The Enemy of My Enemy

Cherokee Confederates Reunion in New Orleans, 1903

Native Americans resisted white encroachment on their lands and cultures in a variety of ways (see last two posts). They refused to cooperate with these intruders, refused to send their children to their schools to learn new ways, and held on to their traditions by many strategies. One other significant way Native Americans resisted settlers was to join forces with their enemies. This occurred during the Seven Years War (1754-63) when Britain and France fought over New World territory with the help of native peoples on both sides.

By the time the American Civil War began, Native Americans had had experience with the treachery and false promises of the federal government. Officials in the Confederacy approached various native peoples to remind them of this, offering them better opportunities under Confederate rule for their help in fighting Union forces. The Confederacy created a Bureau of Indian Affairs in March, 1861 and appointed David L. Hubbard as its commissioner. In 1861, the new country’s leaders commissioned attorney Albert Pike as a brigadier general and assigned him to the Department of Indian Territory. There, he was to raise regiments among the Indians and command them in battle. My next post will discuss Native Americans and the Confederacy further.

Fort Davis, Built by Order of General Pike, courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society

General Albert Pike

Other Forms of Resistance

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Students in American Clothing at Carlisle, 1879

Parents who did not want to send their children to boarding school could not always fight back, but many parents tried to instill the traditional ways and values of their culture into their children despite the federal government. When children returned to their reservations, they could still attend dances and ceremonies, speak their native language (if they still remembered it), wear traditional clothing, hear the old stories, etc. Some, of course, rejected the old ways, but many were willing to incorporate them into the new knowledge and way of life they had seen off-reservation.

Elders in some tribes did all that they could to keep tradition intact. Around the turn of the twentieth century, the Taos Pueblo required men to wear their hair in braids and wear traditional clothing. If they wore “American” pants, they had to cut the seat out and wear a blanket around the middle; this outfit resembled deerskin leggings and the breech clout. Purchased shoes had to have the heels cut off to resemble moccasins.

Children who refused to grow their hair long once they returned from school or who wore “American” clothes, could be fined one to five dollars. If they refused to participate in dances they were given the alternative of a ten-dollar fine or a dollar-a-stroke whipping in the plaza.*

*These details are taken from Masked Gods: Navaho and Pueblo Ceremonialism by Frank Waters.

Colville Indian Family on Reservation, circa 1900 – 1910, courtesy Library of Congress

Taos Pueblo, circa 1900 – 1910

Resistance to Boarding Schools

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Hopi Indians on Alcatraz Island, courtesy nps.gov

Boarding schools hundreds of miles away from reservations served as a primary tool for the federal government in its attempts to assimilate Native Americans into Anglo culture. By taking children from familiar environments and immersing them into a new one, administrators hoped to break family bonds, alienate children from their cultural pasts, and prevent them from learning native ways from older adults on their reservations.

Of course, parents resisted these efforts. Many refused to give their permission to send children to schools when they had that option; otherwise they hid their children or taught them a “hide and seek” game to play when federal authorities arrived. In turn, authorities were willing to play hardball with the parents. One group of 19 Hopi men were sent to the U.S. military prison on Alcatraz when they refused to give up their children.

Despite their parents’ best efforts, thousands of children were forced to go to boarding schools. Parents were sometimes coerced by threats or the withdrawal of rations into signing permission to allow their children to leave home. Sometimes, however, federal agents actually kidnapped children from their homes.

Chief Red Cloud Visiting Carlisle Indian School in 1880

Richard Pratt, Founder and Superintendent of Carlisle Indian School

Schooling Considered Essential

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Ft. Sill Indian School, courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society

Immigrants to the New World almost always considered their cultures superior to that of Native Americans. As these newcomers spread westward, they became determined to “uplift” native peoples into their own beliefs and customs. Met with the Native Americans’ unexpectedly tenacious resistance to this subjugation of their various cultures, the federal government saw schooling as the best tool at its disposal to gain its objective.

By the 1860s, the federal government had set up 48 day schools on or near reservations to further its goal of native assimilation into Anglo-American culture. The schools’ purpose was to not only educate Native American children about white culture and customs, but to also educate the children’s parents.

Native American resistance to these schools will be the topic of my next post.

