Shawnee Tribe
A federally recognized Indian tribe with headquarters in Oklahoma
Institutions reported making the remains of more than 9,700 Native Americans available for return to the Shawnee Tribe.
The tribe was also eligible to claim more than 53,800 associated funerary objects.
Institutions continue to hold the remains of at least 17,400 Native Americans taken from counties known to be of interest to the tribe.*
Where Native American remains made available for return to the Shawnee Tribe were taken from
These 54 institutions made Native American remains available for return to the Shawnee Tribe.
Timeline of Native American remains made available for return to the Shawnee Tribe
These institutions have not made available for return the remains of at least 17,400 Native Americans that were taken from counties known to be of interest to the Shawnee Tribe.
Institution | Remains Not Made Available for Return That Were Taken From Counties of Interest to the Tribe |
---|---|
Ohio History Connection | 6,405 |
Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville | 2,386 Frank H. McClung Museum (1,541) Dept. of Anthropology (845) |
Harvard Univ. | 1,872 |
Univ. of Alabama | 1,742 |
Auburn Univ. | 759 |
Indiana Univ. | 610 Dept. of Anthropology (412) Glenn A. Black Lab. of Archeology (198) |
Univ. of Kentucky | 579 |
Cincinnati Museum Center | 422 |
Univ. of Michigan | 344 |
Field Museum | 274 |
Univ. of Louisville | 224 |
Univ. of Toledo | 186 |
Univ. of Cincinnati | 157 |
Ball State Univ. | 148 |
American Museum of Natural History | 147 |
Tennessee Dept. of Environment and Conservation | 145 |
West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History | 106 |
Dept. of Defense | 89 Nashville District (67) Huntington District (17) National Museum of Health and Medicine (5) |
Cleveland Museum of Natural History | 71 |
Western Kentucky Univ. | 70 |
Allen County Museum and Historical Society | 65 |
Illinois State Museum | 62 |
Dayton Museum of Natural History | 55 |
Northwestern Univ. | 44 |
Virginia Dept. of Historic Resources | 43 |
Gilcrease Museum | 29 |
Cleveland State Univ. | 28 |
Heidelberg Univ. | 26 |
Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites Corporation | 26 |
Dept. of the Interior | 23 Mammoth Cave NP (18) Big South Fork NRRA (2) Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge (2) Chautauqua NWR (1) |
Case Western Reserve Univ. | 21 |
Univ. of Pennsylvania | 21 |
Northern Kentucky Univ. | 19 |
Tennessee Valley Authority | 19 |
Grand Rapids Public Museum | 17 |
Wayne State Univ. | 14 |
Dept. of Energy | 13 |
Charleston Museum | 9 |
Ohio Univ. | 9 |
Michigan State Historic Preservation Office | 8 |
Tippecanoe County Historical Association | 8 |
Dartmouth College | 7 |
Kent State Univ. | 7 |
Purdue Univ. | 7 |
Dept. of Agriculture | 7 |
Yale Univ. | 7 |
Filson Historical Society | 6 |
Indiana State Univ. | 6 |
Univ. of Notre Dame | 6 |
Hardin County Historical Museums | 5 |
New York Univ. | 5 |
Robert S. Peabody Institute of Archaeology | 5 |
State Museum of Pennsylvania | 5 |
Univ. of Memphis | 5 |
Rochester Museum and Science Center | 4 |
Beloit College | 3 |
Univ. of Florida | 3 |
Alma College | 2 |
Bridgewater College | 2 |
Carnegie Museum of Natural History | 2 |
Clark County Historical Museum | 2 |
Earlham College | 2 |
Hastings Museum | 2 |
Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum | 2 |
Marshall Univ. | 2 |
Minnesota Indian Affairs Council | 2 |
Univ. of Tennessee, Chattanooga | 2 |
Henry County Historical Society | 1 |
Louisiana State Exhibit Museum | 1 |
Mercyhurst Univ. | 1 |
Milwaukee Public Museum | 1 |
Newark Museum | 1 |
The History Museum | 1 |
Univ. of Akron | 1 |
Univ. of Alabama, Birmingham | 1 |
Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | 1 |
Univ. of Nebraska State Museum | 1 |
Wisconsin Historical Society | 1 |
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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