Legacy at Dartmouth

In contrast to Mitchell’s peaceful life in Quebec, Americans remained divided over the fate of Africa’s children enslaved on American soil. Barely noticed were the small favorable few signs of progress at Dartmouth. Jonathan Fox Worcester (D.C. 1827) wrote in 1852 that with Mitchell’s admission, Dartmouth “won one of the brightest honors of the College, its freedom from distinctions on account of color.”

At the Dartmouth Centennial of 1869, Prof. Samuel Gilman Brown, who knew Mitchell personally, noted in his keynote address, “No student was ever excluded from the College on account of color. Many young men of African lineage entered the College, and none have been treated with disrespect.” By that year, twenty Black men had attended Dartmouth, more than any other New England school. Dartmouth historians later wrote that Dartmouth “has shown an unfailing hospitality to the Negro, even when the doors of other institutions were closed against him.”