Canton Asylum

School Picture of Attawa Indian Boys, 1870, courtesy Library of Congress

Though women, and especially young girls, may have had fewer rights and protections under traditional white sensibilities, boys were also vulnerable to involuntary commitment. Navajo James Hathorn became a patient at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians in 1904, when he was either six or eight years old. (See last post concerning another young patient.) Hathorn’s mother had suffered some problems during delivery, which affected James’s motor skills and language development. His problems were so severe that no one on his reservation could, or would, take care of him. He received ongoing medical care from Dr. Turner, mainly anti-spasmodics and physical therapy, which seemed to be helpful. At the time, there were 23 males at Canton Asylum, so presumably this little boy lived among them.

Though O. S. Gifford was not a trained psychiatrist as Dr. Harry Hummer was, he surely didn’t believe the boy was insane. Though he was probably taken to, and accepted by, the asylum with the best of intentions, Hathorn’s life had to be miserable. Authorities and family at the reservation, Gifford, and Dr. Turner probably understood Hathorn’s medical needs to be extreme, but putting a disabled child into an asylum with patients who were sometimes violent could not have been the best solution. Hathorn died at the age of 19 or 21, with little to indicate that he had improved to any great degree.

Tulalip Indian Boys at Canoe Race, 1912, courtesy Library of Congress

Huron (Wyandot or Wyandotte) Boys Learning to Chop Wood at Wyandotte Mission School in Kansas, 1880 to 1890, courtesy Library of Congress

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Native American Farming, circa 1920, courtesy Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas

White settlers to New England had different ideas about animals than Native Americans, as well as different ideas about land ownership (see last post). Native Americans did not own animals, except for a loose affiliation with dogs and horses, and perhaps tame fowl in some areas. Settlers, on the other hand, brought domesticated livestock with them, which they considered private property. Native Americans were prepared to respect these new animals, but didn’t understand the ownership of another creature.

These differing views led to clashes when Native Americans sometimes hunted livestock or kept a wandering animal for their own use. Tobacco farmers, in particular, let their hogs roam in the forest and eat fallen acorns and nuts. Often, these pigs went wild and tore up Native American corn crops. But, when they killed these feral pigs, Native Americans found themselves somehow in the wrong. Clashes over livestock allowed whites to justify pushing tribes further out from the perimeter of white settled areas. Eventually, this mentality led to a justification for Native American  removal from areas of white settlement.

These contrasting world views of property rights (land and animal) could not be reconciled. Whites found Native American ways inexplicable and “uncivilized.” Some humanitarians called the Dawes Act the “Indian Emancipation Act,” because it gave Native Americans their own private property, which they hoped would lead Indians on the road to civilization.

Band of Feral Pigs

Sketches of Indian Life

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Fort Peck Reservation

When farmers began to look at the benefits of mechanization in the early part of the 20th century, most realized that any real labor and cost savings would have to take place on large farms. Thomas Campbell believed wholeheartedly in the benefits of large-scale, mechanized farming, and wanted to prove it. During WWI, he wanted to sow huge quantities of wheat on land that Indians weren’t using.

Campbell wrote to various government officials without much success, but finally convinced President Woodrow Wilson that the country could benefit from his idea. Frank Thackery, a supervisor in the Indian Office, met Campbell and showed him around various reservations. Thackery suggested Campbell farm about 200,000 acres, about ten times what Campbell had originally envisioned. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs approved leases on Crow, Blackfeet, and Fort Peck reservations.

Campbell did not have to pay taxes or interest on this land, since the land was federally owned. Thackery wanted Campbell to pay Indians in grain, as a share of the crop, but many Indians preferred money. Campbell paid them 50 cents an acre for the first two years of the lease, then 75 cents an acre the third year, and finally a dollar an acre in the fifth year. He also bought land off Indians for $3 – $4 an acre. No one made much money, including Campbell, but he would have undoubtedly failed immediately without his favorable leases on reservation property.

