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The Repatriation Database Data from Nov. 29, 2023

Prairie Island Indian Community in the State of Minnesota

A federally recognized Indian tribe with headquarters in Minnesota

Institutions reported making the remains of more than 2,200 Native Americans available for return to the Prairie Island Indian Community.

The tribe was also eligible to claim more than 6,200 associated funerary objects.

Institutions continue to hold the remains of at least 2,000 Native Americans taken from counties known to be of interest to the tribe.*

Where Native American remains made available for return to the Prairie Island 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 23 Native Americans with no location information were made available for return to the Prairie Island 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 25 institutions made Native American remains available for return to the Prairie Island Indian Community.

InstitutionRemains Made Available for Return To Tribe
Minnesota Indian Affairs Council1,653
Beloit College, Logan Museum of Anthropology107
Wisconsin Historical Society87
South Dakota State Historical Society, State Archaeological Research Center70
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Department of Anthropology61
U.S. Department of the Interior60
University of Iowa, Office of the State Archaeologist60
U.S. Department of Defense38
University of Denver, Museum of Anthropology35
Denver Museum of Nature and Science21
Carter County Museum14
University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh13
Coe College7
University of Connecticut, Connecticut State Museum of Natural History5
Mutter Museum, College of Physicians of Philadelphia2
Oregon State University2
University of Wisconsin, Madison, Department of Anthropology2
American Museum of Natural History1
Field Museum1
Grand Rapids Public Museum1
History Colorado1
Robert S. Peabody Institute of Archaeology, Phillips Academy1
Sheboygan County Historical Museum1
State Historical Society of Iowa1
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology1

Timeline of Native American remains made available for return to the Prairie Island 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 2,000 Native Americans that were taken from counties known to be of interest to the Prairie Island 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 Museum532
Illinois State Museum390
Harvard Univ.189
Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign133
Univ. of Wisconsin, Oshkosh130
Wisconsin Historical Society88
Museum Division (51)
Historic Preservation Division (37)
Minnesota Indian Affairs Council76
Oshkosh Public Museum55
Indiana Univ.53
Univ. of Wisconsin, La Crosse49
Trinidad State Junior College46
Center for American Archeology, Kampsville Archeological Center45
Univ. of Minnesota, Duluth38
South Dakota State Historical Society, State Archaeological Research Center31
Neville Public Museum26
Dept. of the Interior25
Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge (15)
Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife Refuge (4)
Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge (3)
Voyageurs NP (3)
American Museum of Natural History22
Lawrence Univ.22
Grand Rapids Public Museum17
Univ. of Wyoming7
Ball State Univ.6
Goodhue County Historical Society5
Kenosha Public Museum5
Dept. of Defense5
National Museum of Health and Medicine (2)
St. Paul District (2)
Omaha District (1)
Elgin Public Museum3
Brigham Young Univ.2
Hastings Museum2
Minnesota Historical Society2
Rochester Museum and Science Center2
Univ. of Iowa2
Univ. of Michigan2
Univ. of Nebraska State Museum2
Carnegie Museum of Natural History1
Denver Museum of Nature and Science1
Field Museum1
Florida State Univ.1
Montana Historical Society1
New York Univ.1
Putnam Museum1
Springfield Science Museum1
Univ. of California, Berkeley1
Univ. of Missouri, Columbia1
Univ. of Pennsylvania1
Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville1
Univ. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee1
Counties of interest used in estimate include: Adams, Baca, Crowley, Douglas, Elbert, Huerfano, Jefferson, Kiowa, Las Animas, Lincoln, Prowers and Weld in Colorado. Allamakee, Butler, Cerro Gordo, Chickasaw, Clayton, Dickinson, Emmet, Floyd, Franklin, Hancock, Howard, Humboldt, Kossuth, Lyon, Mitchell, O'brien, Osceola, Palo Alto, Pocahontas, Sioux, Webster, Winnebago, Winneshiek, Worth and Wright in Iowa. Hancock, Henderson, Jo Daviess, Kane, La Salle, Rock Island and Winnebago in Illinois. Delaware in Indiana. Chippewa in Michigan. Aitkin, Anoka, Becker, Beltrami, Benton, Big Stone, Blue Earth, Brown, Carver, Cass, Chippewa, Chisago, Clay, Clearwater, Cottonwood, Crow Wing, Dakota, Dodge, Douglas, Faribault, Fillmore, Freeborn, Goodhue, Grant, Hennepin, Houston, Isanti, Itasca, Jackson, Kanabec, Kandiyohi, Kittson, Koochiching, Lac Qui Parle, Le Sueur, Lincoln, Lyon, Marshall, Martin, Mcleod, Meeker, Mille Lacs, Mower, Murray, Nicollet, Nobles, Norman, Olmsted, Otter Tail, Pipestone, Polk, Pope, Ramsey, Red Lake, Redwood, Renville, Rice, Rock, Scott, Sherburne, Sibley, St. Louis, Stearns, Steele, Stevens, Swift, Todd, Traverse, Wabasha, Wadena, Waseca, Washington, Watonwan, Wilkin, Winona, Wright and Yellow Medicine in Minnesota. Big Horn, Carter and Fallon in Montana. Douglas, Dundy, Morrill and Sioux in Nebraska. Brown, Buffalo, Clark, Crawford, Door, Dunn, Eau Claire, Forest, Grant, Green Lake, Jackson, Jefferson, Kenosha, La Crosse, Marathon, Milwaukee, Monroe, Oneida, Pepin, Pierce, Polk, Richland, Rock, Sheboygan, St. Croix, Trempealeau, Vernon, Waukesha and Winnebago in Wisconsin.
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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