WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.100 You know, when I say Oregon Trail, I am willing 00:00:03.100 --> 00:00:06.400 to bet a very specific image pops into your head 00:00:06.400 --> 00:00:10.119 right now. Oh, definitely. It's the chunky 8 00:00:10.119 --> 00:00:12.599 -bit computer screen. Right. A highly pixelated 00:00:12.599 --> 00:00:16.179 aux and, you know, a glowing green message. bluntly 00:00:16.179 --> 00:00:17.719 informing you that you've died of dysentery. 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:20.760 It's like the ultimate piece of pop culture mythology 00:00:20.760 --> 00:00:23.440 for a certain generation. It really is. But the 00:00:23.440 --> 00:00:25.859 true story of the Oregon Trail, I mean, it isn't 00:00:25.859 --> 00:00:29.539 a retro meme. It's the story of 400 ,000 desperate 00:00:29.539 --> 00:00:32.479 people who basically repurposed an abandoned 00:00:32.479 --> 00:00:35.299 continent spanning corporate fur trapping network 00:00:35.299 --> 00:00:39.259 just to chase free land. Yeah, which is a wild 00:00:39.259 --> 00:00:41.100 reality to wrap your head around. Exactly. So 00:00:41.100 --> 00:00:43.380 OK, let's unpack this. Because for you listening 00:00:43.380 --> 00:00:45.619 to really grasp the staggering reality of this 00:00:45.619 --> 00:00:47.899 deep drive, you have to realize this wasn't like 00:00:47.899 --> 00:00:50.799 a casual summer road trip. Not at all. This was 00:00:50.799 --> 00:00:54.299 a grueling 100 plus day, 15 mile a day slog, 00:00:54.820 --> 00:00:57.359 where the primary engine pushing an entire mass 00:00:57.359 --> 00:01:00.640 migration forward was just raw bleeding human 00:01:00.640 --> 00:01:03.299 and animal endurance. That is absolutely the 00:01:03.299 --> 00:01:04.980 right way to frame it. The physical toll was 00:01:04.980 --> 00:01:09.319 just absolute. But before those 400 ,000 people 00:01:09.319 --> 00:01:12.920 could even attempt to walk that 2 ,170 mile path. 00:01:13.140 --> 00:01:14.640 Someone had to actually figure out where the 00:01:14.640 --> 00:01:17.500 path was. Exactly. And it wasn't the famous explorers 00:01:17.500 --> 00:01:20.480 we usually credit. Right. Because my mind immediately 00:01:20.480 --> 00:01:22.980 goes to Lewis and Clark. Yeah. I mean, they're 00:01:22.980 --> 00:01:24.780 the textbook trailblazers. Oh, they are. But 00:01:24.780 --> 00:01:26.700 looking at the source material, it's clear their 00:01:26.700 --> 00:01:29.920 route was virtually useless for this kind of 00:01:29.920 --> 00:01:32.799 massive migration. Yeah, it was. I mean, Lewis 00:01:32.799 --> 00:01:35.780 and Clark did map a route to the Pacific between 00:01:35.780 --> 00:01:39.459 1804 and 1806, but their path through the Rocky 00:01:39.459 --> 00:01:42.079 Mountains, specifically crossing the Limhi and 00:01:42.079 --> 00:01:45.439 Lolo Passes, was just brutally steep. And incredibly 00:01:45.439 --> 00:01:47.780 rocky, right? Right. It was physically impossible 00:01:47.780 --> 00:01:50.540 to get a 2 ,000 pound wooden wagon through there. 00:01:50.579 --> 00:01:52.579 So the people who actually mapped the viable 00:01:52.579 --> 00:01:54.819 wagon routes were not government explorers. They 00:01:54.819 --> 00:01:57.079 were fur traders. See, this is the part that 00:01:57.079 --> 00:01:59.599 completely shifts the traditional pioneer narrative 00:01:59.599 --> 00:02:02.590 for me. The idea that these noble families were 00:02:02.590 --> 00:02:05.209 out there chopping down trees and forging a brand 00:02:05.209 --> 00:02:08.389 new path through the wilderness is, well, it's 00:02:08.389 --> 00:02:10.310 largely a myth. It really is. They're walking 00:02:10.310 --> 00:02:13.090 on a highway built for trapping beavers. Precisely. 00:02:13.229 --> 00:02:16.349 Back in 1812, you had this fur trader named Robert 00:02:16.349 --> 00:02:19.469 Stewart, and he led a small group east and discovered 00:02:19.469 --> 00:02:22.830 what we now call the South Pass in Wyoming. And 00:02:22.830 --> 00:02:25.870 that pass is crucial. Oh, it's the Golden Ticket. 00:02:26.289 --> 00:02:28.330 If you're trying to cross the Continental Divide, 00:02:28.610 --> 00:02:31.849 South Pass is this wide sagebrush covered valley 00:02:31.849 --> 00:02:34.449 with a very gradual incline. So you don't even 00:02:34.449 --> 00:02:35.849 really feel like you're climbing a mountain. 00:02:36.129 --> 00:02:37.930 Exactly. You barely even realize you're crossing 00:02:37.930 --> 00:02:41.150 the Rockies. It required minimal clearing for 00:02:41.150 --> 00:02:44.969 wagons. But because of the War of 1812 and just 00:02:44.969 --> 00:02:47.969 a lack of trading posts, Stewart's perfect route 00:02:47.969 --> 00:02:51.750 sat mostly unused by settlers for Decades and 00:02:51.750 --> 00:02:53.889 while that ideal highway was just sitting there 00:02:53.889 --> 00:02:56.849 gathering dust the British were essentially running 00:02:56.849 --> 00:02:59.530 the entire Pacific Northwest like a like a corporate 00:02:59.530 --> 00:03:01.990 fiefdom Yeah, the British Hudson's Bay Company. 