Transatlantic Charity and Classical Education at the Harvard Indian College

This article examines the largely untold Indigenous history of classical learning in early America. Shortly after the founding of Harvard College, the prospect of providing a liberal arts education to Native youth animated missionary efforts. A decidedly and deceptively simple logic defined this pedagogical work. Native American ministers, overseas benefactors believed, were the best bet to Christianize coastal New England; a college education served as a prerequisite for the ministry, and a course at the grammar school a ticket of entry into college. In this way, classical education, especially Latin learning, took on particular significance. Here, I offer a new account of the so-called Indian College that unveils the transatlantic charity that funded such education, the gaps in motives between New England educators and English benefactors, and the ways in which depictions of Native American fluency in Latin perpetuated such efforts, even amid contemporary criticism.