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.

Worse Than Waterlogged

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Ladislas Meduna, courtesy University of Illinois Archive

Much of the therapy for insanity was experimental, and a number of treatments likely inflicted a great deal of harm and discomfort on patients. Something like Pilgrim’s Tub Therapy (see last post) may have resulted in a waterlogged and weakened patient, but would not have otherwise imposed great trauma, particularly since the treatment was almost always voluntary. On the other hand, shock treatments could be both violent and frightening.

In the 1930s, psychiatrists began experimenting with various kinds of treatments that threw the body into convulsions. For some reason–and they did not know why–convulsions often helped patients with depression and other problems. In 1933, Ladislaus (also Ladislas) von Meduna began inducing convulsions through intravenous drugs. He had noticed that schizophrenia and epilepsy could not seem to co-exist, and believed that controllable convulsions would cure schizophrenics.

Preparation for Shock Therapy

Meduna began experimenting with camphor, but didn’t get reliable results. He moved on to strychnine, thebain, pilocarpin, and pentilenetetrazol, the latter also referred to as metrazol or cardiazol. He injected these substances intramuscularly, but only got reliable results with metrazol. This substance induced quick, violent convulsions that Meduna reported “cured” 50 percent of his subjects. Unfortunately, the convulsions that metrazol induced were so violent that they also caused spinal fractures in 41 percent of Meduna’s patients. Many patients also reported feelings of “impending death and sudden annihilation” before the convulsions started.

Shock Treatments Could be Violent and Frightening

Eventually another psychiatrist (A. E. Bennett) combined metrazol with curare (a muscle paralyzing agent) to make the convulsions less violent. Later practitioners also sedated patients so they didn’t go through this treatment while conscious–such an obvious step that it should not have taken nearly a decade to hit upon. Eventually, insulin shock therapy won out over the metrazol injections, and they in turn gave way to electroconvulsive shock therapy.

Tub Therapy

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Dr. Charles Pilgrim, 1908

Physicians used hydrotherapy (various sorts of baths and showers) extensively in the treatment of the insane. The treatments could sometimes be helpful; a nice, warm bath might relax a patient or help him sleep, or a bracing shower could stimulate a patient who felt sluggish and tired. Dr. Charles Pilgrim, however, took water treatments to an extreme with what he called “Tub Therapy.”

Dr. Pilgrim arrived at the Hudson River State Hospital from the Willard Asylum in1893. He quickly made physical improvements to the institution, installing electric lights to replace the gas lamps, and building new 50-bed cottages for patients, a new mortuary, and a lab. In 1908, Pilgrim introduced Tub Therapy, a form of the continuous bath. Patients entered the tub room and reclined on a canvas hammock in a tub of warm water, a rubber pillow behind their necks for additional comfort. Water temperature was monitored so that it remained at the proper therapeutic level.

Tub Therapy at Pilgrim State Hospital, the Former Hudson River State Hospital

Most patients would have enjoyed this for an hour or two, but Pilgrim’s treatment was of much longer duration. A September 17, 1908 article in The Beaver Herald (Oklahoma) stated: “You sleep for six hours . . . next morning breakfast is served to you in the tub, then dinner, then supper.” Occasionally the doctor would come in to chat or take a blood sample, and the patient grew calmer, more rested, and more cheerful all the while. After at least several days (the title of the article was “Live for Weeks in the Bathtub”), the patient finally got out of the tub with the help of a nurse and found him or herself well again.

This treatment was primarily for patients who felt madness coming on, either just fearing a breakdown or actually close to one in their own or others’ opinion. The therapy was voluntary, though it is hard to see anyone in good physical health actually enjoying the forced inactivity.

One Way to Canton

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Downtown Albuquerque, circa 1912, courtesy National Archives

Admitting a patient to the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians was usually an easy–and fast–procedure. Since patients were not generally committed through legal process, a series of letters was usually sufficient to justify cause, ask for admittance, and give permission for it. Patients’ rights were trampled of course, but records show that many of those who urged a patient’s commitment felt that they were doing the right thing.