00:03:02.169 --> 00:03:05.360 Yeah the HBC, right? And reading through their 00:03:05.360 --> 00:03:07.819 internal policies, they actively discouraged 00:03:07.819 --> 00:03:10.419 American settlement. They did not want farmers 00:03:10.419 --> 00:03:13.360 plowing up the land because they had this incredibly 00:03:13.360 --> 00:03:17.439 lucrative monopoly on beaver pelts. The HBC essentially 00:03:17.439 --> 00:03:20.759 operated as a sovereign nation out there, but 00:03:20.759 --> 00:03:23.860 then global fashion completely altered the map 00:03:23.860 --> 00:03:26.939 of North America. Which is such a funny catalyst 00:03:26.939 --> 00:03:30.659 for a mass migration. It really is. By 1840, 00:03:30.819 --> 00:03:33.620 the trend in European high society shifted away 00:03:33.620 --> 00:03:37.259 from beaver felt hats and silk top hats became 00:03:37.259 --> 00:03:39.560 the new obsession. So the bottom just falls out 00:03:39.560 --> 00:03:41.719 of the fur market. Exactly. The beaver trade 00:03:41.719 --> 00:03:44.319 collapsed. The British lost their main economic 00:03:44.319 --> 00:03:46.479 incentive to hold the territory so fiercely. 00:03:46.639 --> 00:03:50.180 And suddenly the door just swings wide open for 00:03:50.180 --> 00:03:52.360 American settlers. I mean, it is literally like 00:03:52.360 --> 00:03:55.520 a massive abandoned corporate supply chain being 00:03:55.520 --> 00:03:57.599 suddenly taken over by a grassroots movement. 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:00.039 way to put it. The infrastructure was there, 00:04:00.159 --> 00:04:01.759 the trading posts were built, the indigenous 00:04:01.759 --> 00:04:03.939 guides knew the routes, and the corporate bosses 00:04:03.939 --> 00:04:05.840 were just packing up. And what's fascinating 00:04:05.840 --> 00:04:08.599 here is the profound irony in how the British 00:04:08.599 --> 00:04:11.479 corporate bosses handled that transition. Right, 00:04:11.719 --> 00:04:13.780 specifically John McLaughlin. Yeah, McLaughlin 00:04:13.780 --> 00:04:17.139 was the HBC manager at Fort Vancouver. Officially 00:04:17.139 --> 00:04:20.220 his mandate from London was strict, keep Americans 00:04:20.220 --> 00:04:22.540 out of the territory. But the reality on the 00:04:22.540 --> 00:04:26.519 ground was... Very different. Very. When these 00:04:26.519 --> 00:04:29.800 exhausted, penniless American immigrants started 00:04:29.800 --> 00:04:32.060 staggering into the Pacific Northwest in the 00:04:32.060 --> 00:04:35.740 1840s, often right as the freezing winter was 00:04:35.740 --> 00:04:38.220 setting in, McLaughlin couldn't just let them 00:04:38.220 --> 00:04:40.139 starve on his doorstep. He's looking at freezing 00:04:40.139 --> 00:04:42.860 families. Right. The biological reality of their 00:04:42.860 --> 00:04:45.360 condition just overrode his corporate orders. 00:04:45.420 --> 00:04:48.060 He gave them massive loans, food, medical care, 00:04:48.220 --> 00:04:51.079 farming supplies. So the man hired by the British 00:04:51.079 --> 00:04:53.680 to keep Americans out eventually became hailed 00:04:53.680 --> 00:04:55.899 as the father of Oregon. I think that just highlights 00:04:55.899 --> 00:04:58.160 how practical the realities of the frontier were 00:04:58.160 --> 00:05:00.600 compared to, you know, the politics back East. 00:05:01.160 --> 00:05:03.040 Absolutely. So, okay, the path is open, the British 00:05:03.040 --> 00:05:05.800 are begrudgingly handing out loans, but I keep 00:05:05.800 --> 00:05:07.860 coming back to the extreme motivation required 00:05:07.860 --> 00:05:10.360 to actually make this trek. I mean, why leave 00:05:10.360 --> 00:05:12.839 everything behind to walk 2 ,000 miles? It was 00:05:12.839 --> 00:05:15.860 a really powerful combination of push and pull 00:05:15.860 --> 00:05:18.300 factors. And to understand the push, you have 00:05:18.300 --> 00:05:20.680 to look at how people viewed the geography back 00:05:20.680 --> 00:05:22.899 then. Right. The Great American Desert. Exactly. 00:05:23.420 --> 00:05:26.100 Back east, the Great Plains were widely dismissed 00:05:26.100 --> 00:05:29.579 in expedition reports as just this barren desert. 00:05:30.259 --> 00:05:32.779 19th century Americans equated a lack of trees 00:05:32.779 --> 00:05:35.379 with a lack of agricultural viability. If there 00:05:35.379 --> 00:05:38.300 are no trees, you can't farm. That was the thought. 