Death via Manifest Destiny: Michael Wallis on the Donner Party

American Progress, (1872) by John Gast

(Santa Fe New Mexican) For historian Michael Wallis, the story of the Donner Party represents the worst ills of Manifest Destiny.
In his new book, The Best Land Under Heaven: The Donner Party in the Age of Manifest Destiny (Liveright/W.W. Norton), Wallis tracks the harrowing journey of the multi-family wagon train that struck out west from Illinois in the spring of 1846, following the popular doctrine that it was their duty as Americans, sanctioned by God, to settle the Wild West. The fate of these pioneers became a lurid symbol of the perils of continental expansion when, snowbound and starving in the Sierra Nevada mountains during the following winter, several resorted to cannibalism to survive. Wallis writes in the book’s introduction, “This Gothic tale of cannibalism draws a real parallel between individuals consuming flesh and the desire of a country to consume the continent.” Continued