A Superior Institution

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St. Elizabeths, circa 1909, courtesy Library of Congress

St. Elizabeths, circa 1909, courtesy Library of Congress

The Canton Asylum for Insane Indians had little beyond fresh air and exercise to offer its patients. Superintendents allowed a little beadwork and craft-making to occupy patients’ time, along with field work and housekeeping for the able-bodied patients. It had no hospital in 1910, nor means of quarantining patients effectively.

St. Elizabeths had a training school for nurses, quarantine rooms, and a full hospital where operations ranging from appendectomies to hysterectomies were performed. The dental department performed extractions and cleanings for patients, and created false teeth for them.

Most tellingly, the psychiatric department conducted research and published its work in professional journals, like the American Journal of Insanity. It conducted additional research through its pathology laboratory, conducting autopsies and studying tissue samples to understand the changes disease caused in the body.

St. Elizabeths was a psychiatric and teaching hospital, while the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians was merely a warehouse.

St. Elizabeths Hydroptherapy Patients, courtesy Library of Congress

St. Elizabeths Hydrotherapy Patients, courtesy Library of Congress

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Back In the City

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Dr. William A. White, Superintendent of St. Elizabeths, courtesy Library of Congress

Dr. William A. White, Superintendent of St. Elizabeths, courtesy Library of Congress

St. Elizabeths cannot really be compared to the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians. Except for the fact that both institutions were run by the federal government, they were as different as night and day. St. Elizabeths was a huge institution, with over 2,700 patients in 1909; it required its own power plant. The institution had almost ten times the number of cattle (50) as the Canton Asylum, and enough poultry to require a hennery.

In common with its sister asylum, St. Elizabeths was often overcrowded. Because its DC location was closer to the center of power, however, superintendents could more easily make their case for additional money and facilities. St. Elizabeths housed (for the most part) soldiers and sailors, who had more public sympathy than Canton’s Indians.

Government Hospital for the Insane

Government Hospital for the Insane

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Land and People

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Canton Asylum for Insane Indians

Canton Asylum for Insane Indians

Inspector James McLaughlin’s report (see 9/30/10 post) is especially interesting when one compares the emphasis on the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians’ facilities, with the comfort of its patients. Besides the substantial buildings he noted, McLaughlin also mentioned that the asylum had 100 acres of land.

This acreage had been purchased for $30.00/acre and in 1910 was worth about $100/acre. About half of it was used to grow grain for the asylum’s cattle, as well as vegetables for the patients. The rest of the land was meadow and pasture, which allowed grazing in the summer and forage in the winter, for cattle and horses.

Pasture Land Near Castle Creek, S.D., courtesy U.S. Geographical Survey

Pasture Land Near Castle Creek, S.D., courtesy U.S. Geographical Survey

The building had been designed for 48 patients, and held 61 at the time of McLaughlin’s visit (September, 1910). There was no hospital, and only three rooms where patients with a communicable disease could be isolated. The septic system didn’t work, and drained raw sewage onto the grounds. McLaughlin said that the problem needed to be addressed immediately…not for the health of the patients, but to avoid trouble with the county commissioners.

Canton, SD High School, 1919

Canton, SD High School, 1919

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Living the Life

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Example of Electric Light Lamps, courtesy Early Office Museum

Example of Electric Light Lamps, courtesy Early Office Museum

Many insane asylums were huge institutions filled with hundreds of patients. This was never true of the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, which seldom housed more than 90 patients at its most crowded.

Though the facility couldn’t boast too much about its size, its superintendents usually pointed with pride to its physical features. In 1910, inspector James McLaughlin noted that Canton Asylum had eighteen buildings, including its barns, sheds, corn cribs, and graneries.

The main building was two stories tall, with a jasper granite stone foundation. A basement ran underneath the entire building; it had a cement floor and  brick partition walls. The asylum also had a large attic, which had been divided into compartments but was not finished. These rooms were used for storage and for drying clothes during bad weather.

The two stories were each 11 feet high, which probably helped give it a spacious feeling. There were 120 electric-light lamps, a wonderful amenity for that time and place. To most visitors, the asylum looked both beautiful and well-functioning.

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Picturing Insanity

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Hospital Patient

Hospital Patient

Patients in insane asylums had few rights, and certainly little right to privacy. Public tours of insane asylums were common in the nineteen and early twentieth centuries, and few professionals seemed to find these tours insensitive. Doctors, themselves, often used patient histories in their lectures, though they didn’t usually divulge their patients’ identities.

Patients were often photographed. Some snapshots were taken by visitors to asylums, but others were taken by professional photographers for a variety of reasons (to illustrate newspaper accounts or academic material, for example). It is highly unlikely that these photographs were taken with informed consent by either patients or their families.

Glore Patients Out For a Stroll, 1902, courtesy Glore Psychiatric Museum

Glore Patients Out For a Stroll, 1902, courtesy Glore Psychiatric Museum

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How Crazy Were Indians?