00:05:38.579 --> 00:05:40.980 They thought the planes were completely unfit 00:05:40.980 --> 00:05:42.879 for human habitation because there was no timber 00:05:42.879 --> 00:05:45.740 to build with and very little reliable surface 00:05:45.740 --> 00:05:49.300 water. Yet they were willing to walk right through 00:05:49.300 --> 00:05:52.220 that desert because of what was on the other 00:05:52.220 --> 00:05:55.550 side. The marketing campaign for Oregon was just 00:05:55.550 --> 00:05:58.029 incredibly aggressive. Oh, it was everywhere. 00:05:58.149 --> 00:06:00.290 The East Coast and the Missouri and Mississippi 00:06:00.290 --> 00:06:02.889 River valleys were at the time being plagued 00:06:02.889 --> 00:06:05.589 by terrible outbreaks of malaria and yellow fever. 00:06:05.829 --> 00:06:07.829 Right, and they didn't fully understand mosquito 00:06:07.829 --> 00:06:10.430 transmission back then. No, they believed in 00:06:10.430 --> 00:06:14.009 the miasma theory that bad air from swamps made 00:06:14.009 --> 00:06:16.610 you sick. So Oregon was pitched in newspapers 00:06:16.610 --> 00:06:20.290 as this elevated, crisp, disease -free paradise 00:06:20.290 --> 00:06:22.410 where you basically never cough again. Health. 00:06:22.540 --> 00:06:25.339 was a massive driver, for sure. But the ultimate 00:06:25.339 --> 00:06:28.339 catalyst was economics. The free land. Exactly. 00:06:28.740 --> 00:06:31.019 In the East, a family might be trying to scrape 00:06:31.019 --> 00:06:34.079 by on 40 acres of overworked, depleted soil. 00:06:34.540 --> 00:06:37.779 But in 1843, the settlers already in the West 00:06:37.779 --> 00:06:40.839 drafted the Organic Laws of Oregon, which, along 00:06:40.839 --> 00:06:42.980 with the later Donation Land Act, offered up 00:06:42.980 --> 00:06:45.980 to 640 acres of free land for married couples. 00:06:46.680 --> 00:06:50.339 640 acres. That is an entire square mile of land. 00:06:50.420 --> 00:06:53.220 That's massive. That isn't just a that is generational 00:06:53.220 --> 00:06:55.370 wealth handed out for free. It's the equivalent 00:06:55.370 --> 00:06:57.170 of the government offering you a luxury estate 00:06:57.170 --> 00:06:59.209 on another planet, but the catch is you have 00:06:59.209 --> 00:07:01.250 to walk through a lethal barren wasteland to 00:07:01.250 --> 00:07:02.930 claim the deed. And if we connect this to the 00:07:02.930 --> 00:07:05.189 bigger picture, that economic calculus shifted 00:07:05.189 --> 00:07:08.050 from farming to sheer speculation with the 1848 00:07:08.050 --> 00:07:10.829 California Gold Rush. Oh, yeah. Because if Oregon 00:07:10.829 --> 00:07:12.850 was a long term agricultural investment, the 00:07:12.850 --> 00:07:14.970 Gold Rush was viewed as an extreme high stakes 00:07:14.970 --> 00:07:17.149 gamble. I was looking at the demographic data 00:07:17.149 --> 00:07:19.250 from that gamble in the sources and the societal 00:07:19.250 --> 00:07:23.009 implications are just wild. The adjusted 1850 00:07:23.009 --> 00:07:27.089 California census showed about 112 ,000 males 00:07:27.089 --> 00:07:30.110 in the state compared to only 8 ,000 females. 00:07:30.230 --> 00:07:32.990 Yeah, it was incredibly skewed. How does a society 00:07:32.990 --> 00:07:36.930 even function with a 93 % male population? Barely, 00:07:36.949 --> 00:07:40.290 and with extreme volatility. That drastically 00:07:40.290 --> 00:07:44.009 skewed gender ratio led to deeply unstable, really 00:07:44.009 --> 00:07:46.629 transient communities. Violence was rampant. 00:07:46.649 --> 00:07:49.029 I can imagine. And the basic mechanics of daily 00:07:49.029 --> 00:07:51.379 life just broke down. Because there were almost 00:07:51.379 --> 00:07:53.399 no women to perform the traditionally unpaid 00:07:53.399 --> 00:07:56.040 domestic labor of the Victorian era like cooking, 00:07:56.500 --> 00:07:58.399 mending clothes, washing those services became 00:07:58.399 --> 00:08:00.399 hyper commodified. Wow, so you had to pay for 00:08:00.399 --> 00:08:03.019 everything. Exactly. Miners were paying exorbitant 00:08:03.019 --> 00:08:05.120 premium rates just to have someone wash their 00:08:05.120 --> 00:08:07.319 shirts or bake a single loaf of bread. It completely 00:08:07.319 --> 00:08:09.839 upended traditional economic structures. That 00:08:09.839 --> 00:08:13.720 economic chaos is fascinating. But to even participate 00:08:13.720 --> 00:08:16.399 in that chaos, you had to actually survive the 00:08:16.399 --> 00:08:19.259 commute. Let's look at the physical reality of 00:08:19.259 --> 00:08:21.439 the journey itself. Here's where it gets really 00:08:21.439 --> 00:08:23.800 interesting, because Hollywood always shows people 00:08:23.800 --> 00:08:26.899 happily riding inside the iconic covered wagons 00:08:26.899 --> 00:08:29.000 looking out the back at the scenery. Right, the 00:08:29.000 --> 00:08:31.720 classic movie shot. But the structural reality 00:08:31.720 --> 00:08:33.960 of those prairie schooners tells a totally different 00:08:33.960 --> 00:08:36.620 story. Oh, completely. The physical mechanics 00:08:36.620 --> 00:08:39.419 of the wagons made riding in them practically 00:08:39.419 --> 00:08:43.600 unbearable. They were essentially 2 ,000 -pound 00:08:43.600 --> 00:08:47.220 wooden boxes sitting on iron tires. With no suspension. 