Two skulls taken in slavery era returned to Brazil from Harvard, awaiting burial

Two skulls taken from Brazil to the United States in the slavery era were repatriated on Wednesday. The remains had been used in racist eugenics studies at Harvard University, according to the report.

One skull was taken about 190 years ago from Salvador, the capital of the state of Bahia. The other was taken about 160 years ago from Rio de Janeiro. Both cities welcomed them back in moving, subdued ceremonies.

The skulls are believed to have belonged to Africans or Afro-Brazilians. During the transatlantic slave trade, Brazil received more enslaved Africans than any other country.

Brazilian diplomats carried each skull back by flight in a padded box inside a reinforced suitcase. A four-year campaign sought their recovery from Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

Brazilian researchers from local universities will now try to learn more about who the two individuals were. The skulls will not be displayed in museums and their images will not be released.

The Brazilian government has pledged that they will be buried with funeral rites as soon as the identification process is complete.

Carolina Dias dos Reis, a government official who travelled to Boston to sign the agreement with Harvard, said: "It's very important to restore the dignity of these people, which was taken from them in life and in death."

The existence of the skulls was revealed in 2022. Brazilian researchers sought their repatriation from Harvard, but faced a drawn-out process that only moved forward after the Brazilian government became involved in late 2024.

The skull taken from Salvador is believed to have belonged to a man who took part in the most significant urban slave revolt in Brazilian history, in 1835, when about 600 African Muslims attempted to seize control of what was then the country's second most important city. They were defeated by police, who killed 70 rebels.

The man died at a hospital, and a US diplomat, Gideon T Snow, is believed to have sent the skull to Boston. The Bahia Islamic Cultural Centre has named the man Arakunrin, meaning brother in Yoruba.

Even less is known about the other person: initially, only that they were an individual exhumed from the 'streets of Rio de Janeiro' in the 1860s. On Wednesday Brazilian officials said Harvard researchers had told them some features suggested it may have belonged to a woman.

Historian Bruno Veras believes the skull may have been taken from a cemetery for newly arrived Africans who either did not survive the long Atlantic crossing or died soon after disembarking. The person believed to have taken it to the US was Walter Hunnewell, a student from a wealthy Boston family who was part of an expedition led by Harvard professor Louis Agassiz.

Researchers in forensic anthropology will now try to confirm the sex of the individuals and other information through measurements of the skulls — the one in Salvador is complete, while the one in Rio is missing its jaw — and microscopic analyses. If necessary, they will seek authorisation for genetic or dating tests.

Irina Feisthauer Silveira, a diplomat who carried one of the skulls, said: "This history of slavery cannot be undone. But acknowledging the mistakes of the past with transparency is a first step towards building a more equal, just and less violent future."