Category Archives: Canton Asylum for Insane Indians

Canton Asylum for Insane Indians in South Dakota was also known as Hiawatha. It opened in December 1902 and closed in 1934 after charges of neglect and abuse were validated. Dr. Harry Reid Hummer and Oscar Sherman Gifford were its only two superintendents. Its only patients were Native Americans, typically called Indians. It was the only federal insane asylum created solely for an ethnic group and served only Indians.

Early Observations on the West

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Drawing of Beaver, Native Americans and Wildlife From 1700s

Though mountain men like Jedediah Smith (see last post) brought their prejudices and world-views with them, they also rejected much of civilized society’s mores and were comfortable interacting with whatever or whomever they found on their journeys. Mountain men were disposed to go along in peace with native peoples if they could, so often they had a chance to make observations that later whites could not. Smith wrote about the “Pa-utch and Sam-pach” tribes and their preparation of a strange root about the size of a parsnip. “They prepare them by laying them on heated Stones and covering them first with grass and then with earth where they remain until they are sufficiently steamed,” Smith wrote. The roots were then mashed and made into cakes.

Smith was impressed by a method of communication he observed among an Indian group he did not name. “Each family or set of families has a quantity of dry Sedge Bark and Brush piled up near the habitation and immediately on the approach of a Stranger they set fire to the pile and this being seen by their neighbor he does the same . . . so that the alarm flies over the hills in every direction with the greatest rapidity.”

When travelers like Smith merely wrote down what they observed, they provided good records of early Native American customs. When they slipped into judgment and comparisons with white culture, however, their observations become more suspect and may not tell the whole story.

One Type of Smoke Signal

Iroquois Fur Trappers

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Jedediah Smith

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Who were the men who pushed westward (see last two posts) to create both the foundation for a “frontier thesis” and the reality of American exploration and expansion? Among the earliest white explorers were mountain men like Jedediah Smith, who answered an ad in the Missouri Gazette & Publ1c Advertiser in 1822:  “The subscriber wishes to engage ONE HUNDRED MEN, to ascend the river Missouri to its source, there to be employed for one, two or three years.”

Jedediah Smith

Men like Smith were recruited by fur-trapping companies and other businesses that wanted to establish trading posts in new territory. Few men kept records of their journeys, with the exception of Smith. He kept a journal as early as 1826, and his writing is rich in detail about the conditions and people he encountered. On one excursion in search of beaver, Smith wrote that he saw unusual “Black tailed hare” which were darker colored and smaller than the common hare. On another trip in 1828, Smith wrote that one part of a mountainous area was so rough and rocky that it took him four hours to travel one mile. When his party finally camped, he saw that the steep hills beside them were covered with oak and pine. He also saw a tree he had never seen before. “The largest were 1 1/2 feet in diameter and 60 feet high. The limbs were smooth and the bark snuff colored.” Smith wrote that the tree was in bloom and that Europeans in his party called it Red Laurel.

Smith’s journals were lost for many years, but have been discovered and reprinted.

Area of Smith's Explorations

Reprint of Smith's Journals

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Frontier Philosophy

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Frederick Jackson Turner

The ideas of westward expansion, coast-to-coast boundaries, and bountiful natural resources were entwined within the American consciousness (see last post). Historian Frederick Jackson Turner studied the impact that free land–a huge part of America’s westward expansion–and its consequent settlement had on America and Americans. Continue reading →

American Philosophy

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American Progress, a painting by John Gast (1872), Depicts the Idea of Manifest Destiny

People today often find it hard to understand how Americans and their government could have treated native peoples so badly. Americans were not alone in thinking that their particular race/religion/country/form of government/, etc., was superior to the rest of the world’s, but they also operated under a mentality that gave them seemingly rational reasons for pushing native peoples out of their way. Continue reading →

Guardianship

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Indian Camp Near Ponca City, Oklahoma, 1908, courtesy Denver Public Library Digital Collections

Whether it was land, game, water, or oil, white settlers desired Native American resources. Oil in Oklahoma (see last post) led to a successful land grab by whites, through lawful and unlawful means. In 1908, Congress passed an act that gave complete control of Indian estates to Oklahoma’s county courts. County judges could name guardians for Indians or their estates should they be incompetent. Such a judgment was easy to impose, since many Native Americans couldn’t read, write, or understand English well. Whether a judge genuinely mistook illiteracy for incompetency or simply used the law to further white interests, competency judgments were often abused.