00:08:47.519 --> 00:08:50.019 Absolutely no suspension of springs. Every single 00:08:50.019 --> 00:08:52.779 rock, every rut in the trail, transferred violent, 00:08:53.080 --> 00:08:55.460 bone -rattling kinetic energy directly into the 00:08:55.460 --> 00:08:58.299 wagon bed. But people didn't ride. No. Unless 00:08:58.299 --> 00:09:00.809 you were severely ill, heavily pregnant or a 00:09:00.809 --> 00:09:03.490 tiny infant, you didn't ride. You walked alongside 00:09:03.490 --> 00:09:05.750 the wagon in the choking dust kicked up by the 00:09:05.750 --> 00:09:08.690 animals every single day. It wasn't a recreational 00:09:08.690 --> 00:09:11.230 vehicle. It was a slow -moving, two -mile -per 00:09:11.230 --> 00:09:13.750 -hour industrial storage container. That's exactly 00:09:13.750 --> 00:09:16.529 what it was. And the engine you chose for that 00:09:16.529 --> 00:09:19.509 container was the subject of massive debate in 00:09:19.509 --> 00:09:23.299 the guidebooks. Mules versus oxen. Ah, the great 00:09:23.299 --> 00:09:26.840 draft animal debate. Mules were faster, and they 00:09:26.840 --> 00:09:29.080 were smart enough to survive on sparse prairie 00:09:29.080 --> 00:09:31.960 grass. But they were notoriously ill -tempered, 00:09:32.340 --> 00:09:35.059 easily spooked by storms or predators, and they 00:09:35.059 --> 00:09:37.490 cost about three times as much as oxen. Which 00:09:37.490 --> 00:09:40.070 made oxen the default winner for most farming 00:09:40.070 --> 00:09:42.350 families. I mean, they were cheaper, incredibly 00:09:42.350 --> 00:09:45.870 strong, and docile. But the anatomy of an ox 00:09:45.870 --> 00:09:48.870 presents a massive logistical nightmare for a 00:09:48.870 --> 00:09:51.970 2 ,000 -mile walk over rocky terrain. The hooves. 00:09:52.129 --> 00:09:55.169 Yes, they have cloven or split hooves. Exactly. 00:09:55.509 --> 00:09:58.169 Shooing a horse or a mule is relatively straightforward 00:09:58.169 --> 00:10:00.450 because you can just nail a single U -shaped 00:10:00.450 --> 00:10:03.289 iron shoe to the solid hoof. A horse can comfortably 00:10:03.289 --> 00:10:05.549 balance on three legs while you work. But not 00:10:05.549 --> 00:10:08.220 an ox. No, because of the split hoof on an ox, 00:10:08.320 --> 00:10:10.679 you have to attach two separate curved pieces 00:10:10.679 --> 00:10:13.620 of metal per foot. That's eight individual shoes 00:10:13.620 --> 00:10:15.919 per animal. And from reading the diaries, the 00:10:15.919 --> 00:10:18.120 oxen absolutely hated this. They fought it every 00:10:18.120 --> 00:10:19.820 step of the way. You couldn't just lift their 00:10:19.820 --> 00:10:22.909 leg. The emigrants literally had to build heavy 00:10:22.909 --> 00:10:25.830 wooden frames, run thick leather belly bands 00:10:25.830 --> 00:10:29.090 under the ox, and use a winch system to hoist 00:10:29.090 --> 00:10:32.570 a 1 ,500 -pound struggling beast entirely off 00:10:32.570 --> 00:10:34.769 the ground just to nail the shoes on. Yeah, it 00:10:34.769 --> 00:10:36.470 was a whole production. Doing that in the mud 00:10:36.470 --> 00:10:38.149 of the prairie sounds like an absolute nightmare. 00:10:38.250 --> 00:10:41.850 It was exhausting, dangerous work. And that exhaustion 00:10:41.850 --> 00:10:44.289 really compounded when it came time to set up 00:10:44.289 --> 00:10:47.090 camp and cook. Oh, the fuel problem. Right. You're 00:10:47.090 --> 00:10:48.909 traveling through the Great Plains, where timber 00:10:48.909 --> 00:10:52.330 is incredibly scarce. So how do you boil water 00:10:52.330 --> 00:10:54.950 or cook your rations? You rely on the byproduct 00:10:54.950 --> 00:10:57.529 of the millions of migrating bison. Emigrants 00:10:57.529 --> 00:11:00.230 used buffalo chips. Which is essentially sun 00:11:00.230 --> 00:11:02.529 -baked bison dung. Exactly. I try to imagine 00:11:02.529 --> 00:11:05.110 cooking my dinner over a fire of literal feces. 