While many students are unaware that part of their jogging route is named for a member of the Mohegan tribe who lived during the 18th century, the lecture that College historian and former history professor Jere Daniell '55 gave Tuesday in Dartmouth Hall aimed to elucidate that and other contributions that Native Americans have made to Dartmouth.
Occom Pond, a well-known campus spot, was named for Samson Occom, a student of Eleazar Wheelock and a major solicitor of the funds that helped found the College.
Daniell's lecture was the first event in a week-long series devoted to Native Americans at Dartmouth that will end with the Pow-Wow this weekend. He divided his talk into four parts that traced the history of Native Americans through the College's existence.
The first part highlighted the origins of Dartmouth and Eleazar Wheelock's goals.
"He wanted to create white missionaries who would Christianize natives in their homeland," Daniell said. In addition, he said, the concept of educating the natives was attractive to Lord Dartmouth, who became the College's primary benefactor.
Daniell went on to discuss the lack of native students at Dartmouth in the 19th century followed by the emergence of the American Indian as the College's mascot in the mid-20th century and ended his lecture by describing the struggle of native students and President John Kemeny's restated commitment to their education starting in 1969. Throughout his talk, Daniell emphasized the Mohegan tribe's contributions to the College's development.
Timothy Edmonds '09, who attended the lecture for a class, said he learned a lot from it.
"I gained a new perspective on Dartmouth in attending the program," Edmonds said.
Jesse Sixkiller '06, the event organizer, emphasized Daniell's non-native background, saying that he hopes Daniell will be able to reach the non-native audience on campus and show that this week's events can benefit the Dartmouth community at large.
According to Sixkiller, the goal of this year's upcoming Pow-Wow is to more fully incorporate the entire Dartmouth community, which accounts for the unprecedented week-long schedule of events.
Sixkiller emphasized that fliers and information booths appearing on campus this week will help non-natives to become more comfortable with the etiquette of attending a pow-wow and hoped that this will encourage more people to participate.
According to Sixkiller, the Pow-Wow is usually held on Mothers' Day weekend in order to allow other Ivy League colleges to schedule their pow-wows around Dartmouth's, which is the largest in the area.
