Founding of Dartmouth College,” Wood Engraving by Samuel E
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“Founding of Dartmouth College,” wood engraving by Samuel E. Brown, published in John Warner Barber, The History and Antiquities of New England, New York, and New Jersey, 1841. The Reverend Eleazar Wheelock established both Moor’s Indian Charity School and Dartmouth College to prepare Native American and colonial youth for useful careers as teachers and ministers in the American wilderness. Hanover, New Hampshire, where the two related schools were located by 1770, was then still “shaded by lofty pines, with no accommodations except two or three small huts composed of logs, and no house on that side of the river within two miles through one continued dreary wood.” 45 From the Connecticut Valley to the West Coast: The Role of Dartmouth College in the Building of the Nation Richard K. Behrens HE ORIGINAL mission of Dartmouth Davenport, had converted a Mohegan family to College, its raison d’être, was to educate Christianity. The native parents wanted their son, TNative Americans together with European Samson Occom, to be educated so Wheelock accepted colonists. As the college expanded its activities from him as a student in 1743 and prepared him for a the initial mid-eighteenth-century focus on New teaching assignment with the Montauks on the eastern England, its attention was soon directed, of necessity, end of Long Island. to the West. As graduates of Dartmouth ventured Occom’s success with the Montauks subsequently west, they built effectively on earlier college relation- created interest among the Delaware Indians, who ships, facilitating westward expansion in a number of sent two of their young men to Wheelock to seek ways. Dartmouth alumni contributed to the nation’s education. In 1754 when Indian students arrived in development as missionaries and teachers to the Lebanon from New Jersey, local townspeople were Native population; as explorers, surveyors, and engi- sufficiently impressed to provide one thousand neers; as religious leaders; and, in greater numbers, as pounds in cash, land, and buildings to establish a settlers, community leaders, and politicians. The school. Named after its principal donor, Joshua resulting dispersal of influential Dartmouth graduates Moor, the school specifically educated Native across the continent helped shape the nature and Americans as well as prepared colonial youth to work 3 direction of American growth.1 with them. After the French and Indian Wars ended in 1763, Missionary Beginnings the increase in inland colonial settlement gradually The Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, a Yale graduate pushed the Indian population west and north. This active as an itinerant preacher in the 1740s at the required Wheelock to extend his search farther for height of the religious revival known as the Great students and to move where he could better serve Awakening, founded both Dartmouth College and them. He began to seek out a location where he its predecessor, Moor’s Indian Charity School.2 could establish an “Indian School—That [would] be Religion and education were the dual objectives of an Academy for all parts of useful Learning, part of it Wheelock’s schools. Rev. Wheelock, then of Lebanon, a College for the Education of Missionaries School Connecticut, intended initially to establish a Latin Masters, Interpreters, &c, and part of it a School for 4 school to prepare boys for Yale. By chance, however, reading and writing &c.” During an extended trip Wheelock’s brother-in-law, the Reverend John to England and Scotland in 1766, Samson Occom raised substantial funds for the new venture from RICHARD K. BEHRENS, retired from corporate bank- British and Scottish missionary societies as well as ing and finance, is an independent researcher in Early from individuals.5 American and family history. He has been fascinated with In 1770 Wheelock moved Moor’s School to New England history in general and that of Dartmouth Hanover, New Hampshire, on the Connecticut River in particular since his arrival in Hanover in 1960 as a after obtaining a charter in the King’s name from that member of the Dartmouth class of 1964. province’s Royal Governor John Wentworth for the 46 Historical New Hampshire Graduates of the two schools were influential not only in their effect on colonial Indian relations but also in their contribution to the Revolutionary War— on both sides of the struggle. Joseph Brant, a Mohawk who had been sent to Moor’s School by his brother-in- law, the British Indian agent Sir William Johnson, would later lead British Indian forces during the Revolutionary War. Nevertheless, Brant, while living in exile in Canada after the war, sent his sons to Moor’s School and continued to maintain old school ties.7 Samuel Kirkland (Moor’s School, 1762), who had worked closely with the Oneidas in the province of New York since 1762, arranged to send James Dean, the son of one of his fellow missionaries, to