Society of Early Americanists 2027 Biennial Conference

Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck was the only Indigenous student to graduate from the Harvard Indian College in the seventeenth century. His manuscript letter in Latin, addressed to the school’s benefactors, has long been known to scholars (Royal Society, London RB/3/2/6), but this paper offers a new reading of the text from the perspective of the history of the book and classical reception. It foregrounds Cheeshahteaumuck’s Latinity and the importance of Indigenous literacy and learning in the Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies, especially in his native Noepe (Martha’s Vineyard), before 1700. Drawing on archival evidence for Latin rhetorical education, as well as for book ownership and use among the college’s earliest students, the paper identifies an extended and nuanced allusion to Cicero’s Defense of the Poet Archias (Pro Archia poeta) in Cheeshahteaumuck’s letter. It argues that education in literary Latin—or what Cheeshahteaumuck calls humanitas (translated as “humanity,” but also on its way to meaning “the humanities”)—was essential to his complex negotiation of citizenship, faith, and belonging in this letter.