Indian_College
Harvard Indian College
Educational institution in Cambridge, Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Indian College was an institution of higher education established in the 1640s with the mission of training Native American students at Harvard College, in the town of Cambridge, in colonial Massachusetts. The Indian College's building, located in Harvard Yard, was completed in 1656. It housed a printing press used to publish the first Christian Bible translated into a Native American language, the Eliot Indian Bible of 1663, which was also the first Bible in any language printed in British America.
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. 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. The college promised to waive tuition as well as provide housing for American Indian Students.[1] Some Native American students, however, attended Harvard afterwards.
In 1997, the authorities of Harvard University installed a plaque commemorating the Indian College.[2] In 2009, remnants of the original Indian College were discovered during an archaeological dig in Harvard Yard and parts of the original printing press were recovered.[3][4] At Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, an exhibit titled "Digging Veritas" now showcases the archaeology and history of the Indian College and student life in colonial Harvard.[5]