The Donner Party and the American Character :: essays research papers

According to the thesis of Fredrick Jackson Turner, the frontier changed America. Americans, from the earlier settlement, were always on the frontier, for they were always expanding to the west. It was Manifest Destiny spreading American culture westward was so apparent and so powerful that it couldnt be stopped. Turners Frontier Theory says that this continuous picture show to the frontier has shaped the American character. The frontier made the American settlers give back back to the primitive, stripping them from their European culture. They then created something brand new its what we know today as the American character. Turner argues that we, as a culture, are a product of the frontier. The uniquely American personality includes much(prenominal) traits as individualism, futuristic, democratic, aggressiveness, inquisitiveness, materialistic, expedite, pragmatic, and optimistic. And perhaps what exemplifies this American personality the most is the story of the Donner Party.W hen their jaunt began in 1846, the members of the Donner and beating-reed instrument families had high hopes of reaching California, and they would settle at vigor less. Their dream of making a new life for themselves represented spectacular determination. When their packed wagons rolled out of Springfield, Missouri, they thought of their future lives in California. The Reed familys two-story wagon was actually called the pioneer palace car, because it was skillful of everything imaginable including an iron stove and cushioned seats and bunks for sleeping. They didnt want to leave their materialistic way of life at home.However, the Donner Party in any case possessed the American trait of expediency, which ultimately caused their party many deaths. winning the advice of Lansford Hastings, the author of The Emigrants Guide to Oregon and California, the Donner Party took the supposed new and fast-breaking route that cut under the Great Salt Lake to California. However, even w hen they were trap under several feet of Sierra Nevada snows, they didnt give up intentness and optimism prevailed. Soon after many days trapped in jury-rigged shelters beneath the mountains, the emigrants ran out of food. With their pragmatic minds, they ate every bit of their oxen they could including boiled hides and charred bones. Being practical, they also ate bark, twigs, and leaves. They had to eat something it was still extract of the fittest.Some members of the Donner Party were courageous and determined enough to venture over the mountains to California to get relief. A small group set out, along with two Indian guides.