Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck
{{short description|Native American student}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck
| birth_name =
| image = Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck painting by Stephen Coit.jpg
| birth_date = ~ 1644
| birth_place = Martha's Vineyard
(Wampanoag: {{lang|ro|Noepe}})
| death_date = ~ 1666
| death_place = Watertown, Massachusetts
| resting_place =
| spouse =
| occupation = Student
| mother =
| father =
| alma_mater = Harvard College
| party =
| relatives =
| caption = Portrait by Stephen E. Coit, 2010
| other_names =
| children =
| known for = Being the first Native American to graduate from Harvard
}}
Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck (estimated 1644 – 1666) was the first Native American to graduate from Harvard University.
Life
Cheeshahteaumuck, the son of a Nobnocket (West Chop) sachem, was born into the Wampanoag tribe on Martha's Vineyard and he received a formal education.{{cite book |title=Faith and boundaries : colonists, Christianity, and community among the Wampanoag Indians of Martha's Vineyard, 1600-1871 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0521706957|date=2007-06-11 }} He and his classmate Joel Hiacoomes were taught on the Vineyard by Peter Folger, the maternal grandfather to Benjamin Franklin.
The two went on to attend Elijah Corlet's grammar school in Cambridge in around 1657.{{Cite book|title=Red ink : native Americans picking up the pen in the colonial period|last=Drew.|first=Lopenzina|date=2012|publisher=State University of New York Press|isbn=9781438439792|location=Albany|pages=126–132|oclc=781628796}}
Harvard and death
Cheeshahteaumuck and Hiacoomes both entered Harvard's Indian College in 1661. Hiacoomes died in a shipwreck a few months prior to graduation while returning to Harvard from Martha's Vineyard. Cheeshahteaumuck became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard in 1665. He died of tuberculosis in Watertown, Massachusetts less than a year after graduation.[http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1997/05.01/RememberingNati.html "Remembering Native Sons"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060603045114/http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1997/05.01/RememberingNati.html |date=June 3, 2006 }}, Harvard University Gazette, May 1, 1997.[http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1997/05.08/HarvardHonorsFi.html "Harvard Honors First Native American Students"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051223130446/http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1997/05.08/HarvardHonorsFi.html |date=December 23, 2005 }}, Susan Peterson, Harvard University Gazette, May 8, 1997.[http://www.nha.org/pdfs/otherislanders/1aWamp2o2.pdf "The Ancient Proprietors: Wampanoags"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060524120239/http://www.nha.org/pdfs/otherislanders/1aWamp2o2.pdf |date=2006-05-24 }}, Part I: Nantucket's First Peoples of Color, The Other Islanders, Frances Ruley Karttunen, Nantucket, Massachusetts: Nantucket Historical Association, 2002. Accessed on line October 22, 2007. This online book has also been issued in a print edition (New Bedford, Massachusetts: Spinner Publications, Inc., 2005, {{ISBN|0-932027-93-8}}.)
One document remains from Cheeshahteaumuck's time at Harvard which he purportedly wrote, written entirely in Latin. This short letter, addressed to "most honored benefactors," contains references to Greek mythology, Greco-Roman philosophers, and Puritan theology. The letter was meant to thank donors and encourage them to continue their financial support.{{Cite journal|last1=Hochbruck|first1=Wolfgang|last2=Dudensing-Reichel|first2=Beatrix|date=1992|title='Honoratissimi Benefactores': Native American Students and Two Seventeenth-Century Texts in the University Tradition|journal=Studies in American Indian Literatures|volume=4|issue=2/3|pages=36–40|issn=0730-3238|jstor=20736601}} Some consider this to be the earliest extant writing by a Native American on the North American continent.
In 1674, Daniel Gookin, writing about American Indians in New England, described Cheeshahteaumuck's death and how "Caleb, not long after he took his degree of bachelor of art at Cambridge in New England, died of a consumption at Charlestown, where he was placed by Thomas Danforth, who had inspection over him, under the care of a physician in order to his health; where he wanted not for the best means the country could afford, both of food and physic; but God denied the blessing, and put a period to his days."{{cite web |title=Daniel Gookin. Vol. II. The Beginnings of Americanism: 1650-1710. Trent and Wells, eds. 1901. Colonial Prose and Poetry |url=https://www.bartleby.com/163/205.html |website=www.bartleby.com|date=3 October 2022 }}
The Harvard Foundation unveiled a portrait of Cheeshahteaumuck on December 16, 2010, in the Annenberg Hall,{{Cite web|url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/5/13/harvard-iacoomes-college-degree/|title=Wampanoag To Be Honored With Degree {{!}} News {{!}} The Harvard Crimson|website=www.thecrimson.com|language=en|access-date=2017-09-22}} painted by Stephen E. Coit.
Legacy
Cheeshahteaumuck is the title character in Geraldine Brooks' book of historical fiction Caleb's Crossing.{{cite web |last1=Atlas |first1=Amelia |title=Pride of the Indian College |url=https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2011/05/pride-of-the-indian-college |website=Harvard Magazine |access-date=10 October 2021 |language=en |date=17 April 2011}}
References
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Category:Year of birth missing
Category:Year of death missing
Category:Harvard University alumni
Category:Native American history of Massachusetts
Category:People from Martha's Vineyard
Category:People from Dukes County, Massachusetts
Category:Aquinnah, Massachusetts
Category:Place of birth missing
Category:Native American people from Massachusetts
Category:17th-century deaths from tuberculosis
Category:Tuberculosis deaths in Massachusetts