The Donner Party
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- čas přidán 9. 08. 2013
- The Donner Party.
Follow the members of the Donner Party as they make their trek from the mid-west to California and the tragedy that unfolded. We attempted to follow the route that the Donner Party took starting in Independence Missouri all the way to Sutter’s Fort near Sacramento California.
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#DonnerParty #california #californiahistory #SutterFort
My dad was born in 1910 and his dad was killed in 1917. Being abused by the step father, he left Joplin Missouri at the ripe age of 13 and headed to Wyoming in a covered wagon. He later told me he has lived in the best of time because he got to travel in a covered wagon and in a jet airplane. I miss you, Dad and hope you have found your peace. ❤
What an interesting and sweet tribute to your dad. My dad shared stories with me about adventures in his younger years. His life still fascinates me. Here's to our dads...may they ride the plains, sail the seas, climb the peaks, calm the frightened animals, and smile upon their daughters. Peace...
@@margaretlally9747 💕✌️💕😊
And probably saw much more people don't realize that between the wagon and the Wright brothers and now with jet aircraft cruising the skies it was only a generation or so ago. Interesting handle the vagabondwitchinthewoods classic indeed just checked your page subscribed off grid remote rural here .
@@TheSilmarillian nice meeting you. 😊
He died at 7? How were you born?
Rip to Luis and Salvador for trying to help and save them.
yeah they tried to help and they end up being eaten
@@lizpavlovic2120 Bad enough eating the dead , worse to kill the men to eat them!
They were a tasty morsel
I second that, rip luis and salavdor
..Amen
I don't care who the narrator was, the information was good, the voice clear and easy to listen to... a documentary should have all 3 of those, this one does.
I thought it was well done myself!
I thought so too. This was a true tragedy.
I had to watch at 1.5x speed. So much boring filler.
I agree... I like the voice...
@@MrWeAllAreOne wtf?
Awesome Documentary great work. Don't listen to the haters. You did great work here and this needs to be remembered
Watched this from beginning to end. Excellent. Thanks…U.K.
Great research and nicely arranged storyboard. I am an ancestor of the Donner party and would not take kindly to anyone who says we wouldn’t do it again. Humans survive. That’s what we do.
Thanks for watching the video and making a comment. This was one of my first videos I made about 20 years ago. I know some of the Breen family, they settled in San Benito County
If you were an ancestor, you'd be dead. Ancestors are the people who came before someone. THEY were YOUR ancestors; you are their DESCENDENT. If you are telling the truth, that is. Who, specifically, was your ancestor? You can't be a descendent of the Donner PARTY because that's meaningless.
Ancestor? You must be mighty old..
250 years?😮
@@ambonecomb9643 🤣
Probably the best I’ve seen of such a tragic story. No one alive today could possibly understand what that must have been like to live through !
At least us people in 1st world countries don't, rest of the world still probably does
@@fluffles9591my thought exactly. What a silly comment.
Name one @@fluffles9591
I like how easily people complain about free content. No class. Myself, I thought it was a pretty good production.
It was very informative .
This isn't content
Lord Maxwell Why is it not "content"?
Very good
i think it's a damned great job...I could not do this...
I appreciate anything about the Donner Party ❤️
Love Ken Burns
I’m highly discerning in what I watch and he’s on my list of favorite directors and has been for decades.
Love & Light from Miami✨✌🏼
Stay safe🌎
Ken Burns never did any work on the Dinner Party. Lol
Ken Burns’ brother did the Donner party documentary.
I think Ken Burns is great and didn't realize he had a brother but I don't think either of them worked on this particular documentary I could be wrong. And I thought the documentary was well done! ❤
Great documentary, very informative and rich in details, wish you all the best.
I am a native to northern California. I am also a 21st century gold miner with a claim on the yuba river. I grew up in San Ramon and one of the harlan disedents also stayed local. There is an old cemetery on the boarded of San Ramon and Dublin that has the graves of some of the party members who made it through and there is a historic home on San Ramon Valley Blvd that i believe was built by the Harlan family when they settled in this area and valley
Absolutely fascinating. I am Irish, and married to a Californian girl. As you might have guessed we live in London city. A few years ago we took a road trip in the U.S and drove through a part of Nevada where the Donner Party would have passed. Not sure why, but the conversation came up tonight which in turn led us to watch this video.
