Tag Archives: commissioner of Indian affairs

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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Details, Details

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Dairy Farm at Colorado State Insane Asylum, courtesy CMHIP Museum

Though Dr. Harry Hummer, like most insane asylum superintendents, had almost unlimited authority, he was also subject to countless petty annoyances that had to be handled in the course of the day. One of them involved accounting for equipment and supplies. Like many facilities, a certain amount of loss and breakage occurred at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, due in part to the nature of the patients who worked there and normal human oversight and carelessness. Because Hummer ran a government facility, however, he had to inventory and report all these losses (over $1.00 in value) and have the items formally deleted from his account. One typical letter from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs began with an acknowledgement that a government inspector named W. R. Beyer had explained that the asylum’s inmates, “on account of their mental condition are irresponsible . . . and many of these items are lost, mislaid, and cannot be located.” Beyer had advised the Indian Office to “drop items such as shovels, etc., as soon as they leave the warehouse, and are placed in the hands of the inmates.”

The assistant Commissioner, E. B. Meritt went on to say: “The Office holds, that though the inmates are irresponsible on account of their mental condition, they are under the supervision of employees whose duty it is to see that the shovels are taken care of, therefore does not see its way clear to grant a blanket authority for dropping said items.”

Though the Indian Office granted Hummer considerable leeway in the asylum’s management, it was adamant that he account for every penny they gave him.

Patients Working in Laundry Room at Texas State Lunatic Asylum, 1898

Nebraska State Lunatic Asylum

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Movies at the Asylum

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The Three Musketeers

Though Dr. Harry Hummer often kept costs at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians down to unreasonable levels, he was not entirely indifferent to the social and recreational needs of his patients.

On February 7, 1921, he sent a letter to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, saying: “I have the honor to report that we have finally been successful in installing our moving picture outfit and gave the first entertainment yesterday, which afforded patients and employees quite a little pleasure. Continue reading →

Land Benefits

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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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Later Incompetence

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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 had 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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Hummer’s Advantages

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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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Who Oversees the Asylum?

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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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Easy Targets

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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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Difficult to Leave

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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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BIA Supervision

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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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