The Smithsonian is Missing -- The Racist Dark History of Collecting Native Remains is Silenced

The Smithsonian exploits Native American arts and culture, while covering up its history of robbing graves and refusing to return Native American remains.

Whitewashing History and Harboring Native Remains

The Smithsonian paid bounties for Native American skulls for racist studies resulting in grave robbing, executions of Native people and the Massacre at Sand Creek. Today, the Smithsonian refuses to make the facts public, and delays the return of Native American remains to their homelands for reburial.

Brenda Norrell
Censored News
January 13, 2023

In a new database showing institutions harboring Native American remains -- the Smithsonian is missing.

The Smithsonian is concealing from the public its collection of more than 10,000 Native remains, and the dark history of its racist skull collection -- for the purpose of intelligence studies based on race -- which led to grave robbing. It was one reason for the Massacre at Sand Creek.

New database reveals where Native American human remains are being held

A depiction of one scene at Sand Creek by witness Howling Wolf Cheyenne

Give us our people back

Native American human remains are being held by museums and universities. Native Americans want to bring their ancestors home.

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

A new database reveals which museums and universities have human remains of Native Americans. It shows which places have made those available for return, and which ones have not.

The database by ProPublica shows those not returning remains to the Tohono O'odham Nation including the University of Arizona Museum and Arizona State Museum. The places that have not made remains available to Oglala Lakota in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, include Harvard University and Milwaukee Public Museum

“We never ceded or relinquished our dead. They were stolen,” James Riding In, Pawnee and longtime professor at Arizona State University professor, said of the unreturned remains.