Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990

Historical Context of NAGPRA

Since the colonization of North America and the Hawaiian Islands, Indigenous Peoples have endured the desecration of gravesites and the theft of cultural objects. Initially, indigenous sites were destroyed to obtain natural resources and, later, to fill the cabinets of curiosities among the European elite. Regardless of the motives, European scholars and theologians argued that the Native peoples of the New World were barbaric, unreasoning, sunk in vice, incapable of learning, lacking a sophistication of language and cultural customs, and physically different from Europeans. Hence, Native Americans were viewed as lower on the scale of being, closer to a “natural” or “savage” state of humanness. Indigenous peoples were considered inferior and defective members of the human species.

By the 19th century, U.S. nation-building efforts under the policy of Manifest Destiny had led to the active collection of indigenous skeletal remains and artifacts, under the guise of promoting the racial sciences. American society required a science that would faithfully reflect societal inequities and reify the destiny of the nation-state to expand against neighboring “inferior,” “primitive” peoples. This scientific tradition determined the future social and moral progress of the nation for many years.

National progress demanded a body of knowledge that would explain and determine the course, nature, and shape of society, including America's “racial” composition. A hallmark of 19th-century scientific racism was the development of craniometry, the measurement of skulls, to scientifically prove that the varieties of humankind, including Native Americans, were conceived of as separate species or degenerated races that possessed certain characteristics that were deeply rooted in their descent.

Soldiers, missionaries, physicians, explorers, Indian agents, and natural historians actively engaged in gathering indigenous remains and cultural objects. Using the largest Native American skull collection in the world, Philadelphia physician Dr. Samuel G Morton published Crania Americana in 1839. [Page 948]Drawing on the science of phrenology and craniometry, Morton asserted the inferiority of the American Indian, concluding that this race possessed a “deficiency of ‘higher’ mental powers” and an “inaptitude for civilization.” In addition, the structure of an “Indian's” mind, Morton concluded, was quite different, making it impossible for European Americans and Native Americans to interact socially.

...