Early Class of Young Boys, Albuquerque Indian School, circa 1895, courtesy National Archives

Lillian Burns, a young Laguna woman at Albuquerque Pueblo Day School, evidently became violent and uncontrollable on June 19, 1912. She was taken to the Laguna sanatorium, but the staff could not supervise her constantly and had to call in various teachers, police, and farmers for help. J. B. Burke, Clerk in Charge at the Pueblo Day School, asked a local doctor for help; Dr. Dillon contacted the Indian Office, and after no response, suggested taking Burns to the State Insane Asylum in Las Vegas.

New Mexico Insane Asylum in Las Vegas, 1904

In his telegram concerning this commitment, Dr. Dillon asked: “Can we bring her on number ten to-morrow. Impossible and inhumane to keep her here longer, otherwise must turn her over to sheriff.”

Burke wired Dr. Dillon (and evidently the Indian Office as well) to arrange for Burns to be sent to the Canton Asylum, instead. The Indian Office responded with a telegram of its own authorizing $100 to cover transportation and expenses, and Burke acted on that as permission to send Burns to the Canton Asylum.

Lillian Burns, who was taken ill on June 19, was admitted to the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians on June 25, less than a week later. Fortunately, she was a patient who, unlike most, did not spend a lot of time there. She was released in April, 1913.

A Look Inside Hummer’s Home

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View Toward Front Room and Entrance of Dr. Hummer’s Cottage*

Dr. Harry Hummer, superintendent of the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, made sure that he and his family got the choicest rooms in the asylum for their living quarters. His selfishness in the matter of living arrangements contributed to a divisive relationship with his assistant, Dr. Hardin, who had brought a family of his own to the asylum. The Hardins were quartered in patently inferior rooms and Dr. Hummer seemed to almost go out of his way to make their living arrangements as inconvenient for them as possible. After a few months under Hummer’s management Dr. Hardin not only left the asylum, he left the Indian Service entirely.

Entrance to Kitchen

This exchange was typical. Dr. Hummer usually won his battles with employees, and was persistent enough to almost always get what he wanted from the government. (The exceptions were his prized epileptic cottage, which was never built, and a few other “desirable” buildings like a chapel.) Hummer was not satisfied with his quarters in the asylum and repeatedly asked for a separate cottage for his family to live in. He eventually won this concession, and must have waited anxiously on its completion. (See last post.) The grounds of the asylum were quite lovely, so it would have been delightful indeed to enjoy his substantial new home, surrounded as it was by trees, bushes and green sweeps of lawn.

View of the Dining Area

Quarters for his employees remained cramped and inadequate. It does not appear from records that Dr. Hummer made any requests to improve their living spaces.

*The furniture in these pictures is not authentic to the period.

A Home of One’s Own

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Plaque at Newton Hills State Park

Many people in today’s workforce complain that it’s difficult to get away from the job–they’re available to their employers through phones and email almost constantly. Superintendents and other staff at insane asylums were also tied to the workplace, actually living on the premises and usually right in the same building as patients. Many superintendents felt that this was a good idea, since it gave staff the opportunity to know the patients better, and of course, made them immediately available if a situation arose that needed attention.

Though room and board were nice perks for employees, most would doubtlessly have preferred living off the premises or at least away from patients. The superintendents at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians were no different. For one thing, staff quarters were crowded. Canton Asylum’s first superintendent, Oscar Gifford, had a home in town and simply gave his assistant superintendent, Dr. Turner, the space they would have otherwise shared. The asylum’s second superintendent, Dr. Harry Hummer, came from out of state and needed to live in the available quarters. He shared these with Dr. Turner and with his replacement, Dr. Hardin, until Hardin left the Indian Service.

Former Canton Asylum Superintendent's Home

The Canton Asylum Superintendent’s Home As It Now Stands in Newton Hills State Park

Dr. Hummer always wanted his own, separate home, however, and finally gained approval for a residential cottage. Hummer received two bids for the project and recommended accepting the bid from Martin Granos: “He agrees to give us three coats of plaster, a larger basement [than the other bidder], a larger cistern, beamed ceiling in the living-room, stained shingles, a $58.00 range, a $31.00 ice-box built in, oak finish throughout the interior, fireproofed fireplace and three kinds of water in the bath-room.”

Decades after the asylum closed, Dr. Hummer’s cottage was removed from the premises and taken to Newton Hills State Park in South Dakota, where it is available for rent to vacationers and other members of the public. The reconstructed cottage differs just slightly from the original.

An Impossible Job?

