Chris’s Reviews > The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride > Status Update

I never knew this fact: the reason the Donner party got into their horrendous situation in the FIRST place, was due to a classic greedy capitalist named Lansford Hastings, who was trying to divert settlers from Oregon to California, so he could profit off them. To divert them, he promoted an untried/unknown "short cut" to California, that did nothing but lead these settlers to misery and death.