Sisseton Agency, 1891

Most patients at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians were allowed some degree of freedom if they were not violent or abusive. Elizabeth Faribault (originally from the Sisseton Agency) simply left the grounds without permission one evening in January, 1920. Asylum staff located her a couple of days later in Alvord, Iowa and brought her back to the asylum.

Faribault escaped again in September, 1921 by opening a window on the asylum’s sun porch and jumping through a screen to the ground. Once again she was returned to the institution, where she died of heart failure in 1928 at the age of 35. She had displayed no symptoms of  illness prior to death.

Indian Family, Sisseton 1885, courtesy http://www.firstpeople.us

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