Fort Belknap Indian Community Repatriation Records — NAGPRA Database

The Repatriation Database Data from Jan. 6, 2025

Where Native American remains made available for return to the Fort Belknap Indian Community were taken from

Each county is a peak

Height is amount of remains taken from county and made available by institutions for return to tribe

No remains taken from these counties made available for return to tribe

Institution that made remains available for return

Note: Remains of 57 Native Americans with no location information were made available for return to the Fort Belknap Indian Community.

Under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, when an institution establishes a connection between tribes and remains, it must publish a list of the tribes eligible to make a repatriation claim. The remains are then made available for return to the tribe(s). Once a tribal claim is made, physical transfer may occur. Many remains have been physically returned to tribes, but data on this is spotty because the law does not require institutions to report when these transfers occur.

These 13 institutions made Native American remains available for return to the Fort Belknap Indian Community.

Institution	Remains Made Available for Return To Tribe
University of Wyoming	54
Univ. of North Dakota	52
Denver Museum of Nature and Science	18
Carter County Museum	14
Metropolitan State University of Denver, Department of Sociology and Anthropology	13
U.S. Department of the Interior	10
University of Colorado Museum	7
Harvard University	4
University of Idaho, Alfred W. Bowers Laboratory of Anthropology	2
University of Northern Colorado	2
Brown University, Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology	1
Field Museum	1
Minnesota Historical Society	1

Timeline of Native American remains made available for return to the Fort Belknap Indian Community

Tribal and institutional capacity, funding, staffing, regulatory changes, audits, Review Committee decisions and litigation may influence timelines. Under NAGPRA, institutions make Native American remains available for return and determine whether they are culturally affiliated using evidence such as tribal traditional knowledge and biological and archaeological links. From 2010 to 2024, remains could also be returned through disposition based on geographic affiliation. Institutions can also determine that remains are culturally unidentifiable. Tribes may request the transfer of these remains, or they may be reinterred by the institution.

These institutions have not made available for return the remains of at least 2,700 Native Americans that were taken from counties known to be of interest to the Fort Belknap Indian Community.

These are estimates calculated using remains not made available for return from counties that the tribe has previously been eligible to claim remains from, as well as counties that the tribe has indicated interest in to the federal government. They are not comprehensive figures. The tribe may not wish to claim the remains, and other tribes may also seek to claim them.

Institution	Remains Not Made Available for Return That Were Taken From Counties of Interest to the Tribe
Milwaukee Public Museum	1,454
Harvard Univ.	178
Wisconsin Historical Society	161 Museum Division (121) Historic Preservation Division (40)
Univ. of Wisconsin, Oshkosh	130
American Museum of Natural History	81
Minnesota Indian Affairs Council	77
Dept. of the Interior	66 Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge (21) Wyoming State Office (17) Montana State Office (8) La Crosse District, Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge (5) McGregor District, Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge (4) Reclamation, Missouri Basin Region, Montana Area Office (4) Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge (4) BIA (3)
Oshkosh Public Museum	55
Univ. of Wisconsin, La Crosse	49
Trinidad State Junior College	48
Field Museum	47
Univ. of Minnesota, Duluth	46
South Dakota State Historical Society, State Archaeological Research Center	44
New Mexico Highlands Univ.	34
Univ. of Wyoming	33
Western Colorado Univ.	29
Neville Public Museum	27
Lawrence Univ.	22
Dept. of Defense	14 Omaha District (8) National Museum of Health and Medicine (4) St. Paul District (2)
History Nebraska	12
Univ. of Nebraska State Museum	12
Montana State Univ., Museum of the Rockies	10
Univ. of Arizona	9
Natural History Museum of Utah	7
Univ. of Pennsylvania	7
Hastings Museum	6
Illinois State Museum	6
Montana State Univ., Bozeman	6
Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville	6 Dept. of Anthropology (5) Frank H. McClung Museum (1)
Wichita State Univ.	6
Dartmouth College	5
Goodhue County Historical Society	5
Kenosha Public Museum	5
Montana Historical Society	4
Museum of New Mexico, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture	4
West Texas A and M Univ.	4
Idaho State Univ.	3
New York Univ.	3
Northwestern Univ.	3
Dept. of Agriculture	3 Rio Grande NF (2) Dakota Prairie Grasslands (1)
Univ. of Michigan	3
Univ. of Montana	3
Univ. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee	3
Buffalo Bill Center of the West	2
Carnegie Museum of Natural History	2
Fort Lewis College	2
Rocky Ford Historical Museum	2
Southern Illinois Univ., Carbondale	2
Washington County Historical Society	2
Florida State Univ.	1
Grand Rapids Public Museum	1
Meeteetse Museums	1
Mercyhurst Univ.	1
Minnesota Historical Society	1
Museum of Texas Tech Univ.	1
Mutter Museum, College of Physicians of Philadelphia	1
New York State Museum	1
Putnam Museum	1
Saint Martin's Univ. Waynick Museum	1
Univ. of California, Berkeley	1
Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign	1
Univ. of Kansas	1
Univ. of Kentucky	1
Univ. of Texas, El Paso	1
Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison	1
Utah Dept. of Natural Resources	1
Yale Univ.	1