00:11:05.889 --> 00:11:08.210 But the chemical breakdown of a buffalo chip 00:11:08.210 --> 00:11:11.269 is interesting, because the bison primarily eat 00:11:11.269 --> 00:11:14.090 prairie grass. The sun -baked chips are essentially 00:11:14.090 --> 00:11:16.809 just tightly compacted dry cellulose. All right, 00:11:16.889 --> 00:11:18.789 they don't smell like fresh manure. Yeah, they 00:11:18.789 --> 00:11:21.769 burn clear and very hot. They burn hot, but they 00:11:21.769 --> 00:11:25.149 burn incredibly fast. Because the cellular structure 00:11:25.149 --> 00:11:28.629 of the digested grass is so porous, the relentless 00:11:28.629 --> 00:11:31.090 prairie winds would just vaporize the fuel. You'd 00:11:31.090 --> 00:11:34.159 need a ton of it. Exactly. It could take up to 00:11:34.159 --> 00:11:36.559 three bushels of buffalo chips just to generate 00:11:36.559 --> 00:11:38.759 enough sustained heat to cook a single pot of 00:11:38.759 --> 00:11:41.360 beans or fry some bacon. Gathering those chips 00:11:41.360 --> 00:11:44.100 was a daily, non -stop chore often assigned to 00:11:44.100 --> 00:11:46.279 the children who would have to walk miles away 00:11:46.279 --> 00:11:48.399 from the trail just to fill their sacks. And 00:11:48.399 --> 00:11:50.600 the diet they were cooking over those dung fires 00:11:50.600 --> 00:11:53.879 was mathematically calculated for survival, not 00:11:53.879 --> 00:11:56.320 comfort. No, not at all. Guidebooks recommended 00:11:56.320 --> 00:11:59.700 packing 200 pounds of flour and 150 pounds of 00:11:59.700 --> 00:12:02.649 salt bacon per adult. That is a massive amount 00:12:02.649 --> 00:12:06.049 of sodium and carbohydrates, but it lacks essential 00:12:06.049 --> 00:12:08.990 nutrients. Specifically, it lacked vitamin C. 00:12:09.409 --> 00:12:11.490 When you're exuding yourself that intensely on 00:12:11.490 --> 00:12:14.250 a diet of salt pork and hardtack, scurvy becomes 00:12:14.250 --> 00:12:16.970 a real threat. And scurvy is brutal. It literally 00:12:16.970 --> 00:12:19.129 breaks down the connective tissues in your body. 00:12:19.529 --> 00:12:21.909 To prevent their gums from bleeding and their 00:12:21.909 --> 00:12:24.570 old wounds from reopening, travelers had to forage 00:12:24.570 --> 00:12:27.149 for wild berries like choke cherries and wild 00:12:27.149 --> 00:12:30.690 currants along the trail. Wow. That razor -thin 00:12:30.690 --> 00:12:33.769 margin for physical error just meant every single 00:12:33.769 --> 00:12:36.570 calorie was accounted for. If you overpack the 00:12:36.570 --> 00:12:39.309 wagon, your oxen collapse and die from the strain. 00:12:39.750 --> 00:12:41.669 If you underpack, you starve to death in the 00:12:41.669 --> 00:12:43.870 middle of Wyoming. It was a constant balancing 00:12:43.870 --> 00:12:46.509 act. And that desperate elemental struggle for 00:12:46.509 --> 00:12:49.129 survival meant everyone had to abandon their 00:12:49.129 --> 00:12:51.769 predefined roles. The Trail didn't care about 00:12:51.769 --> 00:12:54.250 Victorian gender norms. It only cared if the 00:12:54.250 --> 00:12:56.580 oxen were fed and the wagon kept moving. This 00:12:56.580 --> 00:12:58.820 raises an important question, and it's a crucial 00:12:58.820 --> 00:13:01.500 sociological pivot in the sources. In the mid 00:13:01.500 --> 00:13:04.139 -19th century East, middle -class society was 00:13:04.139 --> 00:13:06.460 strictly governed by the culture of domesticity. 00:13:06.500 --> 00:13:09.379 Right, the separate spheres. Exactly. This was 00:13:09.379 --> 00:13:12.419 the rigid ideology that a woman's sphere was 00:13:12.419 --> 00:13:15.580 entirely private and domestic. She was expected 00:13:15.580 --> 00:13:18.399 to be submissive, pious, and physically delicate. 00:13:18.799 --> 00:13:21.879 literally confined to the home, managing children 00:13:21.879 --> 00:13:24.980 and religion, while men operated in the aggressive 00:13:24.980 --> 00:13:28.340 public economic sphere. But the sources show 00:13:28.340 --> 00:13:30.919 feminist historians like Lillian Schlissel and 00:13:30.919 --> 00:13:33.559 Glenda Riley painting a radically different picture 00:13:33.559 --> 00:13:36.309 of the trail. Out there, the concept of a delicate 00:13:36.309 --> 00:13:39.090 woman staying in the private sphere was a luxury 00:13:39.090 --> 00:13:41.549 no one could afford. Definitely not. There was 00:13:41.549 --> 00:13:44.570 a distinct female frontier. Necessity dictated 00:13:44.570 --> 00:13:46.909 action. When husbands fell ill with mountain 00:13:46.909 --> 00:13:49.490 fever or were crushed in accidents, women didn't 00:13:49.490 --> 00:13:51.429 have the option to faint. They were forced to 00:13:51.429 --> 00:13:53.590 take on heavy men's duty. They just stepped up. 00:13:53.659 --> 00:13:55.840 They were cracking the whips to drive the teams 00:13:55.840 --> 00:13:58.539 of oxen, they were melting lead over dung fires 00:13:58.539 --> 00:14:00.759 to pour bullets, and they were physically loading 00:14:00.759 --> 00:14:03.419 and unloading 50 -pound sacks of flour from the 00:14:03.419 --> 00:14:05.620 wagons. And the resourcefulness when supplies 00:14:05.620 --> 00:14:08.080 ran out is just brilliant. The women's diaries 00:14:08.080 --> 00:14:10.299 talk about arriving in certain valleys in Wyoming 00:14:10.299 --> 00:14:12.500 and finding the ground covered in a white crust 00:14:12.500 --> 00:14:15.580 called saleratus. Yeah, the saleratus is fascinating. 