Dartmouth was founded by Eleazar Wheelock, a Puritan minister from Connecticut, who sought to establish a school to train Indians as ministers to spread civilization and Christianity. Wheelock's inspiration for such an establishment largely resulted from his relationship with Mohegan Indian Samson Occom. Occom became an ordained minister after studying under Wheelock’s tutelage from 1743 to 1747 and later moved to Long Island to preach to the Montauks.[19]
Wheelock instituted Moor's Indian Charity School in 1755.[20] The Charity School proved somewhat successful, but additional funding was necessary to continue school’s operations. To this end, Wheelock sought the help of friends to raise money. Occom, accompanied by Reverend Nathaniel Whitaker, traveled to England in 1766 to raise money in the dissenting churches of that nation. With the funds, they established a trust to help Wheelock.[19]
Although the fund provided Wheelock ample financial support for the Charity School, Wheelock had trouble recruiting Indians to the institution – primarily because its location was far from tribal territories. Receiving the best land offer from New Hampshire, Wheelock approached the Royal Governor of the Province of New Hampshire John Wentworth for a charter. Wentworth, acting in the name King George III of the United Kingdom, granted Dartmouth a royal charter on December 13, 1769, establishing the final colonial college and naming the institution after his English friend, William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth.[19] Dartmouth's purpose, according to the original charter, was to provide for the Christianization, instruction, and education of "youth of the Indian Tribes in this land [...] and also of English youth and any others."
Like all the Ivy League schools, how far it has fallen from its original Christian roots and mission, to become a tool of those who despise what it originally stood for.
