Natives Tried to Help Donner Party-Received Gunshots

[Piney]

Quote

The familiar story of the Donner Party is one of misfortune, madness, and profound isolation. But archaeologists have come to believe that the Midwestern migrants who became trapped in the northern Sierra during the winter of 1846-47 were not alone.

While October snowfall represented a catastrophe for the pioneers' wagon train as they crossed the mountains, it would have been wholly ordinary to members of the local Washoe tribe, whose way of life had been adapted to the Lake Tahoe region for thousands of years.

 

https://www.californiasun.co/stories/native-americans-tried-to-help-the-starving-donner-party-research-shows-they-faced-gunshots/

[acute]

The maximum length of topic titles has been increased. You can now make them make sense!

[+and-then]

Sounds plausible, considering the reception they probably had either experienced or had been warned of.  

[the13bats]

Very interesting,

So piney why do you believe the donner party acted in the aggressive way that they did?

[Hankenhunter]

31 minutes ago, the13bats said:

Very interesting,

So piney why do you believe the donner party acted in the aggressive way that they did?

Instilled fear of them. False dire warnings about the indigenous people in the area. They shunned their would be rescuers out of fear, and ignorance.  We live it every day. 

[the13bats]

13 minutes ago, Hankenhunter said:

Instilled fear of them. False dire warnings about the indigenous people in the area. They shunned their would be rescuers out of fear, and ignorance.  We live it every day. 

Idk, parts of the story are a bit askew for my thinking, for me i would imagine that to resort to cannibalism one would have to be in some starvation induced insanity which then in my thinking someone coming at you with food wouldnt be attacked unless to be cannibalized and or their food taken and eaten which a oerson could still do in that stavation insanity mode i mentioned,

Howeve, if they were pondering and thinking ooh gee indians equals fear they are going to do whatever with us removes in my thinking the starvation insanity excuse,

What im grappling with is the donner parties cannibalism wasnt some last ditch driven by insanity measure not to starve but rather taken on with much less hesitation or adversion than killing people offering them food, thats very odd to me.

[Hankenhunter]

31 minutes ago, the13bats said:

Idk, parts of the story are a bit askew for my thinking, for me i would imagine that to resort to cannibalism one would have to be in some starvation induced insanity which then in my thinking someone coming at you with food wouldnt be attacked unless to be cannibalized and or their food taken and eaten which a oerson could still do in that stavation insanity mode i mentioned,

Howeve, if they were pondering and thinking ooh gee indians equals fear they are going to do whatever with us removes in my thinking the starvation insanity excuse,

What im grappling with is the donner parties cannibalism wasnt some last ditch driven by insanity measure not to starve but rather taken on with much less hesitation or adversion than killing people offering them food, thats very odd to me.

Let me put it another way with context.

The Conservative party has been waging a decades long smear campaign against Liberals. You've seen how effective that was. Absolute hatred to anything Liberal. The disinformation campaign against aboriginals was much longer, and much more brutal. How would you react after the horror stories you heard? Shoot first, ask questions later. Plus, people are starving all the time, all over the world. They generally don't eat each other. So that can't be used as an excuse. You won't get the human flesh dementia from one, or two incidents of eating human flesh. It takes longer than that. These people were panicked, and scared. Plus frost bitten, and hungry. Added together equals hostility. To bad they shot at, wounded,and drove away their rescuers.

Edited March 23, 2021 by Hankenhunter

[the13bats]

35 minutes ago, Hankenhunter said:

Let me put it another way with context.

The Conservative party has been waging a decades long smear campaign against Liberals. You've seen how effective that was. Absolute hatred to anything Liberal. The disinformation campaign against aboriginals was much longer, and much more brutal. How would you react after the horror stories you heard? Shoot first, ask questions later. Plus, people are starving all the time, all over the world. They generally don't eat each other. So that can't be used as an excuse. You won't get the human flesh dementia from one, or two incidents of eating human flesh. It takes longer than that. These people were panicked, and scared. Plus frost bitten, and hungry. Added together equals hostility. To bad they shot at, wounded,and drove away their rescuers.

Okay, but i assure you i will never, ever no matter what see thumplings as rescuers i wont shoot at them either i just try to avoid them,

And if i was starving and a trumpster offered me an apple i would have to bet would i bite the razor or needle first so in that i do not compare native Americans to trumplings.

[Piney]

3 hours ago, the13bats said:

Very interesting,

So piney why do you believe the donner party acted in the aggressive way that they did?

The prevailing myth of "aggressive Indians" started with the opening up of the West and lasted all the way up until the 20th Century and was told all over the East by B.S. artists making themselves look big and brave. It was even falsely shown in 'Dances With Wolves'. The Mormons actually played that myth so they could attack non-Mormon settlers. But generally travellers were safe. 

Indians were also seen as "wild animals" looking to rob settlers. Another myth spread in the East by people trying to look like bigshots for going West. 

If you read the accounts of real trappers, Indians only tried to help unless they were shown aggression first. Then it became a problem. 

[Hankenhunter]

1 hour ago, the13bats said:

Okay, but i assure you i will never, ever no matter what see thumplings as rescuers i wont shoot at them either i just try to avoid them,

And if i was starving and a trumpster offered me an apple i would have to bet would i bite the razor or needle first so in that i do not compare native Americans to trumplings.

Forgive me if I implied that you were in any way negative to aboriginal peoples. Such was not my intention. I was trying to get into the mindset of the Donner party. As a half breed, I have a unique perspective on how biased, and false stereo typing can cause and entire population set to easily go along, and actively participate in it to the detriment of the target. All it takes is a few charismatic speakers, and word of mouth will do the rest. The Donner parties heads were filled with this propaganda. Hope I got this right. Things have been pretty wild for me lately.  Namaste, my friend.

Edited March 23, 2021 by Hankenhunter

[the13bats]

Its all good hank i knew what you were getting at, piney too, i also have that side issue with certain events turning some to cannibalism and in some cases turning to it a bit too easily in my thinking,