00:14:15.700 --> 00:14:17.399 They didn't just ignore it, they experimented 00:14:17.399 --> 00:14:20.620 with it. Saleratus is essentially naturally occurring 00:14:20.620 --> 00:14:23.809 sodium bicarbonate. baking soda. Right. When 00:14:23.809 --> 00:14:26.789 their baking yeast died or ran out, they figured 00:14:26.789 --> 00:14:29.370 out that if they mixed this alkaline volcanic 00:14:29.370 --> 00:14:32.590 crust with their acidic sourdough starter, the 00:14:32.590 --> 00:14:35.049 chemical reaction produced carbon dioxide gas. 00:14:35.710 --> 00:14:38.269 They literally used the geology of the trail 00:14:38.269 --> 00:14:40.990 as a chemical leavening agent to raise their 00:14:40.990 --> 00:14:44.399 bread. They acted as botanists. chemists, and 00:14:44.399 --> 00:14:46.580 really the primary historians of the journey. 00:14:47.039 --> 00:14:49.519 But those same diaries also serve as a stark 00:14:49.519 --> 00:14:52.139 ledger of the immense psychological toll. Yeah, 00:14:52.139 --> 00:14:54.100 the emotional weight is heavy. The trauma of 00:14:54.100 --> 00:14:56.320 the trail is heavily documented in women's writing. 00:14:56.679 --> 00:14:58.539 There's a haunting letter from a woman named 00:14:58.539 --> 00:15:01.500 Anna Maria King in 1845, writing back to her 00:15:01.500 --> 00:15:03.600 family in the East. She doesn't write about the 00:15:03.600 --> 00:15:06.340 majestic mountains. She just lists the staggering 00:15:06.340 --> 00:15:08.399 number of deaths they've experienced. Just a 00:15:08.399 --> 00:15:10.899 list of names. Eight people across two families, 00:15:11.240 --> 00:15:13.870 including infants and children. wiped out. It 00:15:13.870 --> 00:15:17.570 is incredibly grim. But those diaries also highlight 00:15:17.570 --> 00:15:21.769 a massive long -term political implication. And 00:15:21.769 --> 00:15:23.590 I think this is one of the most profound takeaways 00:15:23.590 --> 00:15:25.950 from these sources. Because these women were 00:15:25.950 --> 00:15:28.470 performing absolutely essential survival roles, 00:15:28.870 --> 00:15:31.169 driving the wagons and keeping the families alive, 00:15:31.610 --> 00:15:33.570 they gained a level of practical authority they 00:15:33.570 --> 00:15:35.649 had never possessed in the East. Absolutely. 00:15:35.789 --> 00:15:38.570 The dynamic shifted permanently. And that authority 00:15:38.570 --> 00:15:41.360 translated into structural political power. It 00:15:41.360 --> 00:15:43.220 isn't a coincidence that the very first places 00:15:43.220 --> 00:15:45.159 in the world to grant women the right to vote 00:15:45.159 --> 00:15:48.039 were western territories forged by this migration 00:15:48.039 --> 00:15:52.649 Wyoming in 1869 and Utah in 1870. The equality 00:15:52.649 --> 00:15:55.529 forced by the mud of the trail literally laid 00:15:55.529 --> 00:15:58.090 the foundation for the ballot box. That is exactly 00:15:58.090 --> 00:16:00.690 the kind of broader historical synthesis we need 00:16:00.690 --> 00:16:02.929 to draw from this. They literally built the civic 00:16:02.929 --> 00:16:05.509 structure of the West alongside the men. But 00:16:05.509 --> 00:16:07.169 of course, that's assuming they survived the 00:16:07.169 --> 00:16:08.970 journey to build anything at all. Right. Which 00:16:08.970 --> 00:16:11.289 brings us to the mortality rates. We've mentioned 00:16:11.289 --> 00:16:13.149 the trauma and the graves, but we need to look 00:16:13.149 --> 00:16:16.009 at the mechanics of mortality on the trail. What 00:16:16.009 --> 00:16:19.970 was actually killing the estimated 10 ,000, 420 00:16:19.970 --> 00:16:22.700 ,000 people who never made it to the end. Well, 00:16:22.980 --> 00:16:25.539 if you base your knowledge solely on old Hollywood 00:16:25.539 --> 00:16:28.320 Westerns, you would think Native American attacks 00:16:28.320 --> 00:16:30.519 were the primary cause of death. Oh, easily. 00:16:30.659 --> 00:16:32.659 But the historical record completely debunks 00:16:32.659 --> 00:16:35.340 that. During the peak migration years in the 00:16:35.340 --> 00:16:38.779 1840s and early 50s, Native Americans were vastly 00:16:38.779 --> 00:16:41.340 more likely to trade with settlers or act as 00:16:41.340 --> 00:16:44.409 paid guides than attack them. The sources note 00:16:44.409 --> 00:16:46.950 that at places like Salmon Falls, travelers would 00:16:46.950 --> 00:16:49.149 find hundreds of Native Americans fishing, and 00:16:49.149 --> 00:16:51.649 they would eagerly trade old clothes or tools 00:16:51.649 --> 00:16:54.450 for fresh life -saving salmon. Yeah, the bloody 00:16:54.450 --> 00:16:56.549 conflicts really only spiked much later, after 00:16:56.549 --> 00:16:59.210 1860. Right, when the military left. Exactly. 00:16:59.590 --> 00:17:01.490 That was when the U .S. Army withdrew troops 00:17:01.490 --> 00:17:03.870 to fight the Civil War, and a massive influx 00:17:03.870 --> 00:17:05.950 of prospectors started aggressively violating 00:17:05.950 --> 00:17:08.289 treaties and encroaching on native hunting grounds. 