Virginia
Institutions reported making 28% of the more than 1,300 Native American remains taken from Virginia available for return to tribes under NAGPRA.
There are 11 institutions located in Virginia that reported Native American remains taken from across the country.
Institution | Remains Not Made Available for Return | Remains Made Available for Return | % of Remains Made Available for Return |
---|---|---|---|
Virginia Department of Historic Resources | 711 | 169 | 19% |
U.S. Department of Defense | 14 | 1 | 7% |
Bridgewater College | 5 | 1 | 17% |
U.S. Department of the Interior | 4 | 3 | 43% |
U.S. Department of Agriculture | 3 | 0 | 0% |
Fredericksburg Area Museum | 1 | 0 | 0% |
College of William and Mary, Department of Anthropology | 0 | 158 | 100% |
Valentine Museum | 0 | 4 | 100% |
Virginia Commonwealth University | 0 | 9 | 100% |
Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, Division of State Parks | 0 | 4 | 100% |
Virginia Living Museum | 0 | 3 | 100% |
There are 22 institutions that reported Native American remains taken from Virginia.
Institution | Remains Not Made Available for Return | Remains Made Available for Return | % of Remains Made Available for Return |
---|---|---|---|
Virginia Department of Historic Resources | 705 | 169 | 19% |
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | 149 | 3 | 2% |
Harvard University | 57 | 0 | 0% |
Maryland Historical Trust | 12 | 0 | 0% |
U.S. Department of Defense | 10 | 0 | 0% |
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology | 8 | 0 | 0% |
American Museum of Natural History | 7 | 0 | 0% |
Carnegie Museum of Natural History | 5 | 0 | 0% |
U.S. Department of the Interior | 4 | 3 | 43% |
University of Tennessee, Knoxville | 4 | 0 | 0% |
U.S. Department of Agriculture | 3 | 0 | 0% |
Seton Hall University | 2 | 0 | 0% |
Bridgewater College | 1 | 1 | 50% |
State Museum of Pennsylvania | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Yale University, Peabody Museum of Natural History | 1 | 0 | 0% |
College of William and Mary, Department of Anthropology | 0 | 158 | 100% |
Marshall University | 0 | 1 | 100% |
Pennsylvania State University, Matson Museum of Anthropology | 0 | 25 | 100% |
Valentine Museum | 0 | 1 | 100% |
Virginia Commonwealth University | 0 | 9 | 100% |
Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, Division of State Parks | 0 | 4 | 100% |
Virginia Living Museum | 0 | 3 | 100% |
Institutions made Native American remains taken from Virginia available for return to 58 tribes.
Tribe | Remains Made Available for Return to Tribe |
---|---|
Nansemond Indian Nation | 224 |
Pamunkey Indian Tribe | 169 |
Upper Mattaponi Tribe | 169 |
Chickahominy Indian Tribe | 166 |
Chickahominy Indian Tribe - Eastern Division | 160 |
Rappahannock Tribe, Inc. | 160 |
Monacan Indian Tribe | 116 |
Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians | 35 |
Cherokee Nation | 32 |
United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma | 32 |
Catawba Indian Nation | 7 |
Delaware Nation, Oklahoma | 4 |
Delaware Tribe of Indians | 4 |
Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma | 4 |
Muscogee (Creek) Nation | 3 |
Absentee-Shawnee Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma | 1 |
Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians of the Bad River Reservation, Wisconsin | 1 |
Bay Mills Indian Community, Michigan | 1 |
Bois Forte Band (Nett Lake) of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Minnesota | 1 |
Cayuga Nation | 1 |
Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe of the Cheyenne River Reservation, South Dakota | 1 |
Chippewa Cree Indians of the Rocky Boy's Reservation, Montana | 1 |
Fond du Lac Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Minnesota | 1 |
Grand Portage Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Minnesota | 1 |
Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, Michigan | 1 |
Kaw Nation, Oklahoma | 1 |
Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, Michigan | 1 |
Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin | 1 |
Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians of Michigan | 1 |
Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians of the Lac du Flambeau Reservation of Wisconsin | 1 |
Leech Lake Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Minnesota | 1 |
Mille Lacs Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Minnesota | 1 |
Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Minnesota | 1 |
Omaha Tribe of Nebraska | 1 |
Oneida Indian Nation in New York | 1 |
Oneida Nation of Wisconsin | 1 |
Onondaga Nation | 1 |
Osage Nation | 1 |
Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma | 1 |
Ponca Tribe of Nebraska | 1 |
Quapaw Nation | 1 |
Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin | 1 |
Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, Minnesota | 1 |
Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan | 1 |
Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe | 1 |
Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, Michigan | 1 |
Seneca Nation of Indians | 1 |
Seneca-Cayuga Nation | 1 |
Shawnee Tribe | 1 |
Sokaogon Chippewa Community, Wisconsin | 1 |
St. Croix Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin | 1 |
Stockbridge Munsee Community, Wisconsin | 1 |
Tonawanda Band of Seneca | 1 |
Tunica-Biloxi Indian Tribe | 1 |
Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians of North Dakota | 1 |
Tuscarora Nation | 1 |
White Earth Band of Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Minnesota | 1 |
Wyandotte Nation | 1 |
Institutions reported Native American remains taken from 41 counties in Virginia.
