Cutting through 160 years of mythmaking, best-selling historian Michael
Wallis presents the ultimate cautionary tale of America's westward
expansion.
"Westward ho! For Oregon and California!"
In the eerily warm spring of 1846, George Donner placed this
advertisement in a local newspaper as he and a restless caravan prepared
for what they hoped would be the most rewarding journey of a lifetime.
But in eagerly pursuing what would a century later become known as the
"American dream," this optimistic yet motley crew of emigrants was met
with a chilling nightmare; in the following months, their jingoistic
excitement would be replaced by desperate cries for help that would fall
silent in the deadly snow-covered mountains of the Sierra Nevada.
We know these early pioneers as the Donner Party, a name that has
elicited horror since the late 1840s. Now, celebrated historian Michael
Wallis - beloved for his myth-busting portraits of legendary American
figures - continues his life's work of parsing fact from fiction to tell
the true story of one of the most embroidered sagas in Western history.
Wallis begins the story in 1846, a momentous "year of decision" for the
nation, when incredible territorial strides were being made in Texas,
New Mexico, and California. Against this dramatic backdrop, an unlikely
band of travelers appeared, stratified in age, wealth, education, and
ethnicity. At the forefront were the Donners: brothers George and Jacob,
true sons of the soil determined to tame the wild land of California;
and the Reeds, headed by adventurous, business-savvy patriarch James. In
total the Donner-Reed group would reach 87 men, women, and children, and
though personal motives varied - bachelors thirsting for adventure,
parents wanting greater futures for their children - everyone was linked
by the same unwavering belief that California was theirs for the taking.
Skeptical of previous accounts of how the group ended up in peril,
Wallis has spent years retracing its ill-fated journey, uncovering
hundreds of new documents that illuminate how a combination of greed,
backbiting, and recklessness led the group to become hopelessly
snowbound at the infamous Donner Pass in present-day California.
Climaxing with the grim stories of how the party's paltry rations soon
gave way to unimaginable hunger, Wallis not only details the cannibalism
that has in perpetuity haunted their legacy but also the heroic rescue
parties that managed to reach the stranded, only to discover that just
48 had survived the ordeal.
An unflinching and historically invaluable account of the darkest side
of Manifest Destiny, The Best Land Under Heaven offers a brilliant,
revisionist examination of one of America's most calamitous and
sensationalized catastrophes.