Harrowing is the only word I can think of. Man it makes me very grateful for what we have!
It defiantly is fascinating. Its amazing what they went through to settle out west and the choices they had to make during this long journey and getting stuck in blizzard after blizzard near the end of the journey.
And to think now one can jump on a plane in NY and be in LA California in like 6 hours on a nonstop flight is crazy.
HA! I was thinking that very thing when I watched it! Just hope on a plane and you're into LAX in no time!
@Richard - Was there any particular reason they were so interested in settling out West? Did it have something to do with gold and prosperity in general?
Aidan Parle part of it was for health reasons. the last unexplored territory and finding something new...this was before the california gold rush, so there weren't as many established trails.
Aidan Parle London City? 😂😂😂
Watched the entire thing, thank you.
Thank you for your hard work making this free for us to enjoy. Very informative. Thoroughly enjoyed this!
Hardship one cannot imagine. Thank you for sharing this informative documentary
Great video, very informative and well done. Narrator did a terrific job, the childish comments mocking him are just that: childish.
They're toddler's who do such crap as that. Trying to get attention. I love this history lesson.
Very well done.
VERY well done and SO informative! Thank you very much for sharing this documentary. You have managed to make these people come alive.
At least Sarah Keyes age 70 who perished on the trail at Alcove Springs, Kansas still made it further than I did whenever I played Oregon Trail. Props!
I always die of dysentery
@@seanbaskett5506 My son died from a broken arm. How pathetic is that? I guess sometimes it's better for nature to take its course.
Touche! 😂
My dad was born in 1908 and got to watch a man walk on the moon. He cried. I miss my dad also❤
it's amazing with a documentary what a huge difference the narrator makes in one's ability to watch it. You don't tend to notice narrators until they're not good
A well made documentary. Thanks.
Very informative, more so than most of the other posts regarding the Donners, thank you!!
Well done documentary. I have read several books about the Donner Party. This is as good as anything I have read.
This was awesome! Thanks for sharing. I'm so inspired to read more!
My sincerest condolences go to Louis and Salvador, the two Indians, that helped the pioneers, but were murdered
and cannibalized by those that they helped.
The narrator was excellent! Thank you. It's the best documentation I have seen so far on the Donner Party.
Dark meat is the juiciest
Maybe they were mercifully killed?
no on both. geez people 😮.
@@jason60chev they shouldnt have been murdered at all. They were there to help a bunch of ungrateful sadistic cannibals. Those savages were allegedly the first settlers in cali, no wonder its fucked up. Pure greed
Natives, they weren't from India. But if the other Natives hadn't shot many of their livestock, maybe a few more would have made it.
Weird, I like the narrator!
Thank you for a great documentary!
Great job on this video! Thank you for sharing it!
Most of the comments here are people complaining about the voices and sounds.. Yes they sound like high school or colleges students ...and they might well be. .. That's what CZcams is about... everyone can post videos here, within reason...
I think people are too programmed to think that everything has to sound like a soundtrack to a movie... and half the time even the professional mixed soundtracks are terrible... too quiet and then too loud, or music too loud or it the music is louder than the voices ... and this is common for the past 30 years.. poor mixing... yet nobody complains...
I watched the entire thing and enjoyed it ... It sounded to me like people sitting around the campfire reading from the diaries, and I could understand every word they spoke ... Simple, factual ,... Well done
I don't mind the narration at all. I am not here for that, I am here to hear more of this famous story. As a native California an a gold miner, I know this history well, however this was very well done and I learnt some new details (like for example the Christmas meal Mrs. Reed made, to just list one.)
Just the movie and stop bitching
Are there no likes for this vid? I found it very interesting.
Very well done and informative. Good job.
Stayed in a cabin near Donner pass. Really beautiful place in the winter.
That mountain ain't no joke in a car and i have driven it in a big rig as well! Bottom line it ain't no joke!
