The perverse history of governmental-Lakota/Dakota relations took a more sinister turn when the Hiawatha Insane Asylum was built 10 years after Wounded Knee, December 29, 1890. It operated for over 30 years before it was torn down. The bodies of those Indian men and women who died there are buried under what is now a golf course in Canton, South Dakota.
After the military wars against Indian people, the battle for their hearts and minds moved relentlessly forward. Even in death, the 121 buried on the former grounds are mocked as golf balls whiz over their heads and the former president of the Canton Area Historical Society Don Pottranz refers to their bizarre grave as, “It’s something that people are aware of but it’s ancient history now.”
With no knowledge whatsoever of native cultures, languages, customs, and spiritual life, South Dakota Senator R.F. Pettigrew introduced Congressional legislation in 1899 to create the nation’s first native insane asylum. Congress appropriated $45,000.
In 1900 construction began after U.S. Representative Oscar Gifford (former Canton mayor) arranged for the purchase of 100 acres of land two miles east of Canton.
In 1902 the first patient was received and in 1908 Gifford was forced out when a physician charged that the superintendent refused to allow him to remove gallstones from a patient, who later died. Gifford was replaced by Harry Hummel, a psychiatrist. That same year, Hummel was charged by thirteen employees with mistreating patients.
In 1926 the matrons who had staffed the asylum were replaced by professional nurses. In 1929 Hummel was finally ordered to be removed. U.S Representative Louis Cramton intervened and Hummel stayed. In 1933, patients were transferred to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., and in April 1934, Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier closed the asylum.
In the interim, Canton and South Dakota congressional delegates fought to keep it open. Hummel had been charged with malfeasance and misfeasance in 1933. He was subsequently dismissed.
Averaging four deaths a month over the thirty some years of its existence, the asylum did not seem able to maintain the patients’ physical health very well. Dr. Hummel, famed for his hair-trigger temper, ruled the institution for 25 years.
Then, 100 years after Wounded Knee, freelance investigative reporter Harold Ironshield (Yankton:1945-2008) researched the former asylum and the inmates whose known names are listed as buried at the site. Ironshield asked Indian publications to list the names in the hopes that living family members would recognize them and come forward. He wanted to know what the families might want to do about the graves and whether the remains should be moved. He also wanted more information on the history of the asylum, particularly the explanations of what was supposed to constitute insanity and why the individuals were selected for incarceration. From the reports of those who remember the asylum, according to Ironshield, the reasons had to do with not following government rules, and discipline in school. He suggested that the asylum was more gulag than governmental response to the mental health of Indians.
The names of those buried in the Hiawatha Asylum Cemetery are:
1. Long Time Owl Woman
2. Juanita Castildo
3. Mary Fairchild
4. Lucy Reed
5. Minnie La Count
6. Sylvia Ridley
7. Edith Standing Bear
8. Chur Ah Tah E Kah
9. Ollie House
10. Asal Tcher
11. Alice Short
12. Enos Pah
13. Baby Ruth Enas Pah
14. Agnes Sloan
15. E We Jar
16. Kaygwaydahsegaik
17. Chee
18. Emma Gregory
19. Magwon
20. Kay Ge Gah Aush Eak
21. Kaz Zhe Ah Bow
22. Blue Sky
23. Louise McIntosh
24. Jane Burch
25. Dupue
26. Maggie Snow
27. Lupe Maria
28. Lizzie Vipont
29. Mary Peirre
30. Nancy Chewie
31. Ruth Chief on Top
32. Mary G. Buck
33. Cecile Comes at Night
34. Maud Magpie
35. Poke Ah Dab Ab
36. Sits in it
37. Josephine Wells
38. A.B. Blair
39. Josephine Pajihatakana
40. Baby Caldwell
41. Sallie Seabott
42. Selina Pilon
43. Mrs. Twoteeth
44. Kayso
45. Josephine De Couteau
46. Jessie Hallock
47. Marie Pancho
48. Ede Siroboz
49. Kiger
50. Mary Bah
51. Cynia Houle
52. Drag Toes
53. Charlie Brown
54. Jacob Hayes
55. Toby
56. Tracha
57. Hon Sah Sah Kah
58. Big Day
59. Fred Takesup
60. Peter Greenwood
61. Robert Brings Plenty
62. Nadesooda
63. Taistoto
64. James Chief Crow
65. Yells at Night
66. John Woodruff
67. George Beautiste
68. Baptiste Gingras
69. Lowe War
70. Silas Hawk
71. Red Cloud
72. Howling Wolf
73. Antone
74. Arch Wolf
75. Frank Starr
76. Joseph Taylor
77. Amos Brown
78. James Crow Lightening
79. John Martin
80. Red Crow
81. James Blackeye
82. Abraham Meachern
83. Aloysious Moore
84. Tom Floodwood
85. James Black Bull
86. Benito Juan
87. Seymour Wauketch
88. Anselmo Lucas
89. Chico Francisco
90. Roy Wolfe
91. Matt Smith
92. Two Teeth
93. Pugay Beel
94. Merbert Conley
95. Jack Root
96. Charlie Clafflin
97. John Hall
98. Amos Deer
99. Ne Bow O Sah
100. Thomas Chasing Bear
101. Dan Ach Onginiwa
102. Joseph Bigname
103. Falkkas
104. Steve Simons
105. James Two Crows
106. F.C. Eagle
107. Andrew Dancer
108. Apolorio Moranda
109. Harry Miller
110. Herbert Iron
111. Fred Collins
112. John Coal on Fire
113. Joseph D. Marshall
114. Willie George
115. James Hathorn
116. Ira Girstean
117. Edward Hedges
118. Omudis
119. Guy Crow Neck
120. John Big
121. A. Kennedy
Native people from all over the country were placed in the asylum. The records show that the physical conditions were horrific. Besides being shackled to beds and pipes, the patients were made to wallow in their own body wastes and clean sheets were not regularly issued. In Dr. Hummel’s opinion, insanity was increasing among natives, and he was perhaps right in the sense that the well documented starvation on reservations during that historical period was causing pain and suffering, and Indians torn from their cultures were being pushed down narrower and narrower corridors of forced “civilization” and “assimilation.”
The full truth about this chamber of horrors may never be fully known, but it was clearly a case of medicine and politics making a most poisonous mix.
Laura Waterman Wittstock’s book with Dick Bancroft’s photographs, We Are Still Here: A Photographic History of the American Indian Movement, was released in May, 2013.