The Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians
By Ian Thompson
Choctaw Nation
South Dakota - This month, Iti Fabvssa travels outside of the Choctaw country in order to present a story that forever intertwines the lives of several Choctaw individuals with other people from 52 other Tribes across the United States. The Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians has been the subject of many articles through the years. We became aware that there is a Choctaw part in this story when we were contacted by a member of a northern Tribe, who gave us the name of a Choctaw person buried in the asylum’s cemetery. It can be difficult to present a horrific story from the past without bringing the pain back to life, yet people sometimes need to know what really happened in order to be able to move on from it. What follows is an account of something terrible, but within it is a counter story of resilience and perhaps, even of hope.
Imagine, that government agents break into your house, kidnap you, incarcerate you in a dangerous facility located hundreds of miles away, and block all contact with your friends and family. As much as this sounds like the beginning of fictional novel, for Native Americans living in the early 1900s, it was a real possibility. It may have happened because someone had a disagreement with the Indian agent, it may have come at the end of a rebellious year at boarding school, it may have been because an individual defiantly refused to give up the spirituality of his or her ancestors, or in some cases, it was because a person actually needed psychiatric care. Whatever the reason, during the opening decades of the last century, hundreds of Native American people were taken from their homes and incarcerated in the only mental health facility that has ever been created in this country for a specific “race”. There was no legal process for admission; all it took to get a person committed was the recommendation of the local Indian agent. Once inside this institution, most would never make it back home.
Located in southeastern South Dakota, the Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians opened its doors in 1902. Through the first three decades of the 1900s, it housed roughly 75 inmates at a time, of both sexes. Through most of the asylum’s duration, Dr. H.R. Hummer was the superintendent. Through his long tenure, every trained staff member who came to work under Dr. Hummer was either fired or forced to resign, usually after he or she made allegations of patient abuse. By the accounts of an outside medical investigator, the inmates in this asylum were treated worse than inmates in contemporary prisons. Accounts describe beatings and various forms of neglect and abuse. One inmate was allegedly strapped down for 10 years, without being allowed to get up. Family members’ attempts to get their loved ones professionally evaluated and released were thwarted. Inmates’ letters to their friends and families were intercepted, or edited. Direct contact with family members was forbidden. Although treatment for tuberculosis existed, it was denied to inmates at Hiawatha. The disease infected new victims in the institution, which had no running water or electricity. The average life span of an individual incarcerated at Hiawatha was only 42 years. When people died, they were buried in unmarked graves on the asylum grounds. The only record was a rough burial chart, written onto the wall of the superintendent’s office.
From 1908-1933, several separate government investigations recommended replacing the superintendent, or shutting the institution down all together. Yet, leaders in the local town, which was advertising the asylum across the country and charging tickets for people to come see the inmates, prevailed upon their congressmen to keep it open. Local entrepreneurs even sold souvenirs to tourists with a picture of the asylum on them. In 1933, when the institution was finally slated to be closed, town leaders filed an injunction in court, claiming that closing the asylum would cause undue economic hardship on the town.
Nevertheless, the asylum was closed later that year. Upon evaluation by a trained doctor, a significant number of surviving inmates were deemed mentally healthy and sent back home. Those who really needed psychiatric care were denied admission to another nearby asylum, on the basis of their being Native American. As a result, they were transported all the way to an institution in Washington DC, which effectively removed them ever farther from their communities and families. Eventually, all of the buildings at the old Hiawatha Asylum were torn down. Today, the only visible reminder is the cemetery, which contains the unmarked graves of approximately 180 Native American people who died at the institution.
The people who lie in these graves are not forgotten. Beginning in 1988, a group of Tribal people who have relatives buried in the asylum cemetery began holding an annual memorial service on-site. Through the years, this memorial has brought together Tribal people from across the country, connected to each other by their family members buried in the cemetery. The memorial is supported by the town, with community members participating, as a way of acknowledging something awful that happened before they were born, and of making positive relationships with Tribal people today.
Organizers of the memorial have reached out to 53 Tribes including the Choctaw Nation to make us aware that we had Tribal members who experienced the this asylum from the inside. We only know the name of one young Choctaw woman, who must have been incarcerated shortly after the institution opened, and was buried in the cemetery in 1905. Subsequent research has revealed a 1920’s article, in which a visitor describes meeting an unnamed Choctaw woman in the asylum that year, and indicates that other Choctaw people were at the asylum with her. Unfortunately, their names and stories are, at least for the moment, lost to the Tribe.
If you happen to know of a Choctaw person who was at the Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians, in Canton, South Dakota, please contact the Choctaw Nation Historic Preservation Department at 1-800-522-6170 ext 2216. We would love to hear your stories and begin to piece back together this part of Tribal history so that the memory of those Choctaw individuals who experienced the Hiawatha Asylum is not lost to time.