Ba dum dum PSSSH 🥁
Try it without roads
This was the best coverage I've seen. Thank you . Very well done
Thanks for watching the video and making a comment. This was one of my first videos I made about 20 years ago. I hope that you have had the chance to watch some of the other videos in the History Adventures series.
I thought this was wonderfully done, and chock-full of smaller pieces of information that Donner party followers don't know.
Totally agree
I agree
I've always been fascinated by the Oregon Trail and its history.
Thank you for this documentary, all l can think of is the determination and fortitude of these brave people.
Its broke my heart to hear of the suffering. 💔
My great grandparents on my mother’s side were born in 1890 and came to California from Ireland 🇮🇪. I went to high school in Truckee, California
I watching this for my second time now! Excellent work!! Best I have seen
They were taken to Johnson's Ranch in Wheatland, Donner party rescue site on Bear River , my grandfather and uncle rediscovered it in 1980s, using old maps, diaries and a metal detector. They wrote a book about called "The Donner Party Rescue Site" sadly my grandfather passed away December 2019.
Interesting, thx.
Thank you for sharing this information!
People were staunch back then, their resilience, fortitude, determination, bravery & will to live astounding. Amazed how many little ones survived given the very unpalatable diet.
Manifest Destiny was just a religious justification for infanticidal and genocidal overall greed and land theft
Many settlers were attacked by Indians during their journey. Indians had a habit to slaughter every family member except young mothers. These women would be kept among the tribe for some time and then Indians would demand a ransom for the woman's return. Indians killing infants was were they would come to be called "savages". Did settlers act better? Yes but cavalry troops stationed over the west would sometimes wage battles needlessly. A state of mind soldiers in such a vast lonely place and their age and numerous medical conditions can bring out the worst in a 19 year old. Studies of the skeletons of Custer's troops revealed most had compressed discs in low back and rotten teeth. Hot and dry summers freezing winters most were from Europe and Scandavian countries, spoke little English and had the worst sickness of all- home sickness. I have the writing of a few ancestors who made the journey walking next to a wagon from the Carolinas to Kansas or Oklahoma. You had to leave at the right time of year or risk getting stranded in blizzards which are bad on the plains and can start in September. The Donner party if it was not mentioned here took a day off before heading into the Sierra's. One day cost them a lot as did the shortcut!
And most soldiers in the Civil War died of diarrhea (and horses were ridden to death and the stench of them rotting...) never mind actually being shot. A 30 second amputation without pain killers with a saw that was cleansed by wiping it on an apron. Bacteria was unknown...It was not resilience or fortitude they had but it is what they were told to do. Not about slavery either!
I thought this was very informative and interesting.
So was a good video
So heartbreaking. Great documentary, focusing on the whole trip, not the shock value of the cannibalism like so many others. I think Elizabeth Graves was the last living member of the Donner Party; she died in 1930.
It was Patty Reed. Her doll is preserved in a museum in Sacramento
Thank you for showing the actual terrain. Saves me having to figure out how to find it myself.
Great documentary, I was born in Truckee, CA. My father's family is from this area for 3 generations. It is a beautiful place to visit in the summer. Thank you again
Great documentary. Thanks!!!
So sad and yet courageous 😢 May they all Rest In Peace 🙏🏼❤️🙏🏼
Thanks for watching the video, this was one of my very first videos I made about 20 years ago. I hope you have been able to watch some of our other videos on the channel.
Excellent. As most others i would suspect I came here after watching the 'American Experience' documentary... some really interesting extra information and insights into the characters... Virginia Reed especially. Thanks for sharing.
Such is the desire to LIVE, humanity will do anything.
I enjoyed this documentary even if the subject matter was grim! Very well done!
Wonderful narrator. The closed captions were not available. I do not hear well but he was so clear I could understand every word. We learned about the Donner Party in school but this covered so much more. Also the pictures were great. Such a tragedy for people that wanted to start a new life.
