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The Repatriation Database Data from Nov. 29, 2023

Sac and Fox Nation, Oklahoma

A federally recognized Indian tribe with headquarters in Oklahoma

Institutions reported making the remains of more than 2,500 Native Americans available for return to the Sac and Fox Nation.

The tribe was also eligible to claim more than 27,700 associated funerary objects.

Institutions continue to hold the remains of at least 5,900 Native Americans taken from counties known to be of interest to the tribe.*

Where Native American remains made available for return to the Sac and Fox Nation 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 six Native Americans with no location information were made available for return to the Sac and Fox Nation.
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 41 institutions made Native American remains available for return to the Sac and Fox Nation.

InstitutionRemains Made Available for Return To Tribe
History Nebraska586
U.S. Department of Defense348
University of Iowa, Office of the State Archaeologist274
Rochester Museum and Science Center241
University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology171
Michigan State University163
State Historical Society of Iowa144
Grand Valley State University113
Grand Rapids Public Museum111
Beloit College, Logan Museum of Anthropology108
Kansas State University40
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Department of Anthropology39
Bess Bower Dunn Museum34
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign34
U.S. Department of the Interior33
Wisconsin Historical Society29
Historical Society of Saginaw County, Inc.19
St. Joseph Museums, Inc.15
University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh13
Princeton University12
Denver Museum of Nature and Science10
Coe College7
University of Wisconsin, Madison, Department of Anthropology7
Harvard University5
Michigan State Historic Preservation Office5
Kansas State Historical Society3
Detroit Institute of Arts2
Evanston History Center2
Illinois State Museum2
University of Missouri, Columbia, Museum of Anthropology2
University of Tennessee, Knoxville2
American Museum of Natural History1
Autry Museum of the American West1
Berrien County Sheriff's Office1
History Colorado1
Oregon State University1
Putnam Museum1
Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History1
Sheboygan County Historical Museum1
Springfield Science Museum1
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology1

Timeline of Native American remains made available for return to the Sac and Fox Nation

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 5,900 Native Americans that were taken from counties known to be of interest to the Sac and Fox Nation.

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
Illinois State Museum1,493
Indiana Univ.1,295
Univ. of Michigan524
Milwaukee Public Museum481
Harvard Univ.365
Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign270
Center for American Archeology, Kampsville Archeological Center252
Univ. of Missouri, Columbia214
Univ. of Wisconsin, Oshkosh130
Dept. of Defense85
Rock Island District (81)
National Museum of Health and Medicine (3)
Omaha District (1)
Wisconsin Historical Society85
Museum Division (51)
Historic Preservation Division (34)
Field Museum81
Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville66
Dept. of Anthropology (65)
Frank H. McClung Museum (1)
Ohio History Connection64
Oshkosh Public Museum55
Missouri Dept. of Natural Resources54
Missouri Dept. of Transportation53
American Museum of Natural History49
Univ. of Iowa46
New York State Museum37
Neville Public Museum26
Cook County Forest Preserve District23
Univ. of Kansas23
Lawrence Univ.22
Univ. of Nebraska State Museum22
Kansas State Historical Society17
Grand Rapids Public Museum14
Univ. of Toledo14
Wayne State Univ.14
Hastings Museum13
Cranbrook Institute of Science11
Michigan State Historic Preservation Office11
Ball State Univ.6
Tioga Point Museum6
Kenosha Public Museum5
New York Univ.3
Dept. of the Interior3
BIA (2)
Reclamation, Great Plains Region, Nebraska-Kansas Area Office (1)
Alma College2
Brigham Young Univ.2
Cleveland Museum of Natural History2
Nassau County Dept. of Parks and Recreation2
Rochester Museum and Science Center2
SUNY Univ. at Buffalo2
St. Joseph Museums, Inc.2
Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer2
Univ. of Pennsylvania2
Cass County Historical Society Museum1
History Nebraska1
Mutter Museum, College of Physicians of Philadelphia1
Palmer Foundation for Chiropractic History1
Putnam Museum1
Springfield Science Museum1
Dept. of Agriculture1
Univ. of Missouri, St. Louis1
Univ. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee1
Counties of interest used in estimate include: Arapahoe and Weld in Colorado. Allamakee, Appanoose, Audubon, Benton, Black Hawk, Boone, Bremer, Buchanan, Buena Vista, Butler, Calhoun, Carroll, Cass, Cedar, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Clay, Clayton, Clinton, Crawford, Dallas, Davis, Delaware, Des Moines, Dickinson, Dubuque, Fayette, Floyd, Franklin, Fremont, Greene, Grundy, Guthrie, Hamilton, Hardin, Henry, Humboldt, Ida, Iowa, Jackson, Jasper, Jefferson, Johnson, Jones, Keokuk, Lee, Linn, Louisa, Lyon, Madison, Mahaska, Marion, Marshall, Mills, Monona, Monroe, Montgomery, Muscatine, O Brien, O'brien, Page, Plymouth, Pocahontas, Polk, Pottawattamie, Poweshiek, Ringgold, Sac, Scott, Shelby, Sioux, Story, Tama, Van Buren, Wapello, Warren, Washington, Webster, Winnebago, Winneshiek, Woodbury, Worth and Wright in Iowa. Adams, Brown, Bureau, Carroll, Cook, Hancock, Henderson, Henry, Jo Daviess, La Salle, Lake, Mchenry, Mercer, Pike, Rock Island, Stephenson, Whiteside, Will and Winnebago in Illinois. Delaware in Indiana. Atchison, Doniphan, Leavenworth and Lyon in Kansas. Allegan, Arenac, Bay, Berrien, Cass, Clinton, Emmet, Grand Traverse, Huron, Ingham, Ionia, Iosco, Kalamazoo, Kent, Lapeer, Livingston, Mackinac, Macomb, Mecosta, Midland, Missaukee, Monroe, Montcalm, Newaygo, Oakland, Ottawa, Saginaw, Sanilac, Shiawassee, St. Clair, St. Joseph, Tuscola and Wayne in Michigan. Adair, Andrew, Atchison, Audrain, Buchanan, Callaway, Clark, Clay, Clinton, Dekalb, Gentry, Holt, Jackson, Knox, Lewis, Lincoln, Marion, Monroe, Montgomery, Nodaway, Pike, Platte, Putnam, Ralls, Schuyler, Scotland, Shelby and Warren in Missouri. Adams, Antelope, Boone, Boyd, Burt, Cass, Cedar, Chase, Cherry, Cuming, Custer, Dakota, Dawes, Dawson, Dixon, Dodge, Douglas, Dundy, Franklin, Frontier, Furnas, Gage, Garden, Garfield, Hall, Harlan, Hitchcock, Hooker, Howard, Keith, Keya Paha, Knox, Lancaster, Lincoln, Mcpherson, Morrill, Nance, Nemaha, Otoe, Platte, Red Willow, Richardson, Sarpy, Saunders, Sherman, Sioux, Stanton, Thayer, Thurston, Valley, Washington and Webster in Nebraska. Madison in Ohio. Brown, Crawford, Door, Forest, Grant, Green Lake, Iowa, Jefferson, Kenosha, Lafayette, Marathon, Milwaukee, Oneida, Pierce, Richland, Rock, Sheboygan, Walworth, 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