Harvard Indian College

The Indian College was supported financially by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England, a Christian missionary charity based in London and whose president was the scientist Robert Boyle.

[1] The Indian College attracted only a handful of Native American students and was closed in 1693, after which the building was demolished and its bricks used for another construction in Harvard Yard.

[5] In the 1640s, in the midst of a crisis connected to the English Civil War, the leaders of Harvard College began seeking financial support to educate and convert the local Native Americans.

When Harvard Hall was completed in 1677, the English colonial students moved out of the Indian College and the building fell into disuse.

The Society's condition for approval was that Native American students "should enjoy their Studies rent free in said [new] building."

[19] Another member of the Nipmuc tribe, Benjamin Larnell, attended Harvard in the early 1700s, when the Indian College building no longer existed.

John Leverett, president of Harvard between 1708 and 1724, described Larnell in his personal diary as "an Acute Grammarian, an Extraordinary Latin Poet, and a good Greek one".

[21] In 1997, in a ceremony attended by 300 people, a historic plaque was placed at Matthews Hall in Harvard Yard to commemorate the Indian College.