..yes, it makes a huge difference to me as well. This was well done…
@Susan Trayner I don’t know why some videos have it and others don’t. I’m 80% deaf in one ear. When I first started using CC my husband found it annoying. Then when a station does not have it he misses it. You get to where you rely on it. Today’s movies are so action packed and the music and the action are so loud you missed the dialogue they do that on purpose. The older movies you could understand Conversation and dialogue. My daughter always uses CC with her three kids from the minute they started watching TV. She says it helps them with reading. They associate the sound with the written words. It makes sense to me.
@Susan Trayner I never realized how bad mine was until the pandemic hit and we had to wear masks and I could no longer read lips. It really affected me. I’m sure you felt it too.
I couldn’t hear shit over the loud obnoxious fiddle !!!
This is a fine, well done documentary. Thank you for posting this you had all the scenery, history, and the letters and diaries of those that were there. And I appreciate you listing who survived and those that didn't, lest we forget. As far as I am concerned it couldn't have been better.
Great film , Scott. A clear detailing of this sad expedition. The roll call of survivors and victims , at the end , is very helpful.
Donna Brooks Absolutely right. I've read "Ordeal by Hunger" and have seen the Ken Burns film but am still confused by the bewildering cast of characters. But it's a powerful story of incredile heroism. The cannibalism becomes a fringe matter ..... almost a triviality .... when set against the mindboggling bravery and resilience of these wonderful ordinary people who trailblazed west in the teeth of such monstrous obstacles. As somebody who frets about having to use public transport , I just cannot conceive of facing into deserts and mountain ranges on an oxcart !!! For eight months :)
Michael Igoe it's important to realize they they did not set out to spend 8 to 10 months on an oxcart, but rather 4 months max.
Yes! I loved the list of people at the end also!
Well done bud… great piece of American history documentary.
A very good documentation and the narrator was great! There are first hand accounts of a pot with human remains found cooking during the relief parties arrival. This was one heinous story and would have been avoided had they prepared dried meats, listened to good advice and avoided this route in the first place!
i actually like the diaries being read by youth
I use to be a long haul truck driver. The route seems to me like modern day I-80.
This needs to have captions available for the Deaf/Hard of Hearing community. Thank you
No it doesn't. If you want something with captions, then make it yourself.
Do agree that this was a decent video,with well presented information, not sure why people have a problem with it. FYI there are a great series of videos by a gal named WONDERHUSSY where she does a fabulous job of tracking the whole journey from Hastings cutoff to Donner Pass , giving a true sense of the terrain at every point.. You REALLY need to see that 20 oxen team hill....
czcams.com/video/6ypXiV4k2EA/video.html
Wanderhussy is also very entertaining!
Great job !!!
I love history and every little bit helps the big picture.
P.S. I have been there, it is awesome and disquieting.
Good job , I really enjoyed this .
Awesome video. Thanks 💯💯⚘
thanks for this!
Great Job
Thank you for all of this, I learned so much. All I can say is..WOW they didn't teach this in school. I am going to try to not complain about the snow, being cold or hungry next winter. I will keep you posted.
True American heroes, all of them. What an amazing story of hardship, suffering, determination and survival. Well done
I wouldn't call them heros.Survivors yes,heros no.Many mistakes made by their leaders, to the suffering of the rest of the party.
Thanks, loved this!
How many graves have been lost to time along the trails ...May they all RIP...
They started out with 87 people. Only 45 made it out alive
Can't hit like for this story. Having spent three winters in Tahoe I can't imagine how bad that was.
after 1:17 minutes, this vid is TOP NOTCH in info, notably the first half of the journey
VERY NICELY DONE
Likewise I thought this was done. Mostly I listened to it while doing chores and while familiar with the story learned aspects of it I did not know. ❤
Much obliged for this video.
It's funny that people wanted to come to California. Nowadays.people want to leave and move.
Great documentary
Thanks for watching the video, this was one of my very first videos I made about 20 years ago. I hope you have been able to watch some of our other videos on the channel.
I'll check them out. Thanks
i guess you could say natural bridge is... *truly breathtaking*
Those Donners sure knew how to party !
Best donner party video I watched I hope you make more sir
Y'all did a great job on this! Keep up the good work! Just subscribed 👍
Thanks for watching the video and subscribing, this was one of my very first videos I made about 20 years ago. I hope you have been able to watch some of our other videos on the channel.