Carpentry Class at Sherman Indian School

Indian School, courtesy Central Michigan University

All in the Blood

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Chippewa Medicine Man, circa 1900, courtesy University of Minnesota, Duluth

Older methods of curing illness often included bloodletting, the practice of purposely lancing a patient’s flesh in order to get blood flowing. Quantities extracted could be quite small or surprisingly voluminous, depending upon the individual doctor’s beliefs about its effectiveness. Many doctors nearly bled their patients to death, and this type of aggressive, “heroic” medicine fell out of favor during the nineteenth century. Continue reading →

Not So Undercover

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Blackwell’s Island Lunatic Ball, 1865

The Canton Asylum for Insane Indians had frequent visitors, who were welcome to tour the facility during visiting hours. (See last two posts about visitors.) When the editor of the Hudsonite showed up unannounced–and not on a visiting day–he was nonetheless welcomed and given a tour by the asylum’s financial clerk, Charles Seely. Continue reading →

Undercover Visitors

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Nellie Bly

Though Lunacy Commissions and other visitors who provided oversight to asylums could be misled (see last post), word of actual conditions in an asylum nonetheless leaked out. Sometimes attendants talked, but more often, former patients spoke out against any abusive or inhumane conditions they had endured during their stays. Though these accounts were often dismissed, the public did become curious about conditions in insane asylums and at times speculated wildly about what might actually be happening to patients. At times, newspapers provided on-the-spot reporting by sending someone into an asylum undercover. Continue reading →

Useful Visitors

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Photos Showed What Words Could Not

Though many patients felt they didn’t get enough visitors, and others didn’t like being treated as entertainment for the thrill-seeking public (see last blog), certain visitors were supposed to help asylum patients. Most states set up a Lunacy Commission whose job it was to visit and inspect the state’s insane asylums. These appointed personnel were supposed to go through the facilities and ensure that patients were being treated humanely. They were also charged with reviewing the superintendent’s management and suggesting changes for the benefit of the institution; this oversight could include reviewing the asylum’s financial records and expenditures. The Government Hospital for the Insane, later St. Elizabeths, was an exception in that it was overseen by a Board of Visitors who performed much the same function.

Most asylums were not at all afraid or ashamed to have their finances reviewed. Many superintendents were proud of their fiscal management and also grateful for numerous charitable contributions such as newspaper subscriptions, special entertainments, gifts of furniture, and the like. They enjoyed showing off the productivity of their patients in terms of food raised, garments sewed, etc. However, superintendents realized that all patients did not present well, and usually took pains to ensure that visiting officials saw their institutions at their best. Most asylums kept the calmer, better-behaved patients in wards closer to the administrative offices. Recovering patients often moved from ward to ward as they got better, and eventually ended up in one of these more public wards. When visitors saw such patients, who were often nearly recovered or had minor illnesses to begin with, they were reassured. Any cruel treatment, confinement, and restraint generally occurred on wards which were not shown to the public. This is one reason that patient abuse could thrive despite the oversight built into the asylum system.

Montevue Asylum, African-American Ward

Montevue Asylum in Maryland, 1909, Photographed by the State’s Lunacy Commission

Asylum Visitors

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A Trolley Helped Make Visiting Easy, 1907

Though few people wanted to be in an asylum–probably including its staff at times–many people did go to asylums either out of a sense of duty or of curiosity. Bands from a nearby town would often provide music for patients, while other people would offer lectures, magic lantern shows and other entertainments, or conduct religious services. Continue reading →

Escape From Reality

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Dr. Clouston’s Book

Though most patients in insane asylums could not escape physically (see last two posts), doctors may have inadvertently caused them to lose touch with reality by dosing them with opium and other narcotics. In The Actions of Neurotic Medicines in Insanity (1871), Dr. T. S., Clouston described experiments he conducted on patients using medicines like bromide of potassium, opium, cannabis Indica (a more sedative variety of the cannabis family), along with Scotch whiskey and beef tea as controls. He particularly wanted to see how these substances acted on patients who were in a “maniacal” or excited state. (Perhaps to his credit, Clouston performed the experiments on himself and his assistant, as well.)

Clouston found that none of the substances created a narcotic effect in excited subjects, though they did produce what he called a “natural sleep.” He later experimented on chronic patients, giving them increasing doses of opium over twelve weeks,. Higher dosages quieted their levels of excitement, though the effect did not last. Clouston took careful notes about his subjects, and eventually combined a tincture of cannabis and a dose of bromide, which worked very well in most of the patients. He had continued this treatment for eight months at the time he wrote.

Clouston seems to have been very careful with his patients, noting their temperature, pulse, weight gain or loss, and so on, and adjusting medicines accordingly. He tried to give patients enough medicine to calm their manic states, without unduly sedating them, and he stopped treatment whenever he saw that a patient could not tolerate it well. However, given the ease of administering these powerful drugs to patients, who can say how many doctors indiscriminately dosed patients for the convenience of their asylum’s staff? In a period when little was known about the background causes for psychological problems, keeping patients in a narcotic haze may have been the easiest–and most common–thing to do.

Opium Held High Interest in the 1800s

Tincture of Cannabis

Indians, Insanity, and American History Blog

Asylums And Insanity Treatments 1800 – 1935

The Enemy of My Enemy

Other Forms of Resistance

Resistance to Boarding Schools

Schooling Considered Essential

All in the Blood

Not So Undercover

Undercover Visitors

Useful Visitors

Asylum Visitors

Escape From Reality