Edward Mitchell was the first student of African descent to attend Dartmouth College. In 1824, students protested the Board of Trustees decision not to admit Mitchell because of his race. The students’ activism was supported by the faculty, the Board relented, and Mitchell took his rightful place in the student body. Born in Saint-Pierre, Martinique, in 1792, he had been a sailor and a porter before coming to Hanover. He graduated from Dartmouth in 1828, was ordained, and moved to Georgeville, Canada, where he found community and his calling in ministry. This exhibit examines the fascinating life of Edward Mitchell from Saint-Pierre, to Dartmouth, to Georgeville.
Elizabeth Brown's crisp diary entry on May 31, 1820, read, "In Philadelphia we hired a man of color for a year who attends us on horseback, named Edward."
Mitchell was born and lived until age eighteen in St. Pierre, Martinique, the "Paris of the Antilles" and commercial capital of the French Caribbean slave colonies. Its wide harbor carved a graceful arc at the city's edge. Cargoes of goods and supplies arrived side-by-side with ships of enslaved Africans. The city had 7,500 inhabitants, 90% of whom were enslaved Africans.