Moor’s School and then on to Dartmouth (class of 1773).8 Rev. Samson Occom (1723–92), oil on canvas, by Adna Tenney Dean later taught at Moor’s School and served as (1810–1900), after a mezzotint by Jonathan Spilsbury, London, interpreter for most of the early Dartmouth mission- 1768. Wheelock’s first Indian student was portrayed two decades ary excursions into Indian lands. In 1775, Elias later wearing white minister’s bands while raising funds in England for Wheelock’s Indian school. Courtesy of the Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, New Hampshire; gift of Mr. George W. Nesmith and others. founding of New Hampshire’s first college. Dartmouth’s charter described the school’s future location “as convenient as any for carrying on the great design among the Indians . the laudable and charitable design of spreading Christian Knowledge among the Savages of our American Wilderness.” Dartmouth was unique among colonial institutions of higher learning in that its original stated purpose emphasized education of the Native population. Harvard had operated a school for Indians in the sev- enteenth century but had disbanded it by 1698.6 Although the overall success of Moor’s School proved limited, its impact on the Mohawks and the Oneidas in particular was significant. Before long, missionaries and teachers educated by Wheelock— both Native American and white, from Moor’s Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea) (1743–1807), oil on canvas, by School and Dartmouth—were living and working Charles Wilson Peale (1741–1827), Philadelphia, 1797. among the Indians at missions from Ohio to Wheelock described the Mohawk chief, another former student, as “of a sprightly genius, a manly and gentle deportment.” When sit- Quebec. The missionaries often encouraged the ting for a portrait, Brant changed from his usual “suit of blue native youth they met at these locations to attend broad cloth” to Indian attire. Courtesy of Independence National Moor’s School and Dartmouth. Historical Park. Dartmouth College 47 Boudinot, president of the First Continental charge was to make treaties with the southern tribes Congress, chose Dean to be the American Indian and to begin a “civilization” program. The idea was agent with the assignment of keeping as many tribes that teaching the migratory natives to use European as possible neutral during the Revolutionary War. agricultural and textile equipment would help con- The success of Kirkland and Dean with the Oneidas vert Indian land use from hunting to agriculture and contributed to the American victory at the Battle of thus reduce conflict.12 Saratoga and thus encouraged many of the other Shortly after Dinsmoor arrived in Tennessee in tribes to stay neutral. The Oneidas shared their har- 1796, he instituted controlled access to Indian vest with the American soldiers in New York and land.13 When Andrew Jackson, as a young army offi- later sent four hundred wagons of badly needed corn cer, tried to cross Cherokee land, Dinsmoor asked to to George Washington’s beleaguered troops winter- see his passport. Jackson’s reply, as he pulled out two ing at Valley Forge.9 That the Cherokees followed the revolvers, was simply, “These are my passports.” Oneidas’ lead and stayed out of the war in the South Jackson’s alleged response foreshadowed his rather helped ensure Washington’s victory at Yorktown. belligerent attitude toward enforcing the provisions Dartmouth, owing to its location and special of the Indian Removal Act of 1830.14 Dinsmoor con- relationship with the Indians, was the only college tinued to serve as Indian agent until after the War of in America to remain open during the war. In 1780 1812 and, during that time, succeeded in keeping the British with the help of their Mohawk allies most of the tribes neutral. attempted to cut through Vermont from Canada to As early as 1792 John Wheelock (class of 1771), a the Connecticut River but did not proceed beyond decorated Revolutionary War colonel who had suc- Royalton, Vermont, about fifteen miles west of ceeded his father in 1779 as college president, Hanover. At least one Native Dartmouth graduate attempted to extend recruitment of Indians to attend is said to have participated in the attack on Royalton. Dartmouth and Moor’s School as far south as the ter- The college itself, however, remained safe.10 ritory of the Cherokees. However, the trustees for the When the new American government came Scottish Missionary Society, which supported the into being in 1789, George Washington, as the school, refused to release funds for that purpose until nation’s first president, had among his highest they were satisfied with progress in the Northeast.15 priorities settling internal boundary disputes by In 1792, moreover, Samuel Kirkland, whose son creating three new states (Vermont in 1791, George W. Kirkland (class of 1792) had just graduat- Kentucky in 1792, and Tennessee in 1796) and ed from Dartmouth, set up the Oneida Indian dealing with Indian land issues.