Blacks@Dartmouth 1775 to 1960

Another notable case was that of one Caleb Watts, a mulatto, though classed as an Indian, who came to Wheelock in the fall of 1770, soon after his removal to Hanover, being then about twenty years of age. He was born of an English mother whose name he bore, but was brought up as a slave by his grandfather and never taught to read. He proved apt to learn, and in 1775 had studied rhetoric, logic, geography, ethics, and divinity in preparation to go, under Wheelock's direction, as a missionary to the West Indies.

Wheelock then proposed to Governor Trumbull to send him to the South to dissuade the slaves from insurrection. In September 1775, Watts preached his first sermon one Sabbath evening in Wheelock's pulpit. He left in October 1776, and what became of him we do not know.

The traditional and peculiar policy of liberality toward the negro which has distinguished this College from others was thus coincident with its very foundation.