Counties of interest used in estimate include: Adams, Alamosa, Arapahoe, Archuleta, Baca, Bent, Boulder, Broomfield, Chaffee, Cheyenne, Clear Creek, Conejos, Costilla, Crowley, Custer, Delta, Denver, Dolores, Douglas, Eagle, El Paso, Elbert, Fremont, Garfield, Gilpin, Grand, Gunnison, Hinsdale, Huerfano, Jackson, Jefferson, Kiowa, Kit Carson, La Plata, Lake, Larimer, Las Animas, Lincoln, Logan, Mesa, Mineral, Moffat, Montezuma, Montrose, Morgan, Otero, Ouray, Park, Phillips, Pitkin, Prowers, Pueblo, Rio Blanco, Rio Grande, Routt, Saguache, San Juan, San Miguel, Sedgwick, Summit, Teller, Washington, Weld and Yuma in Colorado. Bannock, Bear Lake, Bingham, Bonneville, Caribou, Clark, Franklin, Fremont, Jefferson, Madison, Oneida and Teton in Idaho. Aitkin, Anoka, Becker, Beltrami, Benton, Big Stone, Blue Earth, Brown, Carlton, Carver, Cass, Chippewa, Chisago, Clay, Clearwater, Cook, Cottonwood, Crow Wing, Dakota, Dodge, Douglas, Faribault, Fillmore, Freeborn, Goodhue, Grant, Hennepin, Houston, Hubbard, Isanti, Itasca, Jackson, Kanabec, Kandiyohi, Kittson, Koochiching, Lac Qui Parle, Lake, Lake Of The Woods, Le Sueur, Lincoln, Lyon, Mahnomen, Marshall, Martin, Mcleod, Meeker, Mille Lacs, Morrison, Mower, Murray, Nicollet, Nobles, Norman, Olmsted, Otter Tail, Pennington, Pine, Pipestone, Polk, Pope, Ramsey, Red Lake, Redwood, Renville, Rice, Rock, Roseau, Scott, Sherburne, Sibley, St. Louis, Stearns, Steele, Stevens, Swift, Todd, Traverse, Wabasha, Wadena, Waseca, Washington, Watonwan, Wilkin, Winona, Wright and Yellow Medicine in Minnesota. Beaverhead, Big Horn, Blaine, Broadwater, Carbon, Carter, Cascade, Chouteau, Custer, Daniels, Dawson, Deer Lodge, Fallon, Fergus, Flathead, Gallatin, Garfield, Glacier, Golden Valley, Granite, Hill, Jefferson, Judith Basin, Lake, Lewis And Clark, Liberty, Lincoln, Madison, Mccone, Meagher, Mineral, Missoula, Musselshell, Park, Petroleum, Phillips, Pondera, Powder River, Powell, Prairie, Ravalli, Richland, Roosevelt, Rosebud, Sanders, Sheridan, Silver Bow, Stillwater, Sweet Grass, Teton, Toole, Treasure, Valley, Wheatland, Wibaux and Yellowstone in Montana. Adams, Ashland, Barron, Bayfield, Brown, Buffalo, Burnett, Calumet, Chippewa, Clark, Columbia, Crawford, Dane, Dodge, Door, Douglas, Dunn, Eau Claire, Florence, Fond Du Lac, Forest, Grant, Green, Green Lake, Iowa, Iron, Jackson, Jefferson, Juneau, Kenosha, Kewaunee, La Crosse, Lafayette, Langlade, Lincoln, Manitowoc, Marathon, Marinette, Marquette, Menominee, Milwaukee, Monroe, Oconto, Oneida, Outagamie, Ozaukee, Pepin, Pierce, Polk, Portage, Price, Racine, Richland, Rock, Rusk, Sauk, Sawyer, Shawano, Sheboygan, St. Croix, Taylor, Trempealeau, Vernon, Vilas, Walworth, Washburn, Washington, Waukesha, Waupaca, Waushara, Winnebago and Wood in Wisconsin. Albany, Big Horn, Campbell, Carbon, Converse, Crook, Fremont, Goshen, Hot Springs, Johnson, Laramie, Lincoln, Natrona, Niobrara, Park, Platte, Sheridan, Sublette, Sweetwater, Teton, Uinta, Washakie and Weston in Wyoming

Search for institutions holding Native American remains and tribes seeking to reclaim them

Try the University of California, Berkeley, the Chickasaw Nation or Arizona.

Institutions that have not submitted information to the federal government are not listed.

These tribes were also listed when institutions culturally affiliated Native American remains to the Fort Belknap Indian Community. Institutions often make remains available for return to multiple tribes, so the amount of remains listed below may be counted for more than one tribe.

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About the Data

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

by Ash Ngu and Andrea Suozzo Jan. 11, 2023 Data from Jan. 6, 2025 Additional reporting by Asia Fields, Mary Hudetz and Logan Jaffe for ProPublica and Graham Brewer for NBC News. Additional development by Alec Glassford.