Our series highlighting a digital collection or item relevant to this day in history, by Monica Erives, Edward Connery Lathem ’51 Digital Library Fellow.
On this day in 1771, Eleazar Wheelock, founder of Dartmouth College, wrote a “strongly worded rebuttal” in response to a letter from Samson Occom, a member of the Mohegan Tribe, Wheelock’s former student, and an instrumental fundraiser for the college. In his letter, Occom communicated his dismay in learning there were few to no Indians at the college:
Your having So many white Scholars and So few or no Indian Scholars, gives me great discouragement – I verily thought once that your institution was Intended Purely for the poor Indians with this thought I cheerfully ventured my Body and Soul, left my Country my poor Young Family all my Friends and Relations, to Sail over the boisterous Seas to England, to help forward your School, Hoping, that it may be a lasting benefit to my poor tawny Brethren.
Wheelock’s Aug 15th Letter to Occom
Wheelock responded:
You discover very great Ignorance of my plan, my object, my reasons, my motives, my views and prospects, and as great a degree of uncharitableness as of ignorance. You show no degree of brotherly and Christian Sympathy towards me in my long and weary travail, notwith standing your nation have been invariably my chief object…
It was this year, 1771, when Occom and Wheelock’s close relationship came to an end. To read the entirety of these letters, visit The Occom Circle — a scholarly digital edition of handwritten documents by and about Samson Occom (1723-1792) with both diplomatic and modernized transcriptions for ease of reading.