Race, Power, and the Chimera of Indian Assimilation, 1879-1934
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False Promises: Race, Power, and the Chimera of Indian Assimilation, 1879-1934 by Sarah A. Whitt A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnic Studies and the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Shari M. Huhndorf, Co-chair Professor Raúl Coronado, Co-chair Professor Juana María Rodríguez Professor Shannon Steen Professor K. Tsianina Lomawaima Spring 2020 Abstract False Promises: Race, Power, and the Chimera of Indian Assimilation, 1879-1934 by Sarah A. Whitt Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnic Studies Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Professor Shari Huhndorf, Co-chair Professor Raúl Coronado, Co-chair False Promises: Race, Power, and the Chimera of Indian Assimilation, 1879-1934, analyzes the punishment of adult Indian women and men at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School (1879-1918) and the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians (1902-1934). While previous boarding school scholarship has focused on the experiences of children, my work finds that as a result of an overlooked policy change, adults eighteen years of age and older, rather than youth, were Carlisle’s demographic majority between 1912-1918. Through an analysis of gendered forms of Indigenous punishment at Carlisle and Canton, this work exposes sites of Indian-white conflict, such as labor and sexuality, that were as integral to the American project of nation-building as was the indoctrination of Indian children in off-reservation boarding schools. By considering two settler institutions alongside one another, I demonstrate punitive connections between those ostensibly distinct facilities, and show how the practice of confining adult Indian people at Carlisle and Canton inaugurated and concretized networks of white racial power in this era. In bringing together the fields of Native American history, American studies, and race, gender, and medicine in the Progressive era, my work traces overlapping institutional histories of Native American confinement, punishment, and resistance, and demonstrates patterns of racial prejudice that have ongoing relevance for Indian people in the twenty-first century. This research builds on extant scholarship in Native American history to demonstrate the key role that American institutions played in furthering the subjugation of Indian communities under U.S. settler- colonialism, deputizing white American civilians as the disciplinary agents of Indian people by virtue of proximity to them. This research expands current interpretations of Carlisle as an institution intended solely for the indoctrination of Indian children. Additionally, this work begins to address the neglected history of Indigenous incarceration and elimination at Canton, and the ways in which emergent eugenicist ideologies were operationalized at both of these American facilities. False Promises traces overlapping histories of confinement to reveal how white Americans wielded punishment as a form of racial power held in common over all Indian people, and locates Carlisle and Canton on a historical continuum of policies and practices aimed at the eradication of Indigenous populations. 1 To my great-grandmother, Ruth Fowler Dodd, my grandmother, Mary Ellen Leftwich, and my mother, Donna Louise Akers. i Table of Contents Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One 9 “Good Discipline” “A man like other men”: Race, Education, and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School ......... 13 Turning “prisoners into pupils”: Richard Henry Pratt and the “Florida Boys” .................... 15 The Early Years: Indigenous Child Removal and Boarding School Experiences ................ 16 The “Iron Routine” of Boarding School: Resistance, Adaptation, and Transformation ...... 17 Individualism and Athletics: Revisiting the Football Field and the “Prison-School” .......... 20 Boarding School Curricula and the Consequences of Shifting Federal Objectives .............. 21 “Under the Outing”: Indigenous Proletarianization and White American Deputization ..... 24 The “Intimate” as a Site of Colonial Control: Domesticity, Relationships, and Sexuality .. 25 “But a demented Indian is rare”: Race, Insanity, and the Canton Asylum ........................... 27 Wrongful Confinement and Indigenous Dispossession: Land and Resources ..................... 30 Entwined Histories: Race-Based Institutionalization and Prejudice .................................... 31 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 32 Chapter Two 34 “The New Order of Things” “The New Order of Things” ................................................................................................. 37 Making Children out of Men ................................................................................................ 40 A Disciplinary Society .......................................................................................................... 47 Gossip, Rumor, and “Women’s Work” ................................................................................ 51 “Undesirables” ...................................................................................................................... 53 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 60 Chapter Three 62 “Hoe Handle Medicine” Identifying the Contaminant: Indianness as Illness .............................................................. 64 Containing the Contagion: Isolation at Carlisle and Beyond ................................................ 70 Eradicating the Disease: Labor as Panacea ........................................................................... 78 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 87 Chapter Four 89 “A Fit Subject” “These Horrors Cannot be Erased”: The Canton Asylum for Insane Indians ...................... 90 “Civilized society…practically manufactures its own unfit: Race, Civilization, Insanity.... 92 Fitness for Confinement: Feeblemindedness, Heritable Insanity, and Eugenics .................. 97 “The Indian as an Indian will cease to exist”: Boarding School Connections ...................... 103 Land, Power, Wealth, and Knowledge: Grounds for Confinement ...................................... 109 Total Institution? Power and the Porousness of Institutional Boundaries ............................ 115 ii Chapter Five 116 “Care and Maintenance” Federal Benevolence, Intimate Invasions, and “Benign” Violence ...................................... 120 “Trouble with a Girl”: Race, Gender, and Confinement at Canton ...................................... 126 Legal Guardianship and Legalized Land Theft .................................................................... 131 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 141 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 144 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................ 149 iii Acknowledgements This project could not have been completed without the support of many people. Thank you to my husband, Carl Gauger, for always believing in me; to my mother, Donna Akers, for showing me the meaning of strength and courage; and to my brother, Michael Whitt: I would not have been able to achieve this goal without your nurturance and relentless cheerleading. To my dissertation committee: Shari Huhndorf, your mentorship and guidance has been indispensible to me; thank you also to Raúl Coronado for your valuable guidance and input on this work. Thank you to K. Tsianina Lomawaima, who was a steady source of inspiration as I worked to complete this project, and to Juana María Rodríguez, for the countless phone calls, emails, and notes of encouragement, which mean more than you could possibly know. To Shannon Steen, thank you for taking me under your wing as a new graduate student from a department other than your own—this work has benefited tremendously from your fresh perspective. A special note of thanks goes to Susan Burch, who has modeled the kind of generosity, mentorship, and professional ethic that I hope to someday model for students and young colleagues of my own. To my friends and colleagues at UC Berkeley, this has been an incredible journey and I am honored to have grown intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually alongside you. To Fantasia Painter, your amazing wit and sense of humor has been a blessing, as has your friendship; to many more rounds of cocktails and laughter in years to come. Tito Callejas, thank you for your kindness and calming presence—I am so grateful for a colleague like you. To Marco Flores, your generosity, and your outstanding taste: how proud I am to call you my friend. Thank you also to Alan Pelaez Lopez for imagining a better world. To Daniel Woo, Mihiri Tillakaratne, and Ramya Janandharan, I am so glad to have met you when I did, and I will cherish memories of that first year of graduate school forever. To Rachel Lim, I am