Editing Body snatching (section)

===Race and body snatching===
Public graveyards were not only arranged by social and economic standing, but also by race.  New York was 15% black in the 1780s. "Bayley's dissecting tables, as well as those of Columbia College" often took bodies from the segregated section of Potter's Field, the Negroes Burying Ground. Free blacks as well as slaves were buried there. In February 1787, a group of free blacks petitioned the city's common council about the medical students, who "under cover of night...dig up the bodies of the deceased, friends and relatives of the petitioners, carry them away without respect to age or sex, mangle their flesh out of wanton curiosity and then expose it to beasts and birds."<ref name=trafficdead/>

In the [[Antebellum period|antebellum]] [[American South]], bodies of enslaved workers were routinely used for anatomical study; in one case that has been studied, 80% of the corpses dissected at [[Transylvania University]] in the 1830s and 1840s were African American.<ref name=Van/>{{rp|180}} The ready availability of such bodies was cited as an incentive to enroll by Southern medical schools such as the [[Medical University of South Carolina|Medical College of South Carolina]]. According to [[Hampden-Sydney]], in [[Richmond, Virginia]], "from the peculiarity of our institutions [slavery], materials [anatomical subjects] can be obtained in abundance, and we believe are not surpassed if equaled by any city in the country."<ref name=Van/>{{rp|183–184}} In fact the ready availability of [Black] corpses was cited as a reason why Richmond would be a good place to found a medical school.<ref>{{cite news
|title=Benefits of slavery
|newspaper=[[The Colored American (New York City)|The Colored American]]
|date=March 29, 1838
|page=1
|via=[[Accessible Archives]]
|url=https://accessible.com/accessible/emailedURL?AADoc=THECOLOREDAMERICAN.FR1838032902.03445}}</ref> The largest burial ground for enslaved and free people of color in the United States, the [[Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground]] is located in Richmond.

The bodies of criminals about to be executed were routinely requested of authorities for this purpose. In 1859, after [[Virginia v. John Brown|John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry]], Virginia, the University of Virginia and [[Winchester Medical College]] both requested the cadavers of those about to be hanged.<ref name=Van>{{cite book
|title=Educated in Tyranny: Slavery at Thomas Jefferson's University
|editor-first1=Maurie D.
|editor-last1=McInnis
|editor-link1=Maurie D. McInnis
|editor-first2=Louis P.
|editor-last2=Nelson
|year=2019
|publisher=[[University of Virginia Press]]
|location=[[Charlottesville, Virginia]]
|isbn=9780813942865
|pages=171–198
|chapter=Anatomical Theater
|first=Kirt
|last=van Daacke}}</ref>{{rp|191}} Four, three black ([[Shields Green]], [[John Anthony Copeland Jr.]], and Jeremiah Anderson), and one white ([[John Brown (abolitionist)|John Brown]]'s son Watson Brown), were obtained by the latter college. In retaliation, [[Union (Civil War)|Union]] troops burned Winchester Medical College in 1862; it never reopened.<ref>{{cite web
|title=A 'Malicious Design': Burning the Winchester Medical College
|publisher=Historical Markers Database
|url= https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=126603
|access-date=September 5, 2020}}</ref>

In December 1882, it was discovered that six bodies had been disinterred from [[Lebanon Cemetery]] and were en route to [[Jefferson Medical College]] for dissection.  Philadelphia's African Americans were outraged, and a crowd assembled at the city morgue, where the discovered bodies had been sent.  Reportedly, one of the crowd urged the group to swear that they would seek revenge for those who participated in desecration of the graves.  Another man screamed when he discovered the body of his 29-year-old brother. The Philadelphia Press broke the story when a teary elderly woman identified her husband's body, whose burial she had afforded only by begging for the $22 at the wharves where he had been employed.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.legalaffairs.org/printerfriendly.msp?id=261 |archive-url=http://arquivo.pt/wayback/20091015071101/http://www.legalaffairs.org/printerfriendly.msp?id=261 |url-status=dead |archive-date=2009-10-15 |last=Bazelon |first=Emily |title=Grave Offense |website=legalaffairs.org }}</ref> Physician [[William S. Forbes]] was indicted, and the case led to passage of various Anatomical Acts.

After the public hanging of 39 Dakota warriors in the aftermath of the [[Dakota War of 1862]], a group of doctors removed the bodies under cover of darkness from their riverside grave, and each took some for himself. Doctor [[William Worrall Mayo]] received the body of a warrior called "Cut Nose" and dissected it in the presence of other doctors. He then cleaned and articulated the skeleton and kept the bones in an iron kettle in his office. [[Mayo brothers|His sons]] received their first lessons in osteology from this skeleton.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Doctors Mayo |last=Clapesattle |first=Helen |year=1969 |publisher=Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research |location=Rochester, Minnesota |pages=36–37, 91 }}</ref>

For many years [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] burial sites have been used as a place for body-snatching. The bodies would be removed from their graves in the name of science. Usually the bodies would be removed without consent from relatives, and there was no attempt to reach relatives. When these bodies are removed they are given to museums to be put on display. Even if the tribe or relatives found out about the bodies being on display, they did not have the authority to have the bodies removed and returned. In November 1990 the [[Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act#:~:text=The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act is a,the Water Resources Department Act.|Native American Protection and Repatriation Act]] was signed.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Highet |first=Megan J. |date=2005-12-01 |title=Body Snatching & Grave Robbing: Bodies for Science |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/02757200500390981 |journal=History and Anthropology |volume=16 |issue=4 |pages=415–440 |doi=10.1080/02757200500390981 |s2cid=162248891 |issn=0275-7206|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

During the early 1800s in Michigan the first Indian graves were robbed. Even though it was known at the time that Indian burial sites were considered sacred and should not be tampered with, many still dug up skulls and skeletal remains. During this incident two Indian burial sites were tampered with. In the first site the entire body was taken while in the second the head was cut off. Robert McKain was seen carrying the head back into the barracks with it wrapped in a handkerchief. It was shown that he had previously been accused of taking Indian heads from burial sites to give to paying surgeons.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Peters |first=Bernard C. |date=1997 |title=Indian-Grave Robbing at Sault Ste. Marie, 1826 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20173675 |journal=Michigan Historical Review |volume=23 |issue=2 |pages=49–80 |doi=10.2307/20173675 |jstor=20173675 |issn=0890-1686|url-access=subscription }}</ref>