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Superintendent Oscar Gifford

Though the rules and duties of each asylum position had been formulated by 1903, they were not initially given to employees at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians. Its first superintendent, Oscar Gifford, told an inspector that he hadn’t done so because employees often had to assume whatever tasks came up, and he didn’t want to constantly make exceptions to a job description. He may have also feared that no one would want the job of attendant in particular, if they had had a chance to read the extent of their duties.

An attendant’s duties included the obvious ones of feeding, dressing, bathing, supervising exercise and manual labor for patients, preserving order at all times, taking patients to the toilet and meals, waiting on them at meals, etc.

Female Patients Farming in the early 1900s

However, they were also expected to be housekeepers extraordinaire. Attendants were to: make beds, dust, sweep, and “brighten the floors, hardware, plumbing fixtures, etc. . . . They shall have special care of the lavatories and toilet rooms, keeping them thoroughly clean.” Every portion of the ward was to be kept “well aired and of proper temperature and as free as possible for objectionable odor.” Attendants were to scrub the floors, walls, and windows when needed, and make beds. In the case of female attendants, all this work would have been done in a long, cumbersome dress and perhaps an apron.

Patients Making Rugs, Hammocks, etc. at Hudson River State Hospital, 1909

It would have taken a large staff to do all the work properly, and Canton Asylum never had that luxury. Nurses were supposed to administer medicine (and probably change bandages, etc.), but were never hired until the last few years of the asylum’s existence. Attendants undoubtedly had those additional duties thrust on them, and it is little wonder that patient care deteriorated as the asylum filled up.

No Consequences

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Dr. Harry Hummer

Anyone following the inspections and various reports made on the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians might well feel amazed that Dr. Harry Hummer managed to continue as superintendent there. Several inspectors suggested outright that he be dismissed from the place, while others pointed out personality clashes and poor management practices that led to problems in the facility. However, it wasn’t until the very end of his career that Hummer expressed much concern about keeping his job. Why was he so self-assured?

For one thing, Hummer was often able to dismiss or explain criticisms in a way that convinced superiors that there wasn’t a real problem. Secondly, for many years no one with medical expertise inspected the asylum, and so Hummer’s treatment of patients never came into question. Issues with personnel or poor farming and so on, may have been legitimately of secondary concern to Hummer’s supervisors in Washington, DC. Finally, Hummer (reportedly) bragged to some of his acquaintances that he had friends in Washington who would protect him.

Robert Valentine, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Beginning June 1909

In a letter dated December 13, 1909 and written to the Indian Rights Association shortly after his resignation from the asylum, Dr. L. M. Hardin seems to confirm Hummer’s belief. “There has been nothing done by the [Indian] Office to date looking towards a correction of the existing conditions at the institution by the removal of Dr. Hummer as prayed for by the employees in their sworn charges,” Hardin wrote bitterly. He continued by saying that: “such a man whose inefficiency and incompetency is supported by one of his friends in the Office, viz, Walter Fry, 1st asst, to Mr. Dortch of the Div. of Education and who evidently is sidetracking the justice that should be met out to Dr. Hummer.”

Text of Speeches from the Annual Meeting of the Indian Rights Association, December 1909

Hardin urged a congressional inquiry into the situation at the Canton Asylum, but there seems to be no evidence that one was initiated.

He Didn’t Even Try

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Texas State Lunatic Asylum, circa 1861

By the end of what might be called the “asylum era,” most superintendents or administrators were buried under mountains of paperwork. Almost all public facilities were overcrowded and understaffed, which meant poor care and more problems and incidents that needed the administrator’s attention than if they had been smaller and better manned. However, the situation at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians was always somewhat different.

The asylum’s administrator, Dr. Harry Hummer, ran an extremely small facility. The organization of superintendents that developed standardized asylum care in the 1840s decided that 250 patients was the maximum that any good facility should contain. They later raised it to 500, which was still considered a manageable number. During the bulk of his time at the Canton Asylum, however, Dr. Hummer had well under 100 patients.

Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, courtesy Robert Bogdan Collection

When Canton Asylum was inspected in 1933 by St. Elizabeths’ psychiatrist, Dr. Samuel Silk, he noted that Dr. Hummer could give him next to no information about most of his patients: “the patients’ behavior or other events which led to their admission. . . . Apparently Dr. Hummer did not consider such information necessary and he took no steps to obtain it.

