Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College enters the family story first as a possibility for Skerry Hallagher, Elise’s gifted eldest son, and then as the setting of a sharp conflict over education, Indigenous identity, and the limits imposed on Indigenous students. His experience there turns a hoped-for opportunity into a reason to leave: he wants to study law, while the education offered to students of Indigenous ancestry is directed toward missionary work.

A hoped-for education

When Elise and Jinot Sel meet again, Elise describes Skerry as clever, widely read, and possessed of a powerful inquiring mind. He wants to attend Dartmouth, which she understands to take an interest in Indigenous scholars. She is uncertain whether he will be admitted, but Dr. Hallagher supports the possibility. The prospect marks how far the family’s circumstances have changed since their childhood at the post, and places formal education among the new possibilities they are trying to imagine for their children.

The limits of the opportunity

In a letter to Jinot, Elise later recounts that Skerry returned from Dartmouth unhappy. Dr. Hallagher tries to learn what is wrong, but Skerry initially says little. He eventually explains that the college expects students admitted because of their Indigenous ancestry to become missionaries and return to their communities to preach. Skerry objects that he has never lived in a tribe and has no community to preach to; more importantly, he wants to study law.

The conflict is not simply between education and ignorance. Dartmouth offers access to schooling, yet, as Skerry describes it, directs Indigenous students toward a prescribed religious vocation rather than allowing the same range of study he seeks. His wish to read law makes the restriction concrete: he is told that theology and preaching are the only studies open to Indigenous students. He concludes that staying at the college cannot serve his purpose.

Departure and consequences

Skerry asks his father to approach Judge Foster about studying law with him. That request is difficult because Dr. Hallagher had treated the judge’s daughter, Laura Rose, for consumption and could not save her; the judge turned his grief into hostility toward the doctor. Unable to make that approach, Skerry leaves home, angry, and says he will go to Canada to find his tribe. His departure extends the consequences of Dartmouth beyond the college: an educational institution’s limits help propel him toward a search for belonging, even though he has already said that he was never raised within a tribe.

Narrative significance

Dartmouth’s brief appearance links family change to the unequal terms on which education is offered. Elise’s earlier hope that the college might welcome an Indigenous scholar is answered by Skerry’s report that it expects him to serve as a missionary rather than pursue law. The episode gives his refusal a double force: he rejects a narrow role assigned to him, while his decision to seek a community also reveals the unsettled relationship between ancestry, lived experience, and belonging in his family’s history.