This video is sponsored by Incogni. Oh boy, looks like the witch got you again. This time, you gracefully land in Independence, Missouri in the mid-1800s. Everyone's packing up and moving out west to seek their fortune in greener pastures, and you don't want to get left behind.
Think you have what it takes to blaze the trail? Let's find out. Since you've just been thrown into this reality, you're only as good as the skills the EU can provide.
As we all know, there's only three kinds of people in this world. Bankers, farmers, and carpenters. Nothing else. And thanks to good old democracy, you are now...
Ah, a crafty carpenter. You enjoy getting hammered and occasionally nailed. You've got some solid survival stats and decent savings.
Good choice. Not that it was yours anyway. Here's your complimentary wife and two adorable little cherubs to help you on the trail.
Look how cute they are. Your mission is to travel down the soon-to-be-famous Oregon Trail. Over 2,000 miserable miles of dirt, disease, and death, formally established in 1836 to help pioneers move out west.
But why would-But why would I move out west, you might ask? Because you want to. But more importantly, the US government wants you to.
Look, the eastern states are getting all congested, industrial, and smoggy, so the United States needs to do some good ol'expansion. Thanks to the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and the Oregon Treaty in 1846, there's a lot of fresh open land to settle. Why live in the economic decline of disgusting cities in the east when you could manifest that destiny and fill up those lungs with fresh air on the fertile plains? That's good air!
If the opportunity of prosperity wasn't enough to convince you, how does free land sound? Thanks to the Oregon Land Donation Claim Act of 1850, pioneers can claim up to 640 acres of land completely free! Time to get supplies! Look, if you're gonna be slogging down a few thousand miles of rocky trail, you're gonna need to be well-supplied if you want to stand any chance of surviving.
Pioneers stocked up their supplies in trailhead towns just like Independence, Missouri. Things like food, clothes, tools, livestock, and perhaps the most critical American asset, guns. Because when you're out on a seemingly endless sand ocean, anything's fair game. What's to stop a desperate thief from stealing your precious supplies and or daughter?
Your gun. So be sure that you're well equipped to donate a few lead slugs to their cause and of course you could also hunt for food If you need to. When it came to food a family of four would need about a thousand pounds of the stuff This was usually beans, rice, flour, sugar, coffee, and dried meats and veggies Don't forget your pots and pans in your fresh water barrel or else you'll be washing down your salty deer jerky with a cup of dried rice For tools you're gonna need to be making repairs when stuff breaks and stuff will break Since you're a carpenter and know how to carpet properly, you're set with a hammer, a saw, and an axe. And of course you'll need some spare clothes otherwise you'll be walking around with some breezy cheeks. In order to haul all of your stuff down the trail, you're going to need a big ol'wagon.
This sucker right here is a prairie schooner. Not as beefy as the heavy Conestoga wagons used for shipping freight, but you can still fit so many supplies and family members in this bad boy. With four ox power, tricked out wooden wheels, and a non-existent suspension, the kids will be uncomfortably wobbling down a trail at a spine-shattering 15 miles per day.
You and your wife, however, will be getting your steps in the entire way. Every day is leg day on the Oregon Trail. So with a modest $800 to your name, you talk to the general store owner and place your order.
Yes sir, what can I do you for? Well, about 20 bucks, but I'm kind of looking for some supplies. Sure thing, take a look around.
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Yeah, I'll ring you up. You better get used to that wagon, because you're about to spend about... mmm...
six months in it. You've got almost 2,200 miles of trail ahead of you, but you're not alone. In fact, over 400,000 other pioneers are also making the trek. Just don't make too many friends, because you'll end up burying some of them along the way.
About 10% of those who hit the trail ended up really hitting the trail. For better survival stats, many families opted to form traveling caravan groups consisting of dozens of wagons to support each other. But having so many people around, inevitably led to disagreement.
Hey, can you pass the beans? Uh, I don't know, can I? The fuck's your problem? So in order to avoid descending into complete chaos, leaders and officers were elected to direct the caravans, laying out agreed upon ground rules dictating what to do in certain events.
So if grandma slips and takes a wheeler 50 to the spine, we all know who gets all of her stuff. Enjoy those dentures, proper planning gave you those. These concrete rules were designed to prevent arguments down the line, but of course humans will be humans. I just wanted some beans! But you're a simple fella who makes simple decisions, so you're probably fine right?
