Manifest Destiny for Your Business: Cautionary Tales from The Great American Westward Expansion and The Donner Party (Happy Halloween!)
Ask your fellow colleague or friend, ideally from the American Midwest, what they know of The Donner Party and America’s Great Westward Expansion in the Nineteenth Century.
Here’s the shortest version of the story (from The History Channel):
“In 1846, a group of nearly 90 emigrants left Springfield, Illinois, and headed west. Led by brothers Jacob and George Donner, the group [large families with many children] attempted to take a new and supposedly shorter route to California. They soon encountered rough terrain and numerous delays, and they eventually became trapped by heavy snowfall high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Purportedly reduced to cannibalism to survive through the winter, only half of the original group reached California the following year.”
NY Times Best-Selling Author, Michael Wallis, recently authored and published “The Best Land Under Heaven, The Donner Party in the Age of Manifest Destiny.” It was later named “Best Book of 2017” by the Wild West History Association.
Buzzy Jackson with the Boston Globe nicely offers an endorsement of Wallis’ book that frames Donner-Reed’s tragic story as it should be remembered — a rich, cautionary tale that is deeply embedded into and a part of Western American History (history that is, respectively speaking, incredibly recent compared against every other developed nation in the world).
The first chapters of Michael Wallis’ well-researched and detailed account will show you great detail of these people’s very real and prominent lives as well as one poignant theme running through the settlers mission.
That is, the Donner and Reed party, their family and the pioneers on the trail didn’t begin or push forward initially through a nightmare. It wasn’t a nightmare at all — their mission was an adventure, a business, and a journey worth taking (at least they thought).
In fact, the first three months was a success — it seemed all was going as planned.
“The Donner Party’s collective dream, however, tragically morphed into a collective nightmare. Poor timing, terrible advice, and even worse weather meant that only about half of those who started the journey reached their final destination.” (Wallis, XVI Introduction)
The tale, as told by Michael Wallis, recounts in detail the pioneer’s mishaps, mistakes, terrible advice, desperation, grisly crimes, murders, disease, amputation (they cut off a boy’s leg attempting to save his life), survival cannibalism, and ultimately freezing in the Sierra Nevada.
As with all history, and especially stories as recent as those from Western American History, we must ask ourselves ONE question:
How can we learn from these very real families who suffered unspeakable horrors?
After all, Jacob and George Donner were two wealthy brothers making decisions shared by countless like-minded entrepreneurs today. They were much like entrepreneurs and adventurers throughout history living out their lives seeking adventure, land, and the beauty of raw nature taking risks that bootstrapping gamblers take.
If you dig into the story in detail, and if you can get past the humbling story that makes your stomach turn, then you’ll likely begin to spot critical, pivotal moments where their group collectively made peculiar (unexplained) risky, poor decisions. Was it fear and desperation? Were they blinded by competition, determination or their own passion to get ahead of winter? Why forge ahead over a mountain heading into the dead of winter?
Perhaps we can all learn more from our personal histories and the consquences of poor timing, decisions made under duress, and most of all, perhaps we can and should learn from history — to be more mindful of when and where to seek out expert advice, to grow our patience, and skills development. Perhaps these lessons can help us all be more weary of scams as well as assessing our own poor judgements and time management.
What is your manifest destiny?
This article was written by Kristin Miller, Co-Founder of Colorado startup, InMotion Albums. InMotion was named a CES Innovation Awards Honoree in Digital Imaging in the same category as HP and Samsung, and was featured by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA)™ hosted startup-themed broadcast media tour.
Want to learn more? Visit us at www.inmotionalbums.com.
Reach Kristin at kmiller@inmotionalbums.com
