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The Repatriation Database Data from Nov. 29, 2023

Poarch Band of Creek Indians

A federally recognized Indian tribe with headquarters in Alabama

Institutions reported making the remains of more than 6,300 Native Americans available for return to the Poarch Band of Creek Indians.

The tribe was also eligible to claim more than 257,500 associated funerary objects.

Institutions continue to hold the remains of at least 7,900 Native Americans taken from counties known to be of interest to the tribe.*

Where Native American remains made available for return to the Poarch Band of Creek Indians 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 five Native Americans with no location information were made available for return to the Poarch Band of Creek Indians.
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 32 institutions made Native American remains available for return to the Poarch Band of Creek Indians.

InstitutionRemains Made Available for Return To Tribe
Tennessee Valley Authority4,871
University of Alabama Museums471
Georgia Department of Natural Resources404
Robert S. Peabody Institute of Archaeology, Phillips Academy105
U.S. Department of the Interior94
Florida State University, Department of Anthropology72
Bishop Museum of Science and Nature68
Columbus Museum68
Fernbank Museum of Natural History60
Alabama Department of Archives & History37
U.S. Department of Defense36
Columbus State University28
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology23
University of Georgia, Department of Anthropology17
Harvard University9
University of South Alabama, Center for Archaeological Studies7
Field Museum3
Florida Department of State3
Auburn University2
Augusta State University2
Denver Museum of Nature and Science2
Emory University, Michael C. Carlos Museum2
Indiana University2
New York University, College of Dentistry2
U.S. Department of Agriculture2
University of Denver, Museum of Anthropology2
University of West Georgia2
American Museum of Natural History1
Florence Indian Mound Museum1
Georgia Department of Transportation1
University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology1
Wistar Institute1

Timeline of Native American remains made available for return to the Poarch Band of Creek Indians

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 7,900 Native Americans that were taken from counties known to be of interest to the Poarch Band of Creek Indians.

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
Univ. of Alabama2,294
Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville2,182
Frank H. McClung Museum (2,130)
Dept. of Anthropology (52)
Univ. of Florida1,089
Auburn Univ.763
Florida Dept. of State337
Harvard Univ.287
Dept. of Defense211
Mobile District (187)
National Museum of Health and Medicine (13)
Nashville District (6)
Hurlburt Air Field (2)
Tulsa District (2)
Fort Benning (1)
Fernbank Museum of Natural History141
Dept. of the Interior126
Ocmulgee Mounds NHP (55)
Southeast Archeological Center (53)
Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge (13)
Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge (3)
Cedar Keys National Wildlife Refuge (1)
Savannah National Wildlife Refuge (1)
Sarasota County History Center93
Univ. of Pennsylvania52
Univ. of Miami45
Tennessee Dept. of Environment and Conservation41
Georgia Dept. of Natural Resources38
Georgia Power32
Alabama Dept. of Archives & History30
Univ. of Florida, Florida Museum of Natural History + Florida Dept. of State25
Univ. of Georgia24
Augusta Museum of History20
Univ. of South Alabama16
Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill13
Florida State Univ.12
HistoryMiami Museum12
Univ. of Kentucky12
American Museum of Natural History8
Univ. of West Florida8
Jacksonville State Univ.6
Univ. of Michigan6
Columbus Museum5
Milwaukee Public Museum5
Grand Rapids Public Museum4
State Museum of Pennsylvania4
Beloit College3
Dayton Museum of Natural History3
Robert S. Peabody Institute of Archaeology3
Bridgewater College2
Brown Univ.2
Univ. of Nebraska State Museum2
Univ. of Tennessee at Chattanooga2
Wagner Free Institute of Science2
Dartmouth College1
Georgia Southern Univ.1
Hastings Museum1
Loxahatchee Historical Society1
Nassau County Dept. of Parks and Recreation1
Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science1
Rochester Museum and Science Center1
Dept. of Agriculture1
Univ. of California, Riverside1
Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign1
Univ. of Oklahoma1
Counties of interest used in estimate include: Cherokee, Clarke, Colbert, Cullman, Elmore, Escambia, Etowah, Franklin, Hale, Jackson, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Limestone, Lowndes, Macon, Madison, Marshall, Mobile, Montgomery, Morgan, Russell, St. Clair, Talladega and Walker in Alabama. Collier, Escambia, Gadsden, Glades, Highlands, Hillsborough, Jackson, Lee, Levy, Manatee, Okaloosa, Okeechobee, Osceola, Santa Rosa, Sarasota, Sumter and Walton in Florida. Bartow, Bibb, Bryan, Camden, Chatham, Chattahoochee, Columbia, Dade, Douglas, Greene, Laurens, Liberty, Long, Mcintosh, Murray, Muscogee, Richmond and Wheeler in Georgia. Livingston, Lyon, Marshall, Mccracken and Trigg in Kentucky. Muskogee in Oklahoma. Anderson, Benton, Bradley, Campbell, Claiborne, Coffee, Franklin, Hamilton, Henry, Humphreys, Jefferson, Knox, Loudon, Marshall, Maury, Mcminn, Meigs, Monroe, Perry, Polk, Rhea, Roane, Stewart and Trousdale in Tennessee.
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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