What could go wrong? Being on the road for about a month now, you've passed through a few forts and landmarks, and besides a few snakes and your son hucking some stuff off of the wagon for fun, things have been going pretty well. Huh.
Well, time to put the carpenter skills to use and make repairs. While there's some downtime, the family has an opportunity to catch up on some chores. Just remember to keep your guard up and avoid any, you know... Since your wagon conveniently broke down next to a freshwater spring, your wife is able to replenish the water supply before washing the farts out of your family's clothes.
Meanwhile, your daughter feeds the oxen and your son laps up water from a brown puddle. Look at him go. Oh wait, that's not good.
Your son is gonna quickly learn about a little thing called cholera. You see, there were plenty of diseases that plagued the dusty trail like mumps, measles, and the dreaded dysentery, but cholera was by far the worst. Contracted mainly from contaminated water sources where fellow pioneers expelled their evils, cholera could kill within hours and spread just as fast across an entire caravan. Symptoms included extreme nausea, vomiting out your front, vomiting out your back, dehydration from all the vomiting, leg cramps, restlessness, irregular heartbeat, glassy eyes, and perhaps the worst symptom of all, death.
Oh my god he's dead! No no, he could just have cholera. Disease alone was the biggest killer on the trail, with estimates of over 30,000 deaths. So, best to avoid slurping down brown puddles.
Sorry, son. Not only were diseases a guaranteed add to the death count, but so were injuries. Even something as simple as a small cut could easily be infected, with the extent of medical treatment being no more than, eh, put some whiskey on it. Your prognosis wasn't too promising. So when little Jimothy falls off the wagon and shatters both tibias, he's now the trail's newest speed bump.
If you were afflicted by something, the best you could do was rest. Resting was crucial for pioneers. If they didn't stop to rest frequently, they ended up taking a dirt nap from crippling exhaustion. But not only was physical health a concern, but mental health as well. There were quite a few reports of people throwing themselves off the wagon of life when their mental health deteriorated from not only the monotonous and seemingly unending voyage, but seeing the constant line of rotting bodies of fallen pioneers.
It was pretty common to pass several dead travelers every day on the trail, so you gotta think that that's pretty demoralizing, especially if some of those travelers were your friends and family. Even today, some of these graves still mark the end of many pioneers'journeys. Mental health really was no joke.
Take for example the famous story of Elizabeth Markham, who was pushed to the brink of insanity while on the trail. In the middle of their trek, she hit a point of exhaustion where she simply refused to travel any further, and nothing could convince her to carry on. After hours of failed encouragement, her husband and children were forced to abandon her and move on.
After a while, her son was sent back to get her after she had rested. Bad move. Elizabeth eventually caught back up with the rest of the family, but left her son in the dirt with a rock lodged in his skull. When her husband raced back to find his son still barely alive, Elizabeth set fire to the family's wagon for good measure. Can't continue down the trail if everything you own is reduced to a cinder, can ya?
Not only were humans a danger to themselves, but so was almost everything else. especially nature. High winds, strong storms, blazing heat, freezing nights, they all did what they do best.
They happened. You also had to watch out for wildlife. Wolves, bears, snakes, coyotes, and buffalo. They were all out to get you and your family.
But thanks to firearms, humans were able to get them back, especially the buffalo. That's gonna piss off some Native Americans. Speaking of which, there's often a misconception that Native Americans were a constant threat.
Not true. In fact, quite the opposite. Native outposts were extremely useful trading sites to replenish food and other supplies. Natives also served as experienced tour guides, escorting some pioneers through rougher terrain like forests and rivers. Granted, there were a few deadly altercations between pioneers and natives, usually a result of pioneers being paranoid and shooting at natives unprovoked.
About 800 natives and pioneers were killed thanks to sheer stupidity. Oh well, the wagon's repaired, so time to get back to it. You continued traveling on for a few more months.
passing by more forts and giant rocks, but things have been pretty quiet. Wait, why is everything so quiet? They're probably fine.
You then break out of your reminiscing when something catches your eye in the distance. There it is! The end of the line and a ticket to a new life. Oregon City. That's in Oregon.
All that's left between you and Salvation is a huge freaking river. The Columbia River. You can't exactly cross it, so you're gonna need to fort it.
You waterproof your wagon. but you still need a raft to hold everything. Oh, but building a sturdy enough raft is just gonna be impossible, is what a non-carpenter would say. It's river time.
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