County | Remains Taken From County Not Made Available for Return | Remains Made Available for Return | % of Remains Made Available for Return |
---|---|---|---|
Smyth County | 120 | 28 | 19% |
Rockbridge County | 119 | 106 | 47% |
King George County | 102 | 0 | 0% |
Mecklenburg County | 84 | 0 | 0% |
Henry County | 72 | 3 | 4% |
Virginia Beach city | 61 | 64 | 51% |
Lee County | 56 | 1 | 2% |
Tazewell County | 44 | 1 | 2% |
Halifax County | 41 | 0 | 0% |
Washington County | 30 | 1 | 3% |
Prince George County | 28 | 5 | 15% |
James City County | 24 | 0 | 0% |
Northampton County | 22 | 0 | 0% |
Pulaski County | 15 | 0 | 0% |
Loudoun County | 14 | 0 | 0% |
Bath County | 12 | 0 | 0% |
Russell County | 12 | 0 | 0% |
Montgomery County | 10 | 0 | 0% |
Warren County | 10 | 0 | 0% |
Botetourt County | 8 | 0 | 0% |
Orange County | 7 | 0 | 0% |
Page County | 7 | 0 | 0% |
Westmoreland County | 6 | 0 | 0% |
Roanoke County | 5 | 0 | 0% |
Wythe County | 5 | 0 | 0% |
Frederick County | 3 | 0 | 0% |
Southampton County | 3 | 0 | 0% |
Charles City County | 2 | 130 | 98% |
Giles County | 2 | 0 | 0% |
King William County | 2 | 0 | 0% |
York County | 2 | 17 | 89% |
Portsmouth city | 2 | 0 | 0% |
Staunton city | 2 | 0 | 0% |
Accomack County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Amherst County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Goochland County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Pittsylvania County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Augusta County | 0 | 1 | 100% |
Chesterfield County | 0 | 3 | 100% |
Richmond County | 0 | 9 | 100% |
Wise County | 0 | 3 | 100% |
Know how an institution is handling repatriation? Have a personal story to share? We'd like to hear from you.
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This tool presents a dataset maintained by the National Park Service containing all the Native American human remains and associated funerary objects that institutions have reported to the federal government under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. The dataset includes information about the state and county where remains and objects were taken from, which institutions hold them and whether they have been made available for return to tribes.
The data is self-reported by institutions. The amount of unrepatriated Native American remains reported by institutions is a minimum estimate of individuals and institutions frequently adjust these numbers when they reinventory groups of remains. Some institutions that are subject to NAGPRA have also entirely failed to report the remains in their possession. As a result, the numbers provided are best taken as estimates. The actual number and geographic scope of what’s held by publicly funded institutions is larger than what is presently documented.
ProPublica supplemented this dataset with information about cultural affiliation and disposition to specific tribes by systematically parsing the text of Notices of Inventory Completion published in the Federal Register. An additional dataset from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Tribal Directory Assessment Tool, was used for the section on remains not made available for return from counties that each tribe has indicated interest in to the federal government.
Institution location and tribal headquarters location information was provided by National NAGPRA. The location of some groups that are not federally recognized was provided through research by ProPublica.
Institutions that are part of a larger entity are grouped. (For example, the Mesa Verde National Park is part of the U.S. Department of the Interior.)
Institutions that have not submitted information to the federal government are not listed. The Smithsonian Institution is not listed because its repatriation process falls under the National Museum of the American Indian Act and it is not required to publicly report its holdings with the same detail as institutions subject to NAGPRA.
If you work for an institution and would like to provide comment on your institution’s repatriation efforts, please email [email protected]. If you think the data is incorrect or have a data request, please get in touch. We are aware of some issues with the accuracy of location information and tribes mistakenly being identified for disposition of Native American remains in published notices.
If you want to share something else with ProPublica, we’d like to hear from you.
If you have questions about implementing or complying with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, get in touch with National NAGPRA or the NAGPRA Community of Practice.
We use the word “tribes” to refer to all groups that institutions made Native American remains available to under NAGPRA. This includes tribes, nations, bands, pueblos, communities, Native Alaskan villages, Native Hawaiian organizations and non-federally recognized groups.
Data sources from Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National NAGPRA Program, the Federal Register, Department of Housing and Development, Tribal Directory Assessment Tool