Your maps were super helpful.
I'm interested in Donner Party As Well as the past.
We followed this Trail, up high , with all the Snow , you could really see the reality the dealt with
Thanks for watching the video, this was one of my very first videos I made about 20 years ago. I hope you have been able to watch some of our other videos on the channel.
That introductory statement was a sort of apology. If it happened it happened. wouldn't want to be in that situation but life can throw a situation at you that either you are the story teller afterward or part of the story that others get to tell about. Either way, you get to be part of it.
One of the historical monuments I find interesting is Chimney Rock. Never knew about it.
Thanks for watching the video, this was one of my very first videos I made about 20 years ago. I hope you have been able to watch some of our other videos on the channel.
@@SFRProductions yes!
That really is an amazing latitude😊
Im learning this stuff so i guess its cool
Great clear narration
The tragic events that unfolded through their travels for peace and freedom will never be forgotten!
I was born and raised, still living less than 10-miles from where they crossed here in Nevada. It is so hard to comprehend the lives they led, less than 200-yrs age to now and all that we have.
We've come soo sooo far in a few short generations...❤️🤍💙
My dad took me and my brother to Donner lake. We watched the Donner trip they have at the visitor center. It was scary visiting the Rock the Donner party used as a shelter. Learned alot.
Thanks for watching the video, this was one of my very first videos I made about 20 years ago. I hope you have been able to watch some of our other videos on the channel.
imovie at is greatest! and school children at there best!
Man that would be ruff “what we eating tonight”?
“I guess Harold”
I’m from St. Joe. My family was the cops in the late 1800’s. I also lived on Donner Lake.
Love anything to do with the donner party
Tyvm!!!
Thanks for watching the video, this was one of my very first videos I made about 20 years ago. I hope you have been able to watch some of our other videos on the channel.
God bless them for their pioneering spirit and fortitude!
This really takes me back to my HS years. I went on a month's long vacation, not too far from, and in the terrain of what the Donner party went through. My friend's mom lent me a book on the Party. I read it at night in the tent my friend and I shared...by lantern light, sleeping on an army cot.
Even in July, the nights were cold. The days were warm, filled with adventure, as I learned to ride a dirt bike.
A "bathtub" had been previously carved out on a nearby creek, and lined with stone on the 60 acre property. (Owned by several families that met there every July.) But luckily, we were able to use the camper for showers and nighttime potty needs. Daytime there was the "blue room!" Haaa!
The road between Frenchman's and Davis lakes was dirt. There was a hiway along the Feather river that took us into Chilcoot for food & surplies. It was a small general store with the area post office. Nothing else. Good times!
I've never forgotten what they must've gone through, to this day!
Thanks for this documentary!
Shame on them for eating the Indians who so nobly tried to help them.
They really took an awesome chance; so tired and fed up with the woes of their long journey. There's really not much one can say.
Them Donners sound like a nice bunch.
What is so absolutely mind boggling to me, is how ANYONE survived this, and how so many lasted as long as they did. The unimaginable hardships that these people suffered, are BEYOND a testament of human spirit and will! These are the kinds of brave, rugged, adventurous FIGHTERS, that built this Country!! Think of how pathetic, soft and weak, most of it's inhabitants are now! The average American would have a nervous breakdown if their electricity is out for a week and their frozen dinners spoiled!! Imagine them having to make their way through this nightmare? At least they might have some frozen dinners!
Surely a historical tragedy we're lucky to have missed, nonetheless it leaves many wondering "what would I have done?"
Stayed my ass at home
MsG. Yep...or choose Florida instead
To save my kids? Anything!!!!
Stayed in Illinois.
It's startling that any survived, I come from the northeast USA and know of snowstorms and how you can get caught, but these poor people, that snow is heavy and piles up quickly, so many hardships they endured with Indians attacking them, one animal is important. What an American tragedy and survival story. 🇺🇸🙏
One of the few videos of any kind where the captions match the dialog. Well done.
I just bought Virginia Reed Murphy book published in 1891 on Amazon.
Across the Plains in the Donner party
Life must have been so difficult back then. We have it so easy compared to our ancestors.