Emma Arnice Gregory

Emma was Muscogee Creek

Biography

Emma was Muscogee.
Dawes Enrollee
Creek by Blood
Dawes Card Number 931

Emma Self was born in Louisiana in about 1867, the daughter of E.A. and Martha Self. [1] The family moved to Indian Territory and was readmitted to Muscogee citizenship in 1883. [2] She appears with her parents and siblings on an 1891 Creek Roll entitled "Citizens not Enrolled" living at Broken Arrow in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. She married Charley Gregory in 1891. [3] They were the parents of a daughter, Audie. [4] In 1900 Emma was living with her mother and siblings; her Dawes card indicates that she was incompetent. [5] By 1910 she had been sent to the Canton Asylum in South Dakota [6] where she passed away in 1912. She is buried at the Hiawatha Asylum Cemetery, Canton, S.D. [7]

According to Carla Joinson in her book Vanished in Hiawatha, Emma was admitted to the Canton Asylum on August 2, 1905, diagnosed with terminal dementia, revised to dementia praecox, paranoid in 1910, and where she died on March 12, 1912.

According to the letter by Dr. L.L. Culp to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs dated February 23, 1933, she is buried in the Canton Hiawatha Cemetery, tier 5 plot 17.

Her profile is part of the The Canton Asylum One Place Study.

Sources
1↑ "United States Census, 1870", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M87N-2D1 : Thu Sep 14 19:25:49 UTC 2023), Entry for Alfred Self and Martha A Self, 1870.
2↑ see Dawes Packet for John R. Self, case #1054
3↑ "Oklahoma Marriages, 1870-1930", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V288-X1Z : 22 January 2020), Emma Self in entry for Charley C Gregory, 1891.
4↑ Enrollment Cards for the Five Civilized Tribes, 1898-1914; (National Archives Microfilm Publication M1186, 93 rolls); Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Record Group 75; National Archives, Washington, D.C.
5↑ "United States Census, 1900", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MST9-QKD : Sun Sep 17 14:46:49 UTC 2023), Entry for Martha A Self and Blanche C Self, 1900.
6↑ "United States Census, 1910", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MPFS-XJY : Tue Sep 19 06:28:04 UTC 2023), Entry for Emma Gregory, 1910.
7↑ Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/14491704/emma-arnice-gregory: accessed 26 September 2023), memorial page for Emma Arnice Self Gregory (29 Dec 1867–12 Mar 1912), Find a Grave Memorial ID 14491704, citing Hiawatha Asylum Cemetery, Canton, Lincoln County, South Dakota, USA; Maintained by Graveaddiction (contributor 46528400).

Source: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Self-1398 (edited)
(Curator Note: the children apparently belong to her husband, but not to her)
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1870 United States Census, Sabine Parish, Louisiana

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1891, Jan 25 Marriage to Charles C. Gregory (possibly Charles Archie Calvin Gregory aka Charley)

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1900 United States Census, Creek Nation Indian Territory, Northern District (Listed as Emer Gregory living with her mother and two female siblings)

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1902 Dawes Enrollment: Enrollment for Creek Census Card by Blood (Old Series) Creek by Blood Roll Number: 3021,

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1912 Cemetery Records Search, South Dakota State Historical Society
First Name Last Name Death Date Lot Number City County Name
EMMA GREGORY 03-12-1912 1 CANTON LINCOLN INDIAN ASYLUM
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Biography
"Emma Arnice Gregory (1867-1912) was my great-great grandmother." One hundred years after her death, I found myself at the Hiawatha Golf Club in Canton, South Dakota to attend the recently revitalized memorial ceremony in honor of those who had died at the former Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, a federal institution created for the incarceration of Indigenous people. (1) The graveyard where Emma Gregory is buried sits adjacent to Hole 5. (2)

"No. 1 is incompetent" (4)

This phrase appears on Emma Gregory's October 1899 Dawes Enrollment Card. Generated by the Kellyville, Indian Territory, field office of the Department of the Interior's Dawes Commission, the enrollment card was intended to identify members of the Creek Nation for them to receive individualized land parcels. "Incompetent" in this context was pervasive rather than exceptional. The Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 portioned out reservation lands as a means to dismantle Indigenous self-determination and to expropriate natural resources. (5)