Horse-drawn Farm Equipment, courtesy U.S. Geological Survey

Steam-Powered Threshing Machine, courtesy National Park Service

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Native Americans on Flathead Indian Reservation

White Americans often seemed to feel that Indian land was available for their own needs. In 1927, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Charles Burke, met with the Montana Power Company and white farmers to discuss a water project. They proposed to use land belonging to the Flathead Indians to build a water power site to create inexpensive electricity, but failed to invite Flathead Indians to the meeting. Representative Louis C. Cramton (chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee for the Interior Department) favored the action because it would help white settlers “hanging on by their fingertips . . . to share in the national prosperity.”

Activist John Collier and several powerful senators opposed the bill, saying it was detrimental to Indian interests. Collier wrote to President Coolidge to ask him to intervene in the Flathead project, but Coolidge never wrote back. Nevertheless, Congress defeated the bill, and in 1928, passed a bill that acknowledged Indian ownership of the rentals from the water project.

President and Mrs. Coolidge, courtesy Forbes Library

Charles Burke

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Dr. Harry Hummer

Dr. Harry Hummer, the second (and last) superintendent of the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, created most of his own problems. He was a well-trained psychiatrist who had worked at the large government insane asylum, St. Elizabeths. Hummer took over a fairly new facility, but chose to concentrate his attention on administrative details and running the asylum’s farm rather than on his patients. He sought to keep expenses down by not filling the assistant superintendent’s position, thus making himself the only medical person on staff until nurses were assigned to the facility many years later.

Hummer had no excuse for the way patients were mismanaged. He was thoroughly capable of devising therapeutic plans for his patients, but never did. He kept many of the amusements Gifford has initiated and even built on them to a point, but discontinued other occupational-therapy types of activity, like beadwork.

Laundry Room, Northern Michagan Asylum for the Insane

Hummer was also responsible for his own overcrowding. Though he undoubtedly felt pressure to take in as many patients as possible, no one at the Indian Office was likely to have overruled him if he had put up a fight to keep his patient numbers down. Even though the Commissioner of Indian Affairs technically had the sole power to commit or release patients, commissioners nearly always bowed to Hummer’s recommendations.  Hummer continually complained about overcrowding, but used it as a reason to expand his facility. Hummer always had fewer than 100 patients, far less than the caseloads of other superintendents at other facilities. Yet, he quickly abandoned even the most rudimentary psychiatric examinations and relied on unschooled attendants’ notes to keep him apprised of patients’ mental conditions.

Patients at Worcester State Hospital, courtesy Life Magazine

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Overcrowding was not a true reason for the problems the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians experienced. (See last post.) Its first superintendent, O. S. Gifford, took over a new facility with few patients. He reported in June of 1903 that he had received 16 patients that year, one of whom died, and two of whom recovered. He was expecting to have a total of 24 patients by the next month. His fiscal year, 1904 report reflected that he had 16 males and 8 females. In fiscal year, 1905, Gifford had 23 males and 16 females.  He used a fairly commonsense approach to therapy, and felt that he knew his patients well. He allowed fishing and picnicking, dancing, and other pastimes suited to his patients’ inclinations, and took some of his patients to town. Gifford certainly fell in with the model of a superintendent who had enough time to spend with patients.

Though Gifford could send patients home as recovered, based on his and/or Dr. Turner’s assessment, he didn’t have the knowledge to institute any kind of mental health therapy for them. His assistant, Dr. Turner appeared to take a great interest in his patients’ medical conditions, but also didn’t have the background to set up a comprehensive treatment plan. Gifford’s real mistake was in not following Turner’s medical advice. When he would not allow Turner to operate on a patient, that patient later died and Turner was understandably bitter over it. The situation brought to a head many of Turner’s other grievances, and the resultant investigation made it clear that the asylum’s superintendent needed to be an acting physician. That didn’t necessarily help Turner, because he knew he wouldn’t get the job, but he at least felt vindicated.

Small, Early Asylum in New York

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Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, 1870, Male Staff at Entrance, courtesy Brenner Collection, Brynmawr

Though it is easy to blame attendants for being frustrated and unkind to the patients in their care, attendants were often frustrated themselves. Mary J. Smith (see last post) told an investigator about her workday: “Her work in the morning is as follows, 6 patients to dress before breakfast–2 paralytics, 1 spastic deplegia, and three that are so crazy they do not know enough to put their clothes on; that she has to wait on tables then after breakfast gives medicine to from 6 to 12 patients, four she has to take to closets (bathroom)–that she has to make 11 beds herself.”