00:17:08.829 --> 00:17:12.029 But during the primary Oregon Trail era, arrows 00:17:12.029 --> 00:17:15.509 were not the threat. The real enemy was microscopic. 00:17:15.970 --> 00:17:18.130 Disease. I was looking at the mortality rates, 00:17:18.430 --> 00:17:21.109 and the sheer volume of graves wasn't from combat. 00:17:21.240 --> 00:17:24.549 It was from the water. Explain the cholera outbreaks 00:17:24.549 --> 00:17:26.589 to me, because the transmission rate at those 00:17:26.589 --> 00:17:28.869 campsites seems statistically impossible until 00:17:28.869 --> 00:17:31.049 you understand the biology. Yeah, it's terrifying. 00:17:31.309 --> 00:17:35.349 Between 1849 and 1855, cholera killed up to 3 00:17:35.349 --> 00:17:38.569 % of all travelers on the trail. The disease 00:17:38.569 --> 00:17:41.670 is caused by the Vibrio cholerae bacteria, which 00:17:41.670 --> 00:17:44.690 thrives in contaminated water. And water was 00:17:44.690 --> 00:17:47.809 scarce. The cruel irony of the trail is that 00:17:47.809 --> 00:17:50.009 the geography dictated where people could stop. 00:17:50.190 --> 00:17:52.490 Everyone had to follow the Platte River to survive. 00:17:52.619 --> 00:17:55.559 So you have tens of thousands of humans and hundreds 00:17:55.559 --> 00:17:57.940 of thousands of animals all funneling into the 00:17:57.940 --> 00:18:00.960 exact same limited campsites day after day with 00:18:00.960 --> 00:18:03.099 absolutely no sanitation facilities. They're 00:18:03.099 --> 00:18:05.460 drinking from the same stagnant pools where the 00:18:05.460 --> 00:18:08.839 previous wagon train dumped their waste. Exactly. 00:18:09.039 --> 00:18:12.519 And the biological mechanism of cholera is terrifyingly 00:18:12.519 --> 00:18:15.420 fast. The bacteria releases a toxin in the small 00:18:15.420 --> 00:18:18.220 intestine that forces the body to secrete enormous 00:18:18.220 --> 00:18:20.740 amounts of water. A person suffers from such 00:18:20.740 --> 00:18:23.470 rapid severe and vomiting that they can lose 00:18:23.470 --> 00:18:26.869 up to a liter of fluid an hour. A liter an hour? 00:18:27.029 --> 00:18:29.910 Yes. The dehydration is so extreme that the blood 00:18:29.910 --> 00:18:33.029 literally thickens, the skin turns a bluish gray, 00:18:33.250 --> 00:18:36.869 and a perfectly healthy person can go into hypovolemic 00:18:36.869 --> 00:18:40.009 shock and die within 12 to 24 hours of their 00:18:40.009 --> 00:18:43.089 first symptom. It is a horrific way to die. And 00:18:43.089 --> 00:18:45.650 if the microscopic bacteria didn't get you, the 00:18:45.650 --> 00:18:48.710 sheer physics of the trail would try to. We mentioned 00:18:48.710 --> 00:18:51.190 river crossings like the Snake or the Green River, 00:18:51.589 --> 00:18:53.849 where deep, fast -moving currents led to hundreds 00:18:53.849 --> 00:18:56.349 of drownings before commercial ferries were established. 00:18:57.089 --> 00:18:59.750 But the statistic that truly forced me to reevaluate 00:18:59.750 --> 00:19:02.289 the entire journey was the wagons themselves. 00:19:02.589 --> 00:19:06.009 Ah, the runovers. Yes. The fact that runovers 00:19:06.009 --> 00:19:08.250 were a leading cause of accidental death seems 00:19:08.250 --> 00:19:10.529 absurd when you consider the wagons are only 00:19:10.529 --> 00:19:13.000 moving at two to three miles per hour. But when 00:19:13.000 --> 00:19:15.380 you look at the physics, it makes perfect terrifying 00:19:15.380 --> 00:19:18.039 sense. It does. You have to picture a 2 ,500 00:19:18.039 --> 00:19:21.819 pound wooden wagon, fully loaded, riding on narrow 00:19:21.819 --> 00:19:24.799 iron -tired wheels. And crucially, these early 00:19:24.799 --> 00:19:27.779 wagons did not have reliable brakes. Right. And 00:19:27.779 --> 00:19:30.059 they're being pulled by a team of six to eight 00:19:30.059 --> 00:19:33.519 massive oxen. A 10 ,000 pound team of livestock 00:19:33.519 --> 00:19:35.900 doesn't just stop on a dime. No, they just keep 00:19:35.900 --> 00:19:38.720 walking. The sources describe how exhausted people, 00:19:38.960 --> 00:19:41.380 especially young children, would try to hop up 00:19:41.380 --> 00:19:43.599 on under the wagon tongue to hitch a ride and 00:19:43.599 --> 00:19:46.319 rest their legs. They would slip, their heavy 00:19:46.319 --> 00:19:48.319 wool clothing would get caught in the rotating 00:19:48.319 --> 00:19:50.500 spokes of the massive wooden wheels, and they 00:19:50.500 --> 00:19:52.519 would be violently pulled under. That's awful. 00:19:52.700 --> 00:19:55.660 The oxygen just keep walking, and that iron wheel 00:19:55.660 --> 00:19:58.660 acts like a brakeless steamroller. It really 00:19:58.660 --> 00:20:01.160 completely reframes the reality of the migration. 