When a friend of Doug George-Kanentiio, a Native American author and historian, said he was taking him to visit the grave of an influential Native American leader, George-Kanentiio said he was surprised to be led around barbed wire fences and into the woods before coming upon faded stone graves with illegible inscriptions. The friend, pointing to grave stone partially obscured by a maple tree, told George-Kanentiio it belonged to Samson Occom, the Native American clergyman who was instrumental in the founding of the College.
"I was shocked that the grave of one of the most influential native leaders of the 18th century was in disrepair," George-Kanentiio said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "I wrote to Dartmouth suggesting that you do something to restore the ill-treated founder's grave."
Dartmouth has previously explored opportunities to restore the grave, according to Native American studies chair Colin Calloway. When Bernd Peyer, an author and former visiting professor at the College, published a history of Dartmouth's relationship with Occom in the alumni magazine more than 10 years ago, a photograph of the untended grave was featured next to the article, raising awareness about the issue within the Dartmouth community, Calloway said.
Native American programs director Michael Hanitchak '73 attended a meeting of tribal leaders from the Mohegan and Brothertown tribes in 1999. He said he discussed with tribal leaders at the meeting how they could work with Dartmouth to rectify the situation.
The 1999 event was one of the first official meetings of the two tribes since Occom founded the Brothertown tribe -- a group of Native Americans from a number of tribes, including a substantial number of Mohegans -- and led them from Connecticut to Oneida Indian lands in northern New York in 1785, according to Hanitchak.
Occom was ethnically Mohegan and founded the Brothertown tribe to create an "independent New England Christian Indian community," according to Peyer's article. Occom founded the tribe after leaving Dartmouth for Connecticut, furious with Eleazar Wheelock, the College's first president, who accepted funds raised by Occom to create the College and then focused on educating the children of white settlers instead of Native Americans.
After Occom died, the Brothertown tribe relocated to Wisconsin. As the tribe never signed a treaty with the U.S. government, it is still struggling to receive federal recognition, George-Kanentiio said.
The woman who was chair of the Brothertown tribe in 1999 has since passed away, College spokesman Roland Adams said in an e-mail to The Dartmouth. He added that the College has been in contact with the new leadership, and hopes those individuals will provide the College with further direction on how to proceed.
"The College is definitely interested in supporting and participating in efforts to see that Samson Occom's grave in upstate New York is properly tended, but does not feel it can or should simply seize the lead in that effort, in light of recommendations we have received from leaders of the Mohegan tribe of which Occom was a member, and the Brothertown Indian Nation he helped found," Adams said in the e-mail.
Recent restrictions on visitor access to the gravesite has further complicated the situation, according to Caroline Andler, the tribal genealogist for the Brothertown tribe.
"The farmer who owns the land has refused access to a group of us who wanted to visit and to an anthropologist we wanted to do some experiments," Andler said. "He has offered to sell it to us, and we do not have money to do that."
The Brothertown tribe lacks the funding and revenue-generating opportunities that federally recognized tribes enjoy, Hanitchak said.
Lawrence Ames, the farmer who has owned and lived on the land since 1979, said that reaching the gravesite is dangerous because "rocks and a large gulch" block the path.
Ames' neighbors own an adjoining piece of land that is more passable, which Ames had previously used when he took people to visit the graves, he said. His neighbors have since decided that they do not want anyone to use their property to access to the gravesites, cutting off the only safe passage, Ames said.
Ames said that he would like to allow people with a connection to Occom to access the grave, but that lawyers have advised both him and his neighbors that they are liable for any incident that occurs on their property.
Ames declined to provide the neighbors' names or to estimate how much it would cost for the College or a tribe to purchase all or part of his or his neighbors' land. He said he had never had his land surveyed or appraised.
Ames, Andler and George-Kanentiio suggested that the College might be the only institution with the resources to buy the property. Hanitchak said this option was not seriously considered in 1999.
"I pretty well know that the College couldn't buy real estate, buy a farm in New York, so maybe there'd be interest in putting money toward restoration if the property issue could be worked out," Hanitchak said. "Any direction on something like that would come from the presidential level."
The College is waiting for direction from the new leadership of the Brothertown tribe before taking any action, Adams said in the e-mail.
The current chair of the Brothertown tribe, Richard Schadewald, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
"Definitely something that should be done by someone," Andler said. "We want to work with whoever will help restore this site."