Gregory was especially vulnerable to being designated as legally incompetent because she did not conform to settler ideals in multiple ways. Unlike her younger brother James (who identified as white in Census rolls and whose spouse was white), Emma had married someone who, like her, identified as mixed race—a part-Cherokee man from Illinois. By 1899, the couple had parted ways, meaning that the 31-year-old mother no longer had a husband cohabitating with her and providing support. To sustain herself and her family Gregory lived with her mother and younger sisters. (7) In addition to cross-generational childrearing and mutual aid—facets of Creek life that settler authorities targeted—Emma Gregory likely was not literate in written English and may have challenged other gendered and caste expectations. (8)

By design, the allotment process pitted family members against each other, promoting greed over interdependence and intergenerational collective care. When Emma Gregory went to the regional office of the Dawes Commission in October 1899, the Bureau of Indian Affairs designated her younger brother, James Self (1871-1945), as her trustee. Self then had authority over Emma's daily life, including her residence and activities and that of her son, Audie Lee. Self also would have overseen Gregory's finances, in particular her tribal payments, allotment land, and any profit from the sale or transfer of her designated parcel. Emma Gregory would never regain full agency over her affairs during her life. (9)

The arrangement of legal guardianship between Gregory and Self had incredibly high stakes, specifically as his fortune rose while hers declined. Between 1900 and 1920, Self underwent a series of significant changes in his profession and class. On the day he accompanied Gregory to the Dawes field office in October 1899, he was a farmer who owned his own home. Two years later, on March 27, 1902, Self—legally acting as Gregory's trustee—applied for an allotment homestead. (10) It is unclear whether his sister was even present at the field office in Kellyville, Indian Territory, during this appointment. Self was designated as legal representative for several of his family members, including Emma and her son. (11) James Self apparently kept the property for himself and his descendants. A decade later, he appears in archival sources as a retail grocer, working for a wage, his house mortgaged. By 1920, he was an oil producer with employees and owned his home. (12)

In August 1905 James Self had Emma Gregory committed to the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians. (13) The process would not have been difficult. At the time, no standard federal proceedings for institutionalizing Native wards of the government existed. Determinations of competency occurred at the local level, often defaulting to the word of a reservation superintendent or white neighbor. Or, in the case of Emma Gregory, her kin and her legal trustee. (14)… Records show that extended family took in Gregory's son. Self kept control of his sister's finances and land, apparently integrating them into his own. (15) Physically exiled from her kin and home, Gregory could not counter the decisions her brother and the BIA made on her behalf.

The Canton Indian Asylum where Emma Gregory was detained had been confining Indigenous people since its opening in 1902. At the time of Emma Gregory's commitment, Western medical justifications for designating a person incompetent varied widely. In the context of battles over sovereignty, the category of medical incompetency built on and reinforced settler, ableist beliefs that Indigenous people and cultures were already inherently unfit. (17) According to monthly updates staff generated, her alleged symptoms reflect an antagonistic stance. According to attendants, she was at times "profane" and suffered "delusions of persecution." (18) At other moments she appeared "manageable." Emma Gregory's "delusions of persecution," when viewed through a medical pathology lens, were supported by the labels already assigned her: incompetent, insane, and institutionalized.

"Anne Gregory's great-great-grandmother, Emma Gregory, died in 1912 after spending almost a decade in the asylum. Emma had buried two daughters because of diphtheria. Her husband had gone off to fight in the Spanish-American War and, unable to care for her remaining son, she suffered a nervous breakdown and was shipped to South Dakota.
"She has one of the more terrible experiences in Canton," Anne Gregory, 32, said. "Emma was listed in one of the reports for being left in a room with no windows, strapped to a bed for very long periods of time, getting no normal sun or fresh air. She received not just poor care but also neglect." (Young, Steve. “S.D. Revisits Past at Native American Insane Asylum.” Argus Leader, 5 May 2013.)

