Congress enacted the 1989 National Museum of the American Indian Act in response to the strategic advocacy of Native leaders, attorneys, scholars and community activists. The NMAI Act highlighted the historical and contemporary injustices that resulted in thousands of Native American ancestral remains and cultural objects being warehoused at the Smithsonian Museum and elsewhere. The NMAI Act created the National Museum of the American Indian and also prescribed laws and procedures to govern repatriation of the cultural objects held by the Smithsonian museum. One year later, Congress enacted the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, which set forth the process for all federal and federally-assisted museums, agencies and educational institutions to repatriate Native American human remains and cultural objects to affiliated Native Nations. NAGPRA also prescribed the rules that would apply to future excavations of Native American remains on federal and tribal lands.  These laws represented a commitment by the United States government to honor the human rights of Native peoples to reclaim their ancestral remains and cultural objects, and to redress a history of violence and dispossession.

     This gathering is intended to commemorate and acknowledge the significance of repatriation to Native sovereignty, self-determination and human rights.  This is not a conference celebrating "the law.” Rather, this is a gathering intended to elicit the core principles of cultural survival that led to the enactment of these laws. This gathering will evaluate the implementation of the laws, from the perspective of the peoples and communities that they were designed to serve.  It is our intention to focus on the agency of Native peoples in sustaining the cultural and political rights at the center of repatriation law.