Samson Occom (1723-92) was a Mohegan Indian who studied for 
four years under Eleazer Wheelock, a New England missionary to the 
Iroquois. Wheelock had devised a plan for educating and 
Christianizing the Indians through boarding schools, where they 
would attend classes with Europeans. The program separated the 
students from their tribal environment but trained them to return to 
their own people as missionaries. In 1768, Occom returned from a 
fund-raising tour in Britain with twelve thousand pounds for 
Wheelock's school. Instead, Wheelock used the money to found 
Dartmouth College in New Hampshire in 1769, having abandoned his 
mission to educate the Indians. Occom became so enraged that he 
broke permanently with Wheelock. Above is an address from 1772 
written by Occom in verse, proselytizing for Christianity and 
condemning alcohol consumption by Indians. Traders encouraged 
Indians to indulge in alcohol while missionaries used the Indian 
susceptibility to it as proof of their depravity.