Indian Removal Era Begins 1828-1849

1840s

Pseudoscientists study Native body parts in government-sponsored facilities

By the 1840s, grave robbing and beheading Indians at battle/massacre sites are in full swing. The U.S. military sends Native heads and body parts to government museums. Phrenology, a pseudoscience, is invoked to justify the desecration of Indian remains and support notions of Native intellectual inferiority and lack of civilizability (Utely, 1984).

Settler Colonial Policy