Native American Denied Posthumous Diploma

By age 10, Joel Iacoomes, a native of Martha’s Vineyard, was studying Latin grammar at a preparatory school in Roxbury.

By age 20, he had also mastered Greek and Hebrew.

Living and studying in Harvard’s Indian College, where all Native American students lived—located on the spot in the Yard where Matthews Hall now stands—he might have graduated first in the University’s Class of 1665 if he had not died in a shipwreck just before his commencement.

Harvard University never granted Iacoomes a diploma, either in 1665 or 2005—when, after months of research, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) concluded earlier this month that “it was not appropriate” to award Iacoomes a posthumous degree.

“[Iacoomes] was living in a very turbulent time. He negotiated several societies, several tribes, and the Massachusetts Bay Colony,” said Patrik Johansson, a 2001 graduate of the School of Public Health who petitioned Harvard to grant Iacoomes a posthumous degree earlier this year.

“What shines through is his legacy of academic excellence,” Johansson said.

Harvard’s Indian College was not a separate institution of learning—its students took the same classes as their white counterparts. It was founded in 1655 under then-President Charles Chauncy to fulfill a goal of Harvard’s Charter of 1650, which called for “the education of the English & Indian Youth of this Country in knowledge and godliness.” Students at the Indian College were not charged tuition and were given free lodging.

But Harvard never had a strong commitment to the Indian College, and in 1698 it was torn down owing to neglect. (University records say that it was “altogether uselesse”). Harvard cannibalized the building that year, using its bricks to build the first Stoughton Hall.

During the 43 years of its existence, a total of five students attended the Indian College, and only one graduated.

While seventeenth-century records attest to Iacoomes’ academic prowess—he impressed then-Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony John Winthrop in a 1663 Latin oral examination—he was shipwrecked off the coast of Nantucket as he returned to Cambridge from Martha’s Vineyard. He died sometime in the summer of 1665—before Commencement, which in the seventeenth century took place at the end of the summer.

Uncertainty over the exact timing of Iacoomes’ death—and, by implication, what requirements of his degree he left unfulfilled—caused Harvard to turn down Johansson’s petition, according to John T. O’Keefe, an assistant dean of the College.

Unlike today’s celebratory commencement activities, commencements of long ago included “a two-week period when people were tested orally on their knowledge of Latin and Greek” before they could graduate, O’Keefe said. O’Keefe said Harvard was unable to determine whether or not Iacoomes had completed any of those commencement requirements.

But even if Iacoomes had completed all his requirements, persuading FAS to grant him a posthumous degree would be difficult. O’Keefe said that faculty tradition since the early 1980s has viewed the diploma as something that “has to be given and received”—that is, the candidate must be present for Harvard to grant it.

Today, when a candidate has fulfilled all of their degree requirements but is unable to attend commencement, a “certificate of degree requirements” is often issued in place of a full degree, O’Keefe said.

Johansson said he had not known that Iacoomes may not have completed his degree requirements.

But even if Harvard’s archives do not eventually yield more information about Iacoomes—and O’Keefe said more research is possible—Johansson said that “members of the Harvard community are looking for other ways to honor his legacy,” including an annual memorial lecture in Iacoomes’ name.

“We...want it to be a lecture that can be cross-disciplinary, [including] international relations, leadership, history, and political science,” Johansson said.

“To have [Iacoomes’] name attached to something of this sort would be an excellent tribute to his memory,” said Durwood Vanderhoop, a member of the tribal council of the present-day Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) on Martha’s Vineyard.

Over the last 350 years, Vanderhoop said, the name Joel Iacoomes was little known among the Wampanoag.

But “it’s a name that’s becoming more familiar,” he Vanderhoop. “It’s a realization and a sense of pride, to know we come from a long line of educated [people].”

In addition to Iacoomes, the Wampanoag can claim the only person ever to graduate from Harvard’s ill-fated Indian College, Iacoomes’ classmate, Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck, who did participate in Commencement in 1665.

Months later, though, Cheeshahteaumuck became sick and died in Watertown.

—Staff writer Brendan R. Linn can be reached at blinn@fas.harvard.edu.