Canton Asylum

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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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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Indians who couldn’t speak English were easy targets for whites who wanted  their assets. A bit of mental deficiency only made it easier. Jackson Barnett was a retarded Indian in Oklahoma who received a randomly selected allotment (160 acres) around the turn of the 20th century. When oil was discovered on the land, the Indian Office appointed a guardian for him; the guardian very properly leased Barnett’s land for him and paid the oil royalties to the superintendent of the Five Civilized Tribes at Muskogee, Oklahoma.

Jackson was eventually worth over a million dollars, and in 1920, a white woman suddenly showed up on his doorstep and persuaded him to get into her car. She drove Barnett to Kansas and married him (against Kansas law), then drove to Missouri and married him again. She eventually got him to sign over half his money to a mission society, and half to her.

This woman and others concerned with Barnett’s estate met with Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Charles Burke, who gave his approval for their actions. Publicity eventually upset the wife’s plans and the courts threw out the contracts Barnett had signed. Burke was criticized for his actions, but he was exonerated of wrong-doing by the House subcommittee which investigated the case.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Charles Burke

Book about Jackson Barnett by Tanis C. Thorne

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Cato Sells, Commissioner of Indian Affairs (1913-1921)

Allen Owl, a patient at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, demonstrates how difficult it was to convince Dr. Hummer that a patient could safely leave his care. Owl wrote to the commissioner of Indian Affairs on December 16, 1919, and ended his letter by saying: “Would be glad to get my discharge from this place. Also will obey the public & government laws from now on.”

Hummer wrote to the commissioner in reply: . . . “In other words he is about as well as he ever will be. He has a good home here, is well taken care of, is well-behaved and trusted with parole privileges of the grounds and an occasional pass to town to the picture shows. In addition to which he was permitted to work with neighboring farmers this season, earning about one hundred and fifty or sixty dollars.”

Unfortunately for Owl, Hummer added, “This, however, does not mean that he could or would do as well were he discharged and thrown upon his own resources. . . . Accordingly, I must recommend adversely to his request and hope that your Office will write him a nice letter to that effect.”

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Cato Sells

The Bureau of Indian Affairs expanded over time, as many other government offices did. In its 1913 report to Congress, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs (Cato Sells) noted that the Indian Office had received 77,000 letters in 1902 and employed 132  people, but had received 209,000 letters and had employed 227 people by 1911. The commissioner presented his office in the most positive light as he highlighted the strides and failures of the past few years.

He specifically discussed the discovery of petroleum in Indian Territory. In a special report about petroleum in 1902, the Census Bureau had barely noted the existence of 13 wells there. The land was occupied by the Five Civilized Tribes, though the Secretary of the Interior had authority over it through the Curtis Act of 1898. By 1912, Oklahoma was second among oil-producing states, and pumped out almost one-fifth of all the petroleum produced in the U.S.

The wealth represented by Oklahoma’s oil consequently focused greedy attention on the Indians who were supposed to benefit from it. The next post will continue this topic.

Hoy Oil Field on Black Bear Creek near Enid, Oklahoma, circa 1917, courtesy Library of Congress

Oil Wells in Bartlesville, Oklahoma

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Cree Indian Girls, 1871, courtesy Library of Congress

In 1928, the Department of the Interior put out a pamphlet entitled “The Social Heritage of the Indian Girl.” Prepared at the request of the commissioner of Indian Affairs, the information in it was an attempt to help the pamphlet’s audience (mainly educators) see that the problematic behaviors of female Indian students had much to do with culture, rather than active misbehavior or backwardness.

What is the Indian girl like? asked the narrator, and went on to list the questions many “interested” parties typically asked about them. Some of these were:

– Why are Indian girls so often silent when they could explain if they would?

– Why can we never depend upon them to do things on time?

– Why are they so slow?

– Why are they always borrowing others possessions and giving theirs away?

– When will they ever learn to reason things out instead of just following their impulses?

To counter these questions, the pamphlet went through each one and gave sometimes patronizing explanations. It explained silence, for instance, by commencing with a hypothetical situation in which a little reservation girl first came to a classroom. When the teacher asked her a question, the little girl couldn’t speak. To think that an important person representing the Great White Father wanted information from her! Instead of replying, the little girl could only hang her head.

Some information contained in the pamphlet was useful, particularly a discussion concerning the importance of the group (clan or tribe), rather than the individual, within Indian society.

Puyallup Woman, Minnie Richards, 1899, courtesy Library of Congress

Paiute Indian Girls, circa 1914, courtesy Library of Congress

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Liberty and a Native American, Civil War-era pictorial envelope, courtesy Library of Congress

Apparently, long hair has been an issue with authorities for quite some time. In 1902, the Office of Indian Affairs wanted to initiate a program that cut off rations to reservation Indians and paid them wages instead. W.A. Jones, commissioner of Indian Affairs, decided that for their labor to be effective, Indians needed to cut their hair. He issued a “short-hair order” that caused a great deal of resentment.

The order stated that the “wearing of short hair…will certainly hasten their [Indians] progress toward civilization.” The order suggested withholding employment until men complied. It also suggested throwing uncooperative men “in the guardhouse at hard labor,” to cure their stubbornness.

Unfortunately for the Indian Office, newspapers got hold of the document and published its contents. The public discussed those contents at length, sometimes with outrage, and the office was embarrassed by all the negative publicity. However, it continued to defend its position.

Specific records about the result of this order don’t seem to exist, but it met with approval within the Indian Office. It did give some leeway to older Indians, but expected the young males to follow the order.

Dr. Carlos Montazuma, Apache (1880-1900?), courtesy Library of Congress

Native American Children (1880-1910?), courtesy Library of Congress

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View of Big Sioux River, which ran past the asylum, 1911

Some patients at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians kept up a regular correspondence with the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, letting him know how they felt and what life was like for them in the asylum.

In 1918, Susan Wishecoby, a Menominee Indian, wrote: “I will drop you these few lines in order to let you know I am still alive. I am getting along fine and dandy in my days out here in Canton. I am not sorry I ever did come out here, for I am getting so I don’t have my spells so hard like I use to.”

Inevitably, she longed to go home. In August of 1921 she wrote: “I never did feel so blue and bummy like I feel now days. I certainly set down for a few moments before I go to bed and think of the days that has passed when I was at home.”

Wishecoby entered the asylum on November 8, 1917, and was eventually released on September 14, 1925.

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Demon Rum

Prohibition did not go into effect in the U.S. until 1920, but the government was concerned early on with alcohol consumption by Indians. Some Indians groups (such as the Apaches) had used alcohol ceremonially before European contact, but after being introduced to it by traders and explorers, developed a liking for rum and other distilled spirits.

Traders, especially, liked to use alcohol when they dealt with Indians. Rum was something that Indians couldn’t make, but wanted, and it impaired their judgment during the subsequent trading. Because Indians were not used to drinking and were often prodded to consume too much, they frequently overindulged.

In 1832, a law was passed against giving “ardent spirits” to Indians, but the damage had already been done. Some Indians had developed a craving for alcohol, and greedy profiteers were willing to sell it to them. In 1910, Congress appropriated $60,000 ($1,400,000 today) for the suppression of “the liquor traffic among the Indians.”

Sign from 1919

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