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The Repatriation Database Data from Nov. 29, 2023

Fort Belknap Indian Community of the Fort Belknap Reservation of Montana

A federally recognized Indian tribe with headquarters in Montana

Institutions reported making the remains of more than 100 Native Americans available for return to the Fort Belknap Indian Community.

The tribe was also eligible to claim more than 2,400 associated funerary objects.

Institutions continue to hold the remains of at least 2,800 Native Americans taken from counties known to be of interest to the tribe.*

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
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Note: Remains of 18 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 nine institutions made Native American remains available for return to the Fort Belknap Indian Community.

InstitutionRemains Made Available for Return To Tribe
University of Wyoming54
Denver Museum of Nature and Science18
Carter County Museum14
U.S. Department of the Interior9
University of Colorado Museum7
University of Idaho, Alfred W. Bowers Laboratory of Anthropology2
University of Northern Colorado2
Field Museum1
Minnesota Historical Society1

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 determine whether Native American remains may be returned through cultural affiliation using evidence such as tribal traditional knowledge and biological and archaeological links, or through disposition based on geographic affiliation.

These institutions have not made available for return the remains of at least 2,800 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.
InstitutionRemains Not Made Available for Return That Were Taken From Counties of Interest to the Tribe
Milwaukee Public Museum1,454
Harvard Univ.253
Wisconsin Historical Society173
Museum Division (132)
Historic Preservation Division (41)
Univ. of Wisconsin, Oshkosh138
American Museum of Natural History81
Minnesota Indian Affairs Council77
Oshkosh Public Museum55
Dept. of the Interior50
Wyoming State Office (17)
Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge (15)
Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife Refuge (4)
BIA (3)
Reclamation, Great Plains Region, Wyoming Area Office (3)
Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge (3)
Voyageurs NP (3)
Anasazi Heritage Center (1)
Reclamation, Great Plains Region, Montana Area Office (1)
Univ. of Wisconsin, La Crosse49
Trinidad State Junior College48
Field Museum47
South Dakota State Historical Society, State Archaeological Research Center44
Univ. of Minnesota, Duluth38
Dept. of Defense36
Omaha District (30)
National Museum of Health and Medicine (4)
St. Paul District (2)
New Mexico Highlands Univ.34
Univ. of Wyoming33
Fort Lewis College30
Western Colorado Univ.29
Neville Public Museum26
Lawrence Univ.22
Museum of Texas Tech Univ.17
History Nebraska12
Univ. of Nebraska State Museum12
Montana State Univ., Museum of the Rockies10
Univ. of Arizona9
Illinois State Museum7
Natural History Museum of Utah7
Grand Rapids Public Museum6
Montana State Univ., Bozeman6
Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville6
Dept. of Anthropology (5)
Frank H. McClung Museum (1)
Wichita State Univ.6
Goodhue County Historical Society5
Hastings Museum5
Kenosha Public Museum5
Dartmouth College4
Montana Historical Society4
Museum of New Mexico, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture4
West Texas A and M Univ.4
Buffalo Bill Center of the West3
Idaho State Univ.3
Dept. of Agriculture3
Rio Grande NF (2)
Dakota Prairie Grasslands (1)
Univ. of Michigan3
Univ. of Montana3
Univ. of Pennsylvania3
Univ. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee3
Carnegie Museum of Natural History2
Minnesota Historical Society2
Putnam Museum2
Rocky Ford Historical Museum2
Southern Illinois Univ., Carbondale2
Washington County Historical Society2
Denver Museum of Nature and Science1
Florida State Univ.1
Meeteetse Museum1
Mutter Museum, College of Physicians of Philadelphia1
New York State Museum1
New York Univ.1
Saint Martin's Univ. Waynick Museum1
Univ. of California, Berkeley1
Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign1
Univ. of Kansas1
Univ. of Kentucky1
Univ. of Texas, El Paso1
Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison1
Utah Dept. of Natural Resources1
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
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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