“In the cases of various patients who were alleged to have assaulted others, Dr. Hummer knew nothing about the circumstances of such assault . . . . Many such patients have been in the institution six, eight or more years and for a number of years they have showed no abnormal behavior justifying their detention.”

Danvers State Hospital, circa 1893, Was Huge in Comparison to Canton Asylum

Many of Canton Asylum’s patients would have been better off with a jail sentence for their behavior, since a sentence for assault would have come with a limit. At the asylum, Dr. Hummer’s indifference generally led to a life sentence unless some sort of outside intervention occurred.

Reasons and Rationalizing

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The Law of Nations by Vattel

When the U.S. government first dealt with native peoples, its position for the most part was that they were sovereign nations with whom the U.S. needed to negotiate treaties. Once some time had passed and more Europeans crowded into the new land, that position became inconvenient. President Andrew Jackson turned to the reasoning of Emer (or Emmerich) de Vattel (1714 – 1767), who had published The Law of Nations in 1758.

Vattel held the opinion that land use made all the difference. He posed the question: “It is asked if a nation may lawfully take possession of a part of a vast country, in which there are found none but erratic nations, incapable by the smallness of their numbers, to people the whole?” Vattel’s position was that the earth belonged to the human race in general and that “these nations cannot exclusively appropriate for themselves more land than they have occasion for and which they are unable to settle and cultivate.”

President Andrew Jackson

This argument suited Jackson, who wanted to set aside land beyond the Mississippi River and force Indians to settle on it so that whites could have the bountiful land Indians currently occupied. This idea of removal was fiercely debated in the press and within Congress, who ordered much of the resulting material printed. More documents seem to have come down against removal, but Congress passed the removal agenda by a small majority in 1830. Supreme Court Chief Justice, John Marshall, disagreed with the action and upheld that Indian tribes possessed their land; he additionally pointed out that official acts of the U.S. involving trade and treaties had already recognized their rights.

Chief Justice John Marshall

Jackson refused to be bound by Marshall’s decision and proceeded with Indian removal through the Act which had been approved in 1830. Among other atrocities, the notorious Trail of Tears resulted.

How About Asking?

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Senator Henry Dawes, Who Sponsored the Dawes Act

Native peoples and European immigrants have had varied relationships. At one time, native tribes were treated as independent nations and trading partners, then later as enemies who needed to be destroyed, and even later, as childish wards who needed federal guidance to educate and assimilate them into the so-called “superior” white society. Several congressional Acts were passed to push this agenda forward, among them the Dawes and Curtis Acts. Land was the essential question: how should Indians hold titles to it?

In 1881 Senator George Hunt Pendleton of Ohio argued that whether for right or wrong, fairly or unfairly, “They [Indians] must either change their mode of life or die.” He pointed out that conditions had changed drastically for them: they were no longer treated as independent nations, they no longer had vast, rich territories on which to live, and white settlements had encroached upon lands once set aside exclusively for Native use.

Senator George Hunt Pendleton

Pendleton stated that as much as people might regret the situation or wish it to be otherwise, the fact remained that “The Indians cannot fish and hunt . . . they must either change their modes of of life or they will be exterminated.” He went on to urge the President: “we must change our policy . . . we must stimulate within them to the very largest degree, the idea of home, of family, and of property.”

Indian writer and activist D’Arcy McNickle (1904 – 1977), who was Cree, Métis, and Irish but an enrolled member of the Flathead tribe, later commented harshly on Pendleton’s remarks. McNickle wrote: “In the heat of such a discussion, it would not have occurred to any of the debaters to inquire of the Indians what ideas they had of home, of family, and of property.”

D’Arcy McNickle

His comment was sad but true. McNickle added, “It would have been assumed, in any case, that the ideas, whatever they were were without merit since they were Indian.”

Indians, Insanity, and American History Blog

Asylums And Insanity Treatments 1800 – 1935

Category Archives: Canton Asylum for Insane Indians

Worse Than Waterlogged

Tub Therapy

One Way to Canton

A Look Inside Hummer’s Home

A Home of One’s Own

An Impossible Job?

No Consequences

He Didn’t Even Try

Reasons and Rationalizing

How About Asking?