“THEY HEARD AT BOARDING SCHOOL THAT IF THEY WERE BAD THEY WOULD BE SENT TO CANTON WHICH EVERYBODY KNEW WAS A DEATH SENTENCE AS YOU DID NOT COME OUT.”
“THEY HEARD AT BOARDING SCHOOL THAT IF THEY WERE BAD THEY WOULD BE SENT TO CANTON WHICH EVERYBODY KNEW WAS A DEATH SENTENCE AS YOU DID NOT COME OUT.”
A collection of 18 prescriptions written for patients, some of which were for the “Insane Indians” at the Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians in Canton, S.D. Prescriptions dated 1907 and 1909 and were written by Dr. James M. Lewis or Dr. Smith who were both practicing physicians in Canton, South Dakota. The prescriptions were for “medical” whiskey, Sal Hepatica, chloral hydrate, Bromine, Cod Liver Oil, etc. As expected these are written in one or the other of the doctor’s hands and thus most words are legible but some are not. Six of the prescriptions are written for three people who are deemed “insane”. All prescription pads are identified in print Canton, S.D. and on some are written Lincoln Co. Some of the individuals are identified as George C. Smith, Tracy, Konrad and Otis Nelson’s Daughter. Some of these individuals were seen more than once and thus have several prescriptions.
In the late 1800s, two South Dakota congressmen were looking for ways to build an economy in their newly minted state — one that was carved out of Indigenous homelands. They decided on a psychiatric institution for Native Americans. It would become the Hiawatha Insane Asylum for Indians — a place where Native people from 53 tribes from across the country were forcibly committed and imprisoned, often for reasons that had nothing to do with having a mental illness.
In 1898, Congress passed a bill creating the only 'Institution for Insane Indians' in the United States. The Canton Indian Insane Asylum (sometimes called Hiawatha Insane Asylum) opened for the reception of patients in January 1903. Many of the inmates were not mentally ill. Native Americans risked being confined in the asylum for alcoholism, opposing government or business interests, or for being culturally misunderstood. A 1927 investigation conducted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs determined that a large number of patients showed no signs of mental illness. While open, more than 350 - 400 patients were detained in terrible conditions. At least 121 died. To date only two tomb stones have been found as the Indian Office, at the time, decided that stone markers for graves would be an unwarranted expense.
At the Hiawatha asylum, institutional policy required that these “defectives” be sexually sterilized before being discharged from the facility. But the superintendent, psychiatrist Harry Hummer, didn’t know how to perform the procedure, so instead, inmates were often held there until they died, usually of untreated disease or severe abuse and neglect.
As many of the patients had been unable to speak English, this helped in consideration of their diagnoses by Dr. Turner; that along with the virtual stealing of these individuals from their tribal territories from around the nation created emotions and feelings of loneliness, discomfort, agitation and disengagement. Turner saw these behaviors and attributed them to a particular diagnosis in many cases.
Although others were sent there due to physical illnesses such as epilepsy, tuberculosis, being senile, or had deformities that were either congenital or injury related. Some were simply sent to Canton for arguing with the Indian agent on their reservation, a school teacher, or in some cases for refusing to have their children taken and sent to an Indian boarding school.
Canton was not designed to take care of the mentally ill. It was more used to incarcerate individuals who refused to conform to the strict laws of a foreign government system which labeled them mentally ill in order to confine, constrict and keep them from influencing others to do the same. Their emotional reaction was deemed insane, in some cases.
In 1933, after numerous investigations, the institution was finally closed by John Collier, the U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs in the Roosevelt administration. In response, residents of Canton waged a federal court battle to keep the asylum open, as it was a major contributor to the city’s economy during the country’s Great Depression.
Those at the asylum who were deemed mentally sound were released, and those who weren’t were transferred to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital.
Sources: National Park Service; University of California Berkeley News; Wikipedia; American Joural of Psychiatry; Keloland News; Native Sun News.
Overall in vg cond.