Reservation Era Begins 1850-1878

1868

U.S. Army and frontiersmen Native grave robbing

American military actively solicits Native grave robbing. On January 13, 1868, the U.S. Army urges “upon medical officers … the importance of collecting for the Army Medical Museum specimens of Indian crania and of Indian weapons and utensils, so far as they may be able to procure them” (Mills, 1868, as cited in Guilford, 1996, p. 124). The Surgeon General’s letter asking for American Indian remains is circulated to the Department of the Missouri at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; the Department of the Platte at Omaha, Nebraska; the Department of Dakota at Fort Snelling in Minnesota; and the Department of New Mexico at Santa Fe (Gulliford, 1996).

Settler Colonial Policy