Begun as a pork-barrel project by the federal government in the early 1900s, the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians (also known as the Hiawatha Insane Asylum) quickly became a dumping ground for inconvenient Indians.
Without interpreters, m.
Only nine Native patients in the asylum\'s hiStory were committed by court order.
The federal institution in Canton, South Dakota, deprived many Native patients of their freedom without genuine cause, often requiring only the signature of a reservation agent.
Begun as a pork-barrel project by the federal government in the early 1900s, the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians (also known as the Hiawatha Insane Asylum) quickly became a dumping ground for inconvenient Indians