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 mental institution for Native Americans. It would become the Hiawatha Insane Asylum for Indians — a place where Native people from across the country would be forcibly committed and imprisoned, often for reasons that had nothing to do with mental illness. From its opening in 1903 to 1933, when it was closed after a short, but brutal, existence, more than 350 Native people had been held, and at least 121 people had died, in the facility.

This is the first part of a two-part series about how disability has been and continues to be used as a way to control and profit from Native populations. In the next episode, we'll learn about how state courts today use disability as a reason to justify removing Native children from their parents' custody and cultural environment to place them in non-Native homes.

Listen to the episode and read a transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/11/19/using-disability-to-imprison-native-americans

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