Two skulls likely belonging to enslaved people returned to Brazil after Harvard used them in eugenics

Uma cerimônia de entrega dos restos mortais, no Museu Nacional, no Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, na quarta‑feira. Fotografia: Ludmila Duarte/MDHC. Visualizar imagem em tela cheia.

Two skulls, including that of a man believed to have taken part in Brazil’s greatest slave revolt but whose remains were taken to the United States and used in racist eugenics studies at Harvard University, were repatriated on Wednesday.

Os restos haviam estado fora do Brasil desde o século XIX. Um foi levado há cerca de 190 anos de Salvador, capital do estado da Bahia; o outro, há cerca de 160 anos, de Rio de Janeiro – e foi recebido de volta em cerimônias emocionantes e contidas em ambas as cidades.

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

Each was brought back in a padded box inside a reinforced suitcase, carried on flights by Brazilian diplomats after a four-year campaign to recover the remains from Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in the US.

Pesquisadores brasileiros de universidades locais agora tentarão descobrir mais sobre quem eram os dois indivíduos.

View image in fullscreenA wood engraving depicting enslaved people being abused on a Brazilian sugar plantation, English, 1845. Photograph: Granger/Historical Picture Archive/AlamyThe skulls will not be displayed in museums or have their images released, and the Brazilian government has pledged that they will be buried with funeral rites as soon as the identification process is complete.

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

In recent months, concerns grew that Donald Trump’s sometimes hostile behaviour towards his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, could derail the repatriation.

Slavery was abolished in 1888, but nearly a century and a half later, Afro-Brazilians make up the majority of the population while occupying the bottom of every socioeconomic indicator, dominating the statistics on hunger, poverty, gender-based violence and victims of homicides committed by criminals or the police.

Durante a cerimônia de repatriação no Rio de Janeiro, Ivanir dos Santos, professor de história e clérigo da religião afro‑brasileira Candomblé, derramou um copo de água no chão enquanto os pesquisadores recebiam a mala.

Ver imagem em tela cheia Uma das caixas contendo um crânio, no Museu Nacional do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, na quarta-feira. Fotografia: Ludmila Duarte/MDHC Foi um ato ritual porque não se pode lidar com os restos de nossos ancestrais sem lhes prestar reverência.

This is not a research object … for us, that person is still alive in memory and as our ancestor,” he said.

Não se sabe exatamente a quem pertenciam os crânios. O que foi levado para Salvador acredita-se ter pertencido a um homem que participou da mais significativa revolta urbana de escravos na história brasileira, em 1835, quando cerca de 600 muçulmanos africanos tentaram tomar o controle da cidade que, na época, era a segunda mais importante do país.

They were ultimately 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, one of the most active campaigners for its repatriation, 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. Brazilian government officials, however, said on Wednesday that Harvard researchers had told them that some features – including that the skull was smaller than that of an adult man but larger than that of a child – suggested it may have belonged to a woman.

Bruno Veras, a historian who was part of the group that closely followed the repatriation, cross-referenced diaries, letters and maps of the city and 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.

A pessoa que se acredita ter levado para os EUA foi Walter Hunnewell, um estudante de uma família abastada de Boston. Ele fazia parte de uma expedição liderada pelo professor da Harvard, Louis Agassiz, que estava no Brasil tentando documentar tipos físicos para apoiar suas teorias racistas.

Pesquisadores em antropologia forense agora tentarão confirmar o sexo dos indivíduos e outras informações por meio de medições dos crânios – o de Salvador está completo, enquanto o de Rio está sem mandíbula – e análises microscópicas.

If necessary, they will seek authorisation to carry out genetic or dating tests.