In addition to this daily morning routine, on Wednesday mornings, Smith had to scrub 5 small rooms, one large room, one large hall, three short halls, and a pair of steps. On Thursdays, she had to put the clothing from the laundry away. There were 28 patients in the female ward in 1908, and Smith had charge of 15 of them.

Though there could never be an excuse for mistreating patients, Smithwas undoubtedly harried and overburdened. It would have been tempting to just lock up patients so she could give her attention to some of her additional duties. One consequences of the inspection was that the asylum was authorized to add two attendant postions, one female and one male. Unfortunately, to do so, it had to abolish two laborer positions.

Buggy Used at the Colorado Insane Asylum, 1879-1899

Agnew State Insane Asylum (Santa Clara) after 1906 Earthquake

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O.S. Gifford

Like other institutional staff, employees at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians demonstrated a wide range of ability, attitude, and character. Inspectors sometimes complained that employees weren’t always available when needed; sometimes that happened because the employee was shirking his or her duty. More often, however, there just weren’t enough employees to cover all the work that needed doing, plus provide the necessary patient supervision. During the next few posts, I’ll talk about the work situation and some of the employees at the asylum.

One of the first employees to make a stir at the asylum was Dr. John Turner. He was not from Canton, and felt strongly that superintendent O. S. Gifford favored the rest of the employees (from Canton) over him. Turner complained that the attendants often ignored his orders, and that Gifford didn’t back him up. When a patient became pregnant because employees hadn’t followed Turner’s instructions  during his absence, he filed a complaint in December, 1906, with the supervisor of Indian schools, Charles Dickson. Turner’s complaint resulted in Canton Asylum’s first major (and negative) inspection.

Canton, 1907, courtesy Library of Congress

Government Doctor Giving Trachoma Examination on Stillwater Indian Reservation

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Commissioner Charles Rhoads, on left, courtesy Library of Congress

At the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, superintendent Dr. Harry R.  Hummer was far enough away from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to avoid direct supervision. Hummer outlasted five commissioners: Francis Leupp, Robert Valentine, Cato Sells, Charles Burke, and Charles Rhoads before commissioner John Collier threw him out of the asylum and the Indian Service.

One advantage Hummer had–as did other superintendents elsewhere–was that locals wanted the asylum to remain open and running. Insane asylums represented huge boosts to  local economies. Most towns or cities where asylums were located were quite happy about having them, and were proud of the work they did. Canton was no different. Locals enjoyed the employment and local contracts that came from the asylum and usually spoke of it quite enthusiastically.

When Hummer began to finally receive less than glowing reports, he managed to have some friends in Sioux Falls appointed as an inspection committee. They came through for him in a report to Commissioner Charles Burke early in 1929. “We went through the plant thoroughly from top to bottom and . . . found everything in first class condition.” The writer then concluded, “I consider Dr. Harry Hummer a wonderful superintendent of this institution and he has many fine employees.”

Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs

Sample Asylum Report, courtesy University of North Carolina

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Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Cato Sells

Asylum superintendents were very powerful, but they were (theoretically) denied free rein. Most asylums had a board of directors or a board of commissioners to give oversight to the entire asylum, including the superintendent. Boards were often composed of local men who might be assumed to know what was going on, though sometimes board members had to travel from a distance to meet. Not all boards had direct hiring and firing authority, however, and could run into problems controlling or disciplining a superintendent protected by appointment.

At the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, superintendents reported directly to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs on the other side of the country. No boards met on a regular basis to supervise the asylum, though visiting doctors within the Indian Service occasionally stopped by to inspect and report on the facility. Because they weren’t trained in psychiatry and therefore not competent to discuss patient treatment, most inspectors concentrated on the physical part of the institution, commenting more on its buildings and farming operation than anything else. Sometimes the inspectors were not even doctors, but merely field agents who happened to be in the area. Because of this situation, it was generally easy for superintendents Gifford and Hummer to explain away any problems inspectors might bring up.

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