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Medicine Man Administering to a Patient, courtesy Library of Congress

Medicine Man Administering to a Patient, courtesy Library of Congress

Native Americans recognized mental illness, and had several descriptive names for different conditions. The Navajos called tremors and seizures “moth madness,” which was said to be caused by sibling incest. Some tribes considered violent mania to be the result of the evil spirit, windigo, which could possess someone’s body and eat souls.

Sometimes, Native Americans attributed insanity to the influence of an evil charm or to a enemy’s potion. Along with that belief was the counter-belief that a stronger charm or potion would effect a cure.

Ironically, an article in the October 1903 issue of the American Journal of Insanity (discussing a study of 7,600 cases of insanity in Connecticut over 32 years) noted that Native Americans had the lowest incidence of insanity in the population. This finding was backed up in a number of books of the period, in which missionaries and others who frequently traveled among a variety of tribes, declared that they had never seen any insane Indians.

Skull To Keep Evil Spirits Away, Montana, courtesy Library of Congress

Skull To Keep Evil Spirits Away, Montana, courtesy Library of Congress

Hupa Shaman, 1923, courtesy Library of Congress

Hupa Shaman, 1923, courtesy Library of Congress

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Black Indians

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Black Indians

Black Indians

Native Americans in the Five Civilized Tribes sometimes owned African slaves. The Cherokee freed their slaves in 1866 and gave them full tribal citizenship. These former slaves were called tribal Freedmen.

Many Freedmen lived as Native Americans through the ensuing years, having adopted their culture and languages.

Today, Freedmen face roadblocks in tribal enrollment, since proving their bloodline depends upon the 1906 census called the Dawes Roll, which excluded Freedmen. This proof of bloodline is very important, since it is required to qualify for a Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood. The CDIB and tribal membership entitles the holder to Native American monies and benefits.  

Black Indian Family

Black Indian Family

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Captive Workers

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The Nation Robbing An Indian Chief of His Wife, courtesy www.johnhorse.com

The Nation Robbing An Indian Chief of His Wife, courtesy www.johnhorse.com

The slave trade was not confined to Africans in the early history of the U.S. In the 1700s, for instance, the Cherokee  raided other tribal territories and carried off prisoners who became their slaves. When they did not retain slaves for themselves, they sold them to traders.

In 1713, the South Carolina Assembly asked the Cherokee for help in conflicts with the Tuscaroras. Cherokee warriors obliged, and captured or killed about 1,000 of their enemy. Their captives were later sold at the auction block.

Colonial Slave Market

Colonial Slave Market

Women and children were far more likely to be captured and held as slaves than men, who were more apt to be killed in battle. Sometimes a woman or child would be ransomed back to freedom, but this was not typical. At least 2,000 Indians were slaves in South Carolina during colonial times.

Renard (Fox) an Indian Slave, circa 1732

Renard (Fox) an Indian Slave, circa 1732

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Who Wants to Help?

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Sioux Delegation, 1891, courtesy Library of Congress

Sioux Delegation, 1891, courtesy Library of Congress

Herbert Welsh (1851 – 1941) is associated most closely with the Indian Rights Association (IRA). The first meeting of the organization was held in his home on December 15, 1882; he served as Executive Secretary for many years. 

Welsh was a prosperous Philadelphian who traveled to Dakota Territory to visit the Sioux reservation at Pine Ridge. He came home with a new understanding of the harsh life so many Native Americans faced as wards of the government. He and the other founding members of the IRA were committed to righting the wrongs done to Native Americans and publicizing their situation.

His intentions were good, but misguided. Welsh wrote in 1882, “When this work shall be completed the Indian will cease to exist as a man, apart from other men, a stumbling block in the pathway of civilization . . . the greater blessings which he or his friends could desire will be his, – an honorable absorption into the common life of the people of the United States.”

Council of Indians at Pine Ridge, January 17, 1891, courtesy Library of Congress

Council of Indians at Pine Ridge, January 17, 1891, courtesy Library of Congress

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Friends of Indians

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Image of a Vanishing Life, courtesy Library of Congress

Image of a Vanishing Life, courtesy Library of Congress

Not everyone bore animosity toward Native Americans, and there were several groups who were willing to try to help them. An early group called the Indian Rights Association (IRA) was founded in 1882. Their mission was to “bring about the complete civilization of the Indians and their admission to citizenship.”

The problem with a group like this is that it assumed  Indians wanted to be “civilized” into the white culture in the first place, or that they wanted to be American citizens. What was worse was the group’s belief that the only way to effect this civilization was to destroy Indian culture. That meant erasing Native Americans’ religions and languages, and doing away with tribal ownership of land.

The group was founded  after a number of bloody confrontations between whites and Native Americans, and hoped to bring about needed reforms. Ultimately, it failed. The IRA supported the allotment process brought about by the Dawes Act, which stripped away most land from Indians and reduced many to poverty.

View of Farming Land, Mescalero Indian Reservation, courtesy Library of Congress

View of Farming Land, Mescalero Indian Reservation, courtesy Library of Congress

IRA Pamphlet, courtesy Library of Congress

IRA Pamphlet, courtesy Library of Congress

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