Guardians were given authority to lease their wards’ lands for oil, invest funds  for them, collect rents, and otherwise take over their wards’ finances. Guardians were supposed to be paid reasonable amounts for this work: either ten percent commission or no more than four thousand dollars a year. Additionally, guardians were limited to five wards. Many attorneys found guardianship lucrative, and used their knowledge to exploit their wards. Some took well over ten percent commission for their work, or helped declare a competent man, incompetent. Guardians had a right to sell land for minors to pay for their education; sometimes they put children in schools (which the federal government paid for) but sold land for schooling as well. Some guardians loaned their wards’ money to friends and judges via simple notes.

Within three decades, only one-fifteenth of Oklahoma land allotments remained in the hands of Native Americans. Oklahoma’s farm tenancy (rather than ownership) rose from two-fifths in 1900 to 61 percent on 1935. Nineteen counties with tenancy over 70 percent were in the former Indian Territory.

Opening of Baseball Season in Enid, Oklahoma, 1908

Bixby, Oklahoma, 1908

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The Impact of Oil

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Court Street in Atoka, Oklahoma while it was still Indian Territory

Native Americans were almost continually exploited by the white settlers who relentlessly encroached upon their land. Oil had been discovered in Oklahoma before the turn of the twentieth century, but when deep drilling replaced shallow drilling, oil exploration stepped up in intensity. One result for Indians was a turnover of land ownership that left many of them tenant farmers.

Whites had already gone around protective laws to settle in Indian Territory well before the end of the nineteenth century. By that time, more non-native peoples lived in Indian Territory than Native Americans. Oil made Indian land even more desirable, and several laws were introduced that made it easier for whites to take over desirable real estate. The allotment process, which gave Indians a specified amount of land per head of household, was a first step toward depriving Indians of their property. After allotments were made, any unassigned land (which had previously been part of common tribal holdings) became available for sale to whites. Then, a series of competency laws made it easy for white-dominated courts to determine that certain Indians were not competent to handle their own affairs. Courts often assigned “guardians” to manage Indian land on behalf of their wards. As a result, a huge transfer of wealth took place.

My next post will discuss some  guardians’ behavior.

Odd Fellows Home, Grand Lodge of Oklahoma Territory

Oklahoma Town circa 1900, courtesy Oklahoma State Digital Library

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Alice Mary Robertson

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Alice Mary Robertson, courtesy Library of Congress

Alice Mary Robertson was born on January 2, 1854, in the Tullahassee Mission in the Creek Nation Indian Territory, now in Oklahoma. Her parents were missionary school teachers committed to assisting displaced Cherokee. Robertson attended college (1873-1874) and became the first female clerk within the Indian Office at the Department of the Interior. She worked briefly at the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, but later returned to Indian Territory and established Nuyaka Mission. Though she considered herself a friend of Indians and was concerned about their welfare, she took a traditional route toward helping them. She was instrumental in the success of the Minerva Home in 1885; it was a boarding school to train Native American girls in domestic skills. The school later developed into Henry Kendall College and is now the University of Tulsa. In 1900 Robertson became the government supervisor of Creek Indian schools.

Robertson eventually owned and operated a dairy farm, and ran for Congress in 1920 on the premise that “there are already more lawyers and bankers in Congress than are needed . . . The farmers need a farmer, I am a farmer.” She defeated three-term incumbent William Wirt Hastings. After her election she announced that she would concentrate on bettering the lives of Indians, women, farmers, soldiers, and working people. Robertson was the second woman to serve in Congress, though the only one in office at the time of her service. Congress recognized her interest and work on behalf of Indians by giving her a seat on the Committee on Indian Affairs. She was continually frustrated, though, and could push little of value through the committee.