It is unclear what initially prompted Superintendent Harry Hummer in 1909 to further isolate Emma Gregory in a dark room on the northern end of the asylum. It is conceivable that she showed signs of illness; the move could also have been retribution for perceived or actual resistant behavior. (19) My great-great-grandmother was kept in this solitary confinement room for three years. Like many others detained at Canton, she contracted a lethal case of tuberculosis as a result of her institutionalization. (20) Abusive practices, including unsanitary conditions, sustained solitary confinement, and neglect caused Emma Gregory's death in March 1912.
Labels of incompetency connected to allotment and to psychiatric institutionalization were important mechanisms in the broader settler effort to erase Native people and cultures. The whole process—of diagnosis, "treatment," and oversight—contributed to concrete conditions of genocidal violence. Institutionalization at Canton Asylum was another form of erasure for Indigenous people during the allotment era.

Source: Gregory, Ann. “Competency, Allotment, and the Canton Asylum: The Case of a Muscogee Woman.” Disability Studies Quarterly (DSQ), 2021 @ https://dsq-sds.org/index.php/dsq/article/view/8476/6294

Selected Endnotes:
10) Gregory's land was located directly beside her son's, just west of the border with the Cherokee Nation, just north of the confluence of the North Fork Canadian River and the Canadian River, and close to the town of Eufala. Today, their adjacent plots are on the banks of and possibly partially submerged beneath Eufala Lake. E. Hastain, Hastain's Township Plats of the Creek Nation (Muskogee, OK: Model Printer Co., 1910), 258-59.
11) "I, John H. Self, do hereby make application to have the lands hereinafter set apart as homesteads for myself and those whom I lawfully represent, the same being a part of the lands already selected as allotments for myself and those whom I lawfully represent, as follows: Emma A. Gregory (Sister); Audie Lee Gregory (Nephew); Blanche C Self (Sister); Cordelia A. Self (Sister); Peggie Lee Self (Daughter)." "Emma A Gregery," "Land Allotment Jackets."
Curator Note: for the remaining endnotes see the article @ https://dsq-sds.org/index.php/dsq/article/view/8476/6294

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EMMA ARNICE SELF
Emma Arnice (Self) Gregory

Emma Arnice Self was born in Sabine Parish, Louisiana on 29 December 1867. She was Eli Alfred Self's eighth child (1st by 2nd wife). Her mother was Martha Ann (Lester) Self. Emma was about eleven years old when her family moved to Rusk County, Texas. After the family moved to the Creek Nation, Emma met Charley C. Gregory. Charley and Emma were married in Muskogee, Indian Territory, in 1891. Following is a copy of
their Bond and marriage license:

$100.00 BOND FOR MARRIAGE LICENSE

United States of America
Indian Territory
First Judicial Division Know All Men By These Presents:

That We, C C GREGORY as principal, and J W WILLIFORD as security, are held and firmly bound unto the United States of America, for the use and benefit of the Common School Fund of the Indian Territory, in the penal sum of ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS, for the payment of which well and truly to be made, we bind ourselves, our heirs, executors and administrators firmly, by these presents.
C. C. Gregory
Signed this 23rd day of January A.D. 1891
J. W. Williford

THE CONDITION OF THE ABOVE OBLIGATION IS SUCH, that, whereas the above bounden
C. C. GREGORY has this day applied to the Clerk of the United States Court in Indian Territory, First Judicial Division, for a License, authorizing the solemnization of the Rite of Matrimony between the said

C. C. GREGORY and MISS EMMA SELF

Now, if the parties applying for said License have a lawful Right to the same, and if they shall faithfully carry into effect and comply with the provisions thereof, and shall, within sixty days from the date hereof, return the said
License to the office of the Clerk of the United States Court in Indian Territory, and the aforesaid Division, duly executed and officially signed by some one authorized to solemnize the Rite of Matrimony, then this obligation to be void, otherwise to remain in full force and virtue.

Witness our signatures, the day above written.
C. C. Gregory
J. W. Williford

AFFIDAVIT FOR MARRIAGE LICENSE

United States of America
Indian Territory
First Judicial division
In the Office of the Clerk of the United States Court in the Indian Territory.

C C. GREGORY being duly sworn, deposes and says that he the party, who has this
day applied to me for License of Marriage, and that he has arrived at the age of
22 years; and that MISS EMMA SELF has arrived at the age of 23 years; and that
they, the parties for whom said application is made, are now single and
unmarried, and may lawfully contract and be joined in marriage.

C C GREGORY
Sworn to this 23rd day of January A D 1891

I don't know who solemnized the marriage between Charley Gregory and Emma Self. I haven't found a copy of the certificate.

