Life on the Plains and Among the Diggings, frontispiece, 1857. Larger.
We all know that everything tastes better outside. But instead of an occasional picnic or a weekend camping trip, what if you're outdoors for months?
Alonzo Delano, an Illinois shopkeeper, set out for the California gold fields in 1848. Camping near the Humboldt River, he reflected on the effect of extended travel upon the appetites of his California-bound companions.
It was a strange thing for us to have as many comforts as we found here, such as wood, water, grass and game; and the sage hens and ducks made a delicious repast. To-day our sugar was used up, and from this time we were obliged to drink our tea and coffee without sweetening. It is astonishing what appetites we had, and how much the stomach could digest. It seems almost insatiable. I have frequently ate four slices of bacon and drank a quart of coffee at a meal, and still felt a desire for more; and I have seen one of my mess drink half a gallon of coffee at a sitting. This inordinate appetite, with the quantity of salt meat used, is probably one principal cause of the frequent cases of scurvy on the road. Fortunately, we had a large supply of vinegar and acid, which, together with our getting out of bacon sometime before our arrival in California, prevented any such disease in our company. When laying in my supplies I bought one hundred pounds of sugar for four men, and it lasted only ninety days. Distance, eighteen miles.
In California, Alonzo Delano became a writer and artist. Life on the Plains and Among the Diggings appeared in 1857, partly based on Delano's published correspondence.
Sweat lodge, Sioux Village, Miles City, Montana photograph by L. A. Huffman, c. 1900. Larger.
Americans have inheritated a frontier ethos that celebrates individuality, self-reliance, and courage in the face of danger. Not bad values, as long as you live up to them.
Alonzo Delano left Illinois for California in 1848. He had plenty to say about California Indian people—much of it tinged with ignorance and prejedice. Even so, Delano recognized injustice when he saw it.
The indiscretion of some of the whites was strongly exemplified in the spring of 1850, on the middle fork of Feather River. It had become common to charge every theft of cattle on the Indians. A party of miners missed several head of oxen, and a cry was raised that the Indians had stolen them. Fifteen men were started out, well armed, swearing vengeance. Proceeding to a rancheria, about twelve miles higher in the mountains, they found a few bones, which they considered proof positive of the guilt of the inhabitants. They immediately surrounded the huts, when the Indians came out, and seeing their hostile attitude, without understanding the cause, and impelled by the instinct of self-preservation, attempted to fly. A deadly discharge of firearms was made, and fourteen Indians fell dead. After demolishing the houses, the brave whites set out on their return, with the glory of having taken signal and successful vengeance on the mountain robbers. When they had nearly reached home, their sense of justice was a little shaken, by seeing every ox which they had supposed stolen, quietly feeding in a somewhat isolated gorge, whither they had strayed in search of grass. Had the Indians, under similar circumstances, killed fourteen whites, an exterminating warfare would have ensued.
Life on the Plains and Among the Diggings chronicles Alonzo Delano's California adventuters from 1849 to 1852.
"Pioneer Day re-enactment of Mormons entering Salt Lake valley in covered wagons. The Mormon pioneers coming off Big Mountain into Mountain dell. July 1847," photographer unknown, c. 1912. Larger.
In life—as in art—the poet's words "less is more" offer a useful guide. For California emigrants, that idea could mean the difference between success and failure.
Alonzo Delano, an Ottawa, Illinois shopkeeper, joined a local California-bound company in 1848, setting out across the Great Plains for California's gold fields. Progress was hard, made even harder by overloaded wagons and human frustration.
Loading our wagons too heavily with cumbrous and weighty articles, and with unnecessary supplies of provisions, had been a general fault, and the cattle began to exhibit signs of fatigue. . . . To sell superfluous articles was quite impossible, though I was fortunate enough to find a market for fifty pounds of coffee. Every emigrant was abundantly supplied, and we were compelled to throw away a quantity of iron, steel, trunks, valises, old clothes, and boots, of little value; and I may observe here that we subsequently found the road lined with cast-off articles. . . and the waste and destruction of property was enormous. In this the selfish nature of man was plainly exhibited. In many instances the property thus left was rendered useless. We afterwards found sugar on which turpentine had been poured, flour in which salt and dirt had been thrown, and wagons broken to pieces, or partially burned, clothes torn to pieces, so that they could not be worn, and a wanton waste made of valuable property, simply because the owners could not use it themselves, and were determined that nobody else should.
After the Gold Rush, Alonzo Delano stayed in California, becoming a humorous writer and artist. Life on the Plains and Among the Diggings appeared in 1857 and was partly based on Delano's published correspondence.
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