Cannibalism in the Old West

 

During the early days of America, when ships took many days or even weeks to cross the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans, sailors would occasionally find themselves adrift in a life boat, fighting for survival. One threat when stranded on the seas was starvation and this was sometimes solved by the death of a comrade, who then became sustenance for his fellow crewmen. Of course, if providence did not provide it might become necessary to take the matter into their own hands, and there are even reports of a despondent crewmen volunteering to become dinner. Such was sometimes the case on land as well, and everyone is familiar with the Donner Party tragedy. However, anyone at any time in those early days could find themselves “adrift and fighting for survival” in the western wilderness. 

In 1851 Major Bartlett, commissary of the border commission, when 224 miles east of El Paso, Texas "happened upon the camp of a Negro couple when they discovered smoke at some distance.” The New Orleans Picayune reported the story and it was repeated in The Adams Sentinel of Gettysburg, PA on April 14, 1851: “ ... They [the Bartlett party] sent out a party to reconnoiter, and discovered a Negro man and a woman in the act of cooking food, and, on further search, the head of a Negro was found in the fire. They said they had been compelled to kill one of their companions for food. They had been nine days out, their gun had burst, and they were in a state of starvation. The account they gave of themselves was this: they were all slaves of a man named Owens near Holly Springs, Mississippi, and had run away together last corn-planting, making for Mexico. The boy they killed was about 19 years of age, named Arthur; the other is a black aged from 27 to 30, calling himself Henry; the girl, a bright mulatto about 21, named Malinda. These last two were taken to San Antonio and left in custody of one Antonio Navano.”
 

    One can see the precarious position in which the run-away slaves found themselves by the loss of their only weapon.