Harvard Crimson: Draft report details thousands of Indigenous remains owned by Harvard

Rachael Devaney Cape Cod Times 

Pubished June 7, 2022 

CAMBRIDGE — With roughly thousands of Indigenous ancestors' remains in its possession, John "Jim" Peters said Harvard University is facing a mountainous task in returning them to tribal nations.

"They have quite a few ancestors there from all over the place," said Peters, a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and executive director of the Massachusetts Commission on Indian Affairs. "All over the world actually."

A recent article in The Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper, said it was in possession of a draft report, dated April 19, reportedly written by Harvard's Steering Committee on Human Remains in Harvard Museum Collections.

The steering committee was composed in January 2021 to support the museum’s long-term commitment to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGPRA, and the ethical and moral imperative it represents, according to Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology's website.

Possible presence of human remains at Peabody Museum

The Crimson article states that the draft report reveals that the Peabody Museum “holds the human remains of at least 19 individuals, who were likely enslaved and almost 7,000 Native Americans.”

While the student newspaper didn't publish the report, the story quoted portions of recommendations included in the document — one of which advises Harvard to expedite the return of remains to descendants, in compliance with NAGPRA. The article does not state how the newspaper obtained the draft report. 

NAGPRA laws, which were instituted in 1990, make it illegal to dig up indigenous graves and their contents, and include congressional orders and legal processes for museums and educational institutions to follow when returning Native American remains and associated cultural items to tribal nations.

In a press release provided to the Times by Harvard, Evelynn M. Hammonds, professor of history of science and African American studies and former dean of Harvard, expressed her regret that the student newspaper chose to report on an initial and incomplete draft report. 

“Releasing this draft is irresponsible reporting and robs the Committee of finalizing its report and associated actions, and puts in jeopardy the thoughtful engagement of the Harvard community in its release," the release stated. "Further, it shares an outdated version with the Harvard community that does not reflect weeks of additional information and Committee work."

Hammond apologized to parties that would be negatively impacted by news of the draft report.

"Once the Committee is ready to release our final report and recommendations, we look forward to the University sharing it publicly in a responsible and inclusive manner," the release stated.

Working to return ancestors from Harvard museums

For roughly 30 years, since NAGPRA was instituted, Peters said he has worked to return roughly 500 ancestors from Harvard museums to North Eastern tribal nations, including the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. Since NAGPRA was signed into law, Peters said Harvard has inventoried and consulted with various tribal groups to return human remains.

"We have been working with them over the course of time to help them comply with the law — to bring ancestors home," he said. "And we will continue to try to do that and then find places for them so they won't be disturbed again."

Peters called the work disturbing — but also helpful. Through collaboration with Harvard staff and state archaeologists, Peters said they've traced back to where some of the ancestors were initially found.

"It's been an education just to learn more about where villages were and things like that. It's been helpful in that respect," he said. "And it's disturbing. But that's part of America."

While Brian Weeden, chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, said he's waiting for more information surrounding the leaked draft report to surface before he comments, Melissa Ferretti, chairwoman of the Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe, said it's no secret that Harvard — or any other university across the country has been holding remains for centuries. 

"When remains belong to the local tribes, they should be returned obviously. It shouldn’t be such a long, painful process."

Ferretti said NAGPRA laws are pretty clear on returning remains.

"It appears that they (Harvard) could be dragging their feet," she said. "We know that this goes on. We have different colleges, institutions, museums — all of these places — that have these remains and cultural items and feel a sense of ownership of them."

The intention of NAGPRA, said Shannon O'Loughlin, chief executive and attorney for the Association on American Indian Affairs, is to repair harm created by educational institutions and museums. Congress recognized, she said, that museums don’t have the right of possession for the human body and the cultural and funerary items that were stolen from tribes over the last several centuries.

"They (Congress) set a really low bar of what needs to be shown to repatriate and return these items," she said. "Harvard still treats the process as if it’s a scientific research process. They want to continue their research dollars. So the bigger their collection, the better for them."

While O'Loughlin has been investigating museums with a high number of Native American ancestors in collections, she said she hasn't seen the leaked report from Harvard's steering committee. But throughout the association's work, she said comments from dozens of tribal nations, indicate that Harvard has repeatedly stood in the way of repatriation efforts. A strategy to keep remains in museum collections, she said, is by declaring them as unidentifiable, even though 96% of human remains within museum custody, have geographic location information, and variable belongings with them.  

"It is their research policy, that if there are (unidentifiable) human remains in their collections, they can do research on them," she said. "That means destructive DNA research or other types of research can be done."

Research conducted on Indigenous ancestors

In his dealings with Harvard, Peters said he has learned that research was regularly conducted on Indigenous ancestors by Harvard, and other institutions, comparing body and brain size between races.  

"Those types of things have happened over the course of America's history. And it's not just Harvard," he said. "It's universities and museums around the country. And they all have ancestors that they need to return." 

O'Loughlin agreed and said neither the association nor tribal nations, have any idea what additional research has been done over the years.

"None of that (research) has been shared with those communities that are connected to those ancestors," she said. "Whether those communities are Native Americans (or) whether they're from enslaved people or otherwise."

Human remains number in the thousands, according to Crimson article

The Crimson article reported the museum's collection outside the Peabody Museum number closer to 22,000 human remains. O'Loughlin said she doesn't think Harvard has repatriated even half of that collection. 

"We have seen other museums with large collections do much better than what Harvard has done," she said.

On its website, the Peabody Museum states that it "must critically engage with its challenging legacy of Eurocentrism and recognize collections as the cultural heritage of the communities from which they originate."

But O'Loughlin, who is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, said if that was Harvard's intention, it would work hand-in-hand, on an equal basis, with affiliated tribal nations to understand what's in their collections.

"Instead, they're trying to keep it all in-house, nice and secret," she said. "I mean, (they have) 7,000 Native Americans in their basements in boxes. They only have maybe 100 Native students on their campus. So, what are they really trying to do? Who are they really serving?"

For Ferretti, all the ancestors should make their way back to tribal nations — no matter the efforts on Harvard's part to make that happen. 

"We all know that they're not ever really home if they are sitting in a museum display box," she said.

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