Caleb fought the odds ... and won
This week we can't help but think about America.
So how on earth do I get Barack Obama and Northamptonshire into the same column? With considerable difficulty, actually.
But don't worry, I am not going to claim that Mr Obama's ancestors came from Cogenhoe; that would be going too far.
However, my love of the United States (but not always its politics) leads me to look again at the achievement of one of the Founding Fathers who had his roots here.
It may seem like a tenuous link, but the fact that so much has been made about the inauguration tomorrow of the first African-American President, leads me to think about another remarkable man, a Native-American, who, helped by a man from Northamptonshire, fought against the odds and won.
The two men in question were Caleb Cheeshateaumuck and Charles Chauncy.
In 1633, Charles Chauncy, whose family had lived in Northamptonshire for generations, became vicar of Marston St Lawrence, near Brackley.
And then in 1638, because of political and religious conditions at the time, he headed off to the New World and eventually, in 1654, he became the first president of Harvard College at 100 per annum.
Established in 1636 as America's first institution of higher learning, Harvard's original purpose was to provide "literate Puritan ministers" to serve the recently-established Massachusetts colony. By 1650, Harvard had expanded its original charter to include not only the education of New England's young men but, thanks to Charles Chauncy, qualified "Indian" students as well.
Chauncy is regarded as the first real scholar in America, but his scholarship was far from narrow and intellectual.
He was passionate about educating "true Americans" and, since in the 1620s King James I had decreed that an institution should be provided to educate the children of the Indians, Charles Chauncy took that one stage further and admitted a number of Native-Americans to Harvard.
Sadly, few made the grade.
But Caleb Cheeshateaumuck did! In 1665, he was the first Native-American in history to graduate.
He was an Algonquian Indian, a member of the Wampanoag tribe and the son of a sachem of Homes' Hole, on Martha's Vineyard.
He had been taught by Peter Foger, the grandfather of Benjamin (Ecton connection) Franklin.
Caleb attended the Indian College at Harvard and distinguished himself by learning to read and write in English, Latin, Greek and his own Wampanoag language.
Caleb's Latin address to the New England Corporation began "Honoratissimi benefactores" . . . most honoured benefactors.
Tragically, Caleb fell victim to one of the white man's diseases for which he had no natural immunity.
He died of consumption only a few months after he had graduated.
The Indian College effectively died with him and, perhaps incredibly, very few Native-American students attended Harvard until the latter part of the 20th-century.
Charles Chauncy's ambitions bore fruits; in 1998 the first health clinic opened in Boston, Massachusetts, especially for Native-Americans run by Native-Americans.
It is called The Caleb Cheeshateaumuck Clinic.
America had to wait for 205 years, until 1870, for Richard T Greener to graduate from Harvard, the first African-American to do so.
Tomorrow Barack Obama, a graduate of Harvard Law School, is to become the 44th President of the United States of America.
I can almost see Charles Chauncy from Northamptonshire punching the air!
Email to a friend
Print this page- BREAKING NEWS: Tributes paid to Niamh Curry as brave five-year-old loses battle against cancer
- BREAKING NEWS: Pensioner dies after collision at Northampton shopping centre
- Man tied to tree and beaten on Northampton Racecourse
- BREAKING NEWS: Seven-year-old boy dies following house fire in Northamptonshire
- Northampton binmen at ‘breaking point’
- Northampton binmen at ‘breaking point’
- Saints’ stadium plans get support as long as traffic issues solved
- Eastern European pupils helping school standards across Northampton
- Northampton Town: Boothroyd ‘It’s all about stability’
- Northampton benefits advice agency reports surge in people losing entitlements
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Northampton
Thursday 24 May 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 12 C to 25 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 22 mph
Wind direction: East