Alice Robertson (lower step) at U.S. Capitol With Two Women Elected to the Next Session of Congress

Jeannette Rankin, First Woman Elected to Congress

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Continued Futility

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Cottages 6 and 8, Epileptic Colony, Abilene, Texas

As much as Dr. Harry Hummer wanted to expand the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, he was seldom supported simultaneously by all the people he needed to help him. If he could get a commissioner of Indian Affairs on his side, the Secretary of the Interior wouldn’t help him. If he could get a government inspector to recommend expansion, he couldn’t get the commissioner to go along, and so forth. One of the expansion/improvement projects Hummer most wanted was an epileptic cottage. At any given time, approximately 20% of his patients were epileptics, and they created a great deal of work and need for oversight. Hummer wanted to keep all these patients in a dedicated facility to make their care more manageable.  In 1922, Chief Medical Inspector, R. E. Newberne, recommended both expansion and an epileptic cottage, saying that additional land could possibly be paid for “from the sale of alfalfa and hogs.” This suggestion surely came from Hummer rather than his own analysis.

At the time of Newberne’s inspection, from a total of 90 patients, 21 had some form of epilepsy, 25 had dementia praecox, (later called schizophrenia by Dr. Emil Kraepelin) and 22 were imbeciles. Hummer also had three patients under 10 years of age, 9 patients between the ages of 10 and 19, and four who were between 70 and 79. Though it would seem that caring for the children and elderly would also be demanding, Hummer did not seem to refer to their special needs when speaking to inspectors or to the commissioner.

Emil Kraepelin

Dementia Praecox Patients, from Emil Kraepelin's textbook, 1899 edition

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Community Support

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Court House, Canton, South Dokata

Despite his stated desire to save the Indian Office money (see last post), Dr. Harry Hummer was desperately anxious to increase the size of the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians. Though he had a hard time justifying any great expansion due to a long waiting list of insane Indians, he was on firmer ground in trying to buy more land for the cattle and swine the asylum raised. He asked Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Charles Burke, for additional acreage as soon as Burke took office. As always, Hummer mentioned that there was a waiting list of 15 to 20 patients that could not be admitted due to lack of space. And, as always, the Commissioner replied that the Indian Office did not wish to increase the capacity of the asylum.

Hummer knew how important the asylum was to the Canton community, and did not hesitate to play politics. Within just a few days of Burke’s refusal, Canton’s Martin C. Ellingson Post of the American Legion wrote to Senator Peter Norbeck about the issue. Post commander S. A. Amundson said: “Our attention has been directed to the necessity of the purchase of additional land absolutely essential for the expansion of the Asylum for insane Indians located at Canton, South Dakota. After due investigation the committee is convinced that  . . . the purchase of additional land is absolutely imperative.”

Senator Peter Norbeck, courtesy Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

In his letter, Amundson reminded Norbeck that the post represented “two hundred of the best business and professional citizens of our community” and that they earnestly solicited “your hearty co-operation in securing for this institution, the purchase of additional land, so necessary for its expansion and maintenance.”

1910 Flooding in Canton, South Dakota

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A Penny Saved . . .

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E. B. Meritt, courtesy Library of Congress

Though the minutia of accounting was doubtlessly aggravating (see last post), Dr. Harry Hummer was a penny-pincher who was willing to go beyond the call of duty. Unlike most  government employees, Hummer was willing to relinquish part of his funds. Ever zealous to show what an economizer he was, in April of 1921, Hummer offered to return $2,000 from his support fund back to the Indian Office. E. B. Meritt’s reply showed that the Commissioner of Indian Affairs may have been a stickler for accountability, but was not as zealous as Hummer about saving money at the expense of patients: “You are advised that it is not the desire of the Office to withdraw from this fund since the savings, no doubt, can be used to a good advantage in anticipating the future needs of the Hospital. You should therefore make use of the savings in purchasing such items for your future needs as are apparent and making such improvements as are necessary.”

Hummer continued to economize where he could. Like many others in his position, he made use of federal surpluses that the government occasionally offered. In December, 1921, he ordered cathartic compound pills, potassium iodide, aspirin, corrosive mercuric chloride, opium (laudanum), lead acetate, and various other items from the War Department for use at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians. The amount of his order was $16.68.

War Department Surplus

Laudanum Label

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