Emma and Charley lived in the Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory, for a number of years. Three children were born to them: a son and twin daughters. The twin daughters died in a fire. Emma couldn't cope with their deaths and she had a nervous breakdown over the loss of these two babies. Emma returned home to live with her mother, Martha Ann (Lester) Self, who had moved to Kellyville. Emma wasn't capable of taking care of herself and her son. Finally, Emma was institutionalized (on Aug. 2, 1905) where she died in 1912. Martha Ann took care of her grandchild, Audie Lee Gregory, until Charley Gregory remarried and took Audie with him.

Following is the Creek Census Card for Emma (Self) Gregory and her son:

Dawes Card No. 931 P.O. Kellyville 10 Oct 1899
3021 Gregory, Emma A. 31 F 1/8 E. A. Self Martha
3022 Audie Lee son 6 M 1/16 C. C. Gregory No. 1

Source: Cornfeld, Thelma Nolan. Redlands, San Bernardino County, California, 1996. Unpublished manuscript on USGenWeb by permission of her daughter Barbara @ http://files.usgwarchives.net/tx/nacogdoches/history/berryhill/bery...
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Recommended Reading:
Gregory, Ann. “Competency, Allotment, and the Canton Asylum: The Case of a Muscogee Woman.” Disability Studies Quarterly (DSQ), 2021.
Extracts:
I visited Canton, South Dakota twice for the memorial ceremony, both organized by Lavanah Judah, in May 2012 and May 2013. Lavanah Judah, "Hiawatha Indian Insane Asylum Sacred Burial Ground All Nations Healing and Prayer Ceremony," American Indian News, April 13, 2011, Tahtonka.com; Steve Young, ""A Shameful Past: Indian Insane Asylum," Argus Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), May 5, 2013, 5. Accounts of past memorial ceremonies can be found in the following Pemina Yellow Bird, "Wild Indians: Native Perspectives on the Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians," Center for Mental Health Services, Substance Abuse Mental Health Administration, Department of Health and Human Services, (n.d.); Steve Young, "S.D. Revisits Past at Native American Insane Asylum," USA Today, May 5, 2013. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/05/sd-native-ame...," Argus Leader; Susan Burch, Committed: Remembering Native Kinship in and beyond Institutions (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2021), 17-20, 105-107.

1. Gregory's land was located directly beside her son's, just west of the border with the Cherokee Nation, just north of the confluence of the North Fork Canadian River and the Canadian River, and close to the town of Eufala. Today, their adjacent plots are on the banks of and possibly partially submerged beneath Eufala Lake. E. Hastain, Hastain's Township Plats of the Creek Nation (Muskogee, OK: Model Printer Co., 1910), 258-59.
2. "I, John H. Self, do hereby make application to have the lands hereinafter set apart as homesteads for myself and those whom I lawfully represent, the same being a pert of the lands already selected as allotments for myself and those whom I lawfully represent, as follows: Emma A. Gregory (Sister); Audie Lee Gregory (Nephew); Blanche C Self (Sister); Cordelia A. Self (Sister); Peggie Lee Self (Daughter)." "Emma A Gregery," "Land Allotment Jackets."
3. A document created by the Department of the Interior Commission to the Five Civilized tribes, Muscogee Land Office on October 11, 1899, shows testimony by John A. Self regarding the tribal roll payments of Gregory and her son. This document was included among Emma Gregory's Canton Asylum notes. A copy of the document was provided to the author by Susan Burch.
4. Archival sources suggest that James Self enlisted attorneys and a doctor to support his request to have his sister institutionalized. Overstreet and Don Carlos, attorneys, telegram to J. Blair Shoenfelt, June 22, 1905, Case files on Insane Indians, 1905-1907: Emma Gregory, Record Group 75, National Archives and Records Administration-Fort Worth.
5. Historian Sarah Whitt writes, "complex social and political structures of legal guardianship, competency, and sanity rendered Indian people vulnerable, ultimately, to territorial dispossession — which demonstrates the key role that Canton played in the ongoing process of territorial acquisition on a case-by-case basis of land theft and expropriation." Whitt, Sarah A. "False Promises: Race, Power, and the Chimera of Indian Assimilation, 1879-1934."