00:20:01.480 --> 00:20:03.960 They weren't leisurely carriages strolling through 00:20:03.960 --> 00:20:07.119 the prairie. They were relentless, unforgiving 00:20:07.119 --> 00:20:09.779 machines grinding forward. They didn't stop for 00:20:09.779 --> 00:20:11.940 anything. The trail didn't care if you were tired 00:20:11.940 --> 00:20:13.960 or if you were mourning a child buried by the 00:20:13.960 --> 00:20:16.180 river. The winter snows in the Sierra Nevada 00:20:16.180 --> 00:20:18.579 or the Cascade Mountains were a hard, looming 00:20:18.579 --> 00:20:21.180 deadline. If you didn't keep pushing forward, 00:20:21.319 --> 00:20:23.380 you would end up snowbound and starving like 00:20:23.380 --> 00:20:25.920 the infamous Donner Party. You had to keep walking. 00:20:26.259 --> 00:20:29.369 So what does this all mean for us today? The 00:20:29.369 --> 00:20:32.210 era of the Oregon Trail as we're discussing it 00:20:32.210 --> 00:20:35.670 ended abruptly in 1869 with the driving of the 00:20:35.670 --> 00:20:38.230 Golden Spike. Right, the railroad. The Transcontinental 00:20:38.230 --> 00:20:40.690 Railroad was completed and practically overnight 00:20:40.690 --> 00:20:44.170 it turned a grueling multi -month life -threatening 00:20:44.170 --> 00:20:47.529 trial by fire into a seven -day train ride where 00:20:47.529 --> 00:20:50.190 you could literally sit in a dining car for $65. 00:20:50.609 --> 00:20:53.930 Talk about a paradigm shift. Seriously, for you 00:20:53.930 --> 00:20:56.490 listening to this, understanding this deep dive 00:20:56.490 --> 00:20:59.910 means tripping away that pioneer myth we started 00:20:59.910 --> 00:21:02.509 with. The mapping and settling the American West 00:21:02.509 --> 00:21:05.069 wasn't just a grand romantic adventure. It was 00:21:05.069 --> 00:21:08.269 a gritty, dirty, highly calculated logistical 00:21:08.269 --> 00:21:11.230 war of attrition waged by everyday people who 00:21:11.230 --> 00:21:13.549 are pushed to the absolute limits of human endurance. 00:21:13.849 --> 00:21:16.269 And to leave you with one final haunting detail 00:21:16.269 --> 00:21:18.529 from the source system all over, consider the 00:21:18.529 --> 00:21:20.450 psychological weight of that endurance. Think 00:21:20.450 --> 00:21:22.960 about Fort Laramie in Wyoming. Okay. During the 00:21:22.960 --> 00:21:25.200 height of the 1849 gold rush as the death toll 00:21:25.200 --> 00:21:27.559 mounted and the reality of the terrain set in, 00:21:27.740 --> 00:21:30.299 Fort Laramie earned a very grim nickname, Camp 00:21:30.299 --> 00:21:33.279 Sacrifice. Because of the physical toll it took 00:21:33.279 --> 00:21:36.720 on the travelers. Actually, no, because of what 00:21:36.720 --> 00:21:39.589 the travelers were forced to abandon. When they 00:21:39.589 --> 00:21:42.430 left the East Coast, many families packed their 00:21:42.430 --> 00:21:45.390 wagons with massive heirloom mahogany furniture, 00:21:45.950 --> 00:21:49.170 heavy cast iron stoves, Victorian luxury goods. 00:21:49.230 --> 00:21:51.890 Oh, wow. They genuinely believed they were bringing 00:21:51.890 --> 00:21:54.349 the comforts of civilization with them to tame 00:21:54.349 --> 00:21:56.829 the frontier. But by the time they reached Fort 00:21:56.829 --> 00:22:00.390 Laramie, the brutal vertical reality of the Rocky 00:22:00.390 --> 00:22:03.130 Mountains loomed right in front of them. The 00:22:03.130 --> 00:22:06.269 oxen were starving and collapsing. The wooden 00:22:06.269 --> 00:22:08.529 wagons were literally splintering apart from 00:22:08.529 --> 00:22:10.569 the dry air. So they had to make a choice. They 00:22:10.569 --> 00:22:12.849 realized that if they wanted to physically survive 00:22:12.849 --> 00:22:15.569 the ascent over the mountains, they had to ruthlessly 00:22:15.569 --> 00:22:17.769 lighten the load. They had to strip away everything 00:22:17.769 --> 00:22:20.589 that wasn't essential to basic survival. Exactly. 00:22:20.809 --> 00:22:23.549 Imagine the Oregon Trail not just as a path of 00:22:23.549 --> 00:22:26.450 dusty footprints, and wagon ruts, but as a 2 00:22:26.450 --> 00:22:29.869 ,000 -mile graveyard of discarded pianos, heavy 00:22:29.869 --> 00:22:33.009 family armoires, and abandoned heirlooms left 00:22:33.009 --> 00:22:35.390 to rot in the sagebrush. Just pianos sitting 00:22:35.390 --> 00:22:38.690 in the desert. Yeah. It was a literal trail of 00:22:38.690 --> 00:22:41.930 physical and emotional sacrifices, a place where 00:22:41.930 --> 00:22:44.049 hundreds of thousands of people had to stand 00:22:44.049 --> 00:22:46.069 in the dirt, look at the physical manifestations 00:22:46.069 --> 00:22:48.549 of their past, and make the agonizing choice 00:22:48.549 --> 00:22:50.450 between the comfortable lives they used to live 00:22:50.450 --> 00:22:52.490 and the unknown future they were desperately 00:22:52.490 --> 00:22:53.210 walking toward.