In the Spring of 1846, a group of hopeful pioneers departed Independence, Missouri under the banner of manifest destiny. They charted course across the Oregon Trail with hopes to settle in California, all 87 of its total participants looking forward to a new life out west. Collectively, the group was known as the Donner Party, and away they went on a frontier journey that no man, woman, nor child would ever forget -- either then, or now.
Of course, the defining aspect of the Donner Party wasn’t their ill-sighted attempt at a shortcut around Hastings Cutoff, or their plight in the show ridden Sierra Nevada mountains that followed it. Rather, it was their notorious reliance on cannibalism to survive these harsh conditions that has dominated the discourse over the last 175 years.
While historians have debated for decades whether their cannibalism was truly just a means of survival or came with much more nefarious explanations, the Donner Party isn’t actually the only case of documented cannibalism in the old west. Cannibals were rumored to stalk the untamed lands of the frontier, usually in the form of barbaric Native American tribes that even the friendly Indigenous bands wanted nothing to do with.
However, these notions were mostly folklore embedded in prejudice: cannibalism was not rampant amongst most bands of Native Americans, and existed mostly pre-colonisation.
That being said, there still were cannibals stalking the deserts, high plains, and mountainsides of the frontier. To gain a better understanding of their role in the evils of the country’s history, here’s a deeper dive into maybe the most bizarre tale of cannibalism in the wild west.
Introducing the true and terrifying story of Alfred Packer.
0:00 Intro
2:09 The Colorado Cannibal
12:21 Mystery Of The Cannibal
33:37 Return Of The Cannibal
43:51 Demise Of The Cannibal
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