Bad medicine : settler colonialism and the institutionalization of American Indians / Sarah A. Whitt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Whitt, Sarah A., 1989- author.

Series:

e-Duke books scholarly collection

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States Indian School (Carlisle, Pa.)--History.

United States Indian School (Carlisle, Pa.).

Canton Asylum for Insane Indians--History.

Canton Asylum for Insane Indians.

Ford Motor Company--History.

Ford Motor Company.

House of the Good Shepherd--History.

House of the Good Shepherd.

Indians, Treatment of--United States--History.

Indians, Treatment of.

Indians of North America--Crimes against--United States.

Indians of North America.

Inmates of institutions--Abuse of--United States.

Inmates of institutions.

Settler colonialism--United States.

Settler colonialism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 276 pages) : illustrations.

Place of Publication:

Durham : Duke University Press, 2025.

Summary:

"Bad Medicine examines interconnected histories of American Indian punishment, pathologization, and labor exploitation at the Carlisle Indian School, Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, Ford Motor Company Factory, the House of the Good Shepherd, and other Progressive-era facilities. Sarah A. Whitt reveals how settler institutions deputized white American citizens as the disciplinary agents of Indian people, and how Indian people uniquely experienced institutionalization as a tool of US settler colonialism. Bad Medicine finds that Indian adults eighteen years of age and older were a significant proportion, and from 1912 to 1918 the majority, of Carlisle's institutional demographic. In focusing on this overlooked cohort of adult enrollees, the book demonstrates that attempts to control, subordinate, and punish Indian women and men occurred across institutions that coexisted in the so-called "Assimilation" Era (1879-1934). Bad Medicine's attention to the non-educational experiences of adult Indian people thus exposes sites of Indian-white conflict that were as integral to the maintenance of settler power as was the indoctrination and theft of Indian children. In examining punitive connections between ostensibly distinct facilities, Bad Medicine demonstrates their interchangeable and interlocking nature, and argues that the practice of confining Indian people helped concretize networks of white racial power"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Bad medicine

"An ordinary case of discipline" : surveillance and punishment at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 1879-1918

"Hoe handle medicine" : medicinal labor at the Ford Motor Company and Lancaster General Hospital

Sisters Magdalene : entwined histories of confinement and "reform" at Good Shepherd Homes

"Care and maintenance" : settler ableism and land dispossession at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, 1902-1934

Indigenous futurity and the afterlife of institutionalization.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Print version: Whitt, Sarah A., 1989- Bad medicine.

ISBN:

9781478060253

1478060255

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.