carried out. Ownership of land was not necessary in order to kill the buffalo who roamed the prairie, nor was it required that a tribe own the land where it camped. The Indian relationships to land corresponded more closely to the way U.S. citizens are entitled to use state, local and federal park land. The scope of activity that is permitted in any park is defined by law and when laws are broken, punishments are administered despite the fact that ownership is collective. The encounter between the Donner Party and the Paiute Indians was a tragic clash between people of two highly developed cultures who had little understanding of one another. Eddy and Reed probably felt unfairly attacked by the Indians and burned the Indian's food supply in punishment for the crime. On the other hand, the Paiutes probably attacked Eddy and Reed in order to buy enough time to warn their women and children of the approaching wagon train. In their own ways, the Paiutes and the emigrants were reasonably justified in their behavior and that is part of the painful core of the western American experience.

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