American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Wild and savage people, . . . . they have no Arts nor Science, yet they live under superior command such as it is, they are generally very loving and gentle, and doe entertaine and relieve our people with great kindnesse: they are easy to be brought to good, and would fayne embrace a better condition. -Robert Johnson, Nova Britannia, 1609 We must let you know . . . the Indians are not inclined to give their Children Learning. We allow it to be good, and we thank you for your Invitation; but our customs differing from yours, you will be so good as to excuse -Canassatego (Iroquois), 1744 Schemes to deliver higher education to American Indians arose sporadically throughout the colonial period. Within a decade of the first permanent European settlement at Jamestown, plans were already underway for an Indian college, and similar designs continued periodically throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Indians in fact offered the impetus for establishing and maintaining among the nation’s most enduring and prestigious halls of higher learning-such elite institutions as Harvard College, the College of William and Mary, and Dartmouth College.