Allen Wright ( cho, Kiliahote, italic=no) (born November 1826 – December 2, 1885) was Principal Chief of the
Choctaw Republic from late 1866 to 1870. He had been ordained as a
Presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their n ...
minister in 1852 after graduating from
Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He was very active in the Choctaw government, holding several elected positions. He has been credited with the name ''
Oklahoma
Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New ...
'' (Choctaw word meaning "Home of the Red Man" in English) for the land that would become the state.
[Meserve, John Bartlett. ''Chronicles of Oklahoma'' vol. 19, no. 4, December,1941. Retrieved December 17, 2012]
Chronicles of Oklahoma
After serving in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, Wright was elected as Principal Chief, serving from 1866 to 1870. He was among the signatories of the
Reconstruction Treaty of 1866 to re-establish peace with the United States. Wright served as superintendent of schools for the Choctaw Nation from 1880 to 1884.
Early life
Allen Wright was born ''Kiliahote'' ("Come, let’s make a light") in
Attala County, Mississippi
Attala County is a county located in the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2010 census, the population was 19,564. Its county seat is Kosciusko. Attala County is named for Atala, a fictional Native American heroine from an early-19th-centu ...
, in November 1826, at that time still a part of the
Choctaw Nation
The Choctaw Nation (Choctaw: ''Chahta Okla'') is a Native American territory covering about , occupying portions of southeastern Oklahoma in the United States. The Choctaw Nation is the third-largest federally recognized tribe in the United St ...
.
His father was ''Ishtemahilvbi'', and his mother a full-blood Choctaw who died in June 1832. The father and surviving members of the family left Mississippi in October 1833 and settled in what is now
McCurtain County, Oklahoma
McCurtain County is in the southeastern corner of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of the 2010 census, the population was 33,151. Its county seat is Idabel. It was formed at statehood from part of the earlier Choctaw Nation in Indian Territo ...
, in March 1834, during the period of forced
Indian Removal
Indian removal was the United States government policy of forced displacement of self-governing tribes of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands in the eastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi Riverspecifically, to a ...
by the federal government from the Southeast.
According to a biography published by the ''Chronicles of Oklahoma'', Kiliahote's father died in 1839.
The youth was taken in by Reverend
Cyrus Kingsbury
Cyrus Kingsbury (November 22, 1786 – June 27, 1870) was a Christian missionary active among the American Indians in the nineteenth century. He first worked with the Cherokee and founded Brainerd Mission near Chickamauga, Tennessee, later he ser ...
near
Doaksville, and attended a mission school at
Pine Ridge. He was given his English name, Allen Wright, by the Presbyterian missionaries. The surname honored Reverend Alfred Wright, a noted Presbyterian missionary to the Choctaw.
[May, John D]
"Wright, Allen,"
''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture'', Oklahoma Historical Society, Accessed July 1, 2015.
After four years, Wright entered
Spencer Academy
Spencer may refer to:
People
*Spencer (surname)
**Spencer family, British aristocratic family
** List of people with surname Spencer
* Spencer (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name)
Places
Australia
*Spencer, New ...
, the main Choctaw tribal school, where he studied from 1844 to 1848.
Kiliahote was raised in Choctaw traditions. He had begun to learn about Christianity from missionary teachers, especially Presbyterians. In April 1846, at the age of 20, he joined the Presbyterian Church. He began later to consider a career in the ministry and ultimately went to seminary.
Wright was one of four students chosen by the Choctaw Council to attend college in an eastern state of the United States. Wright attended
Delaware College
The University of Delaware (colloquially UD or Delaware) is a public land-grant research university located in Newark, Delaware. UD is the largest university in Delaware. It offers three associate's programs, 148 bachelor's programs, 121 mas ...
in
Newark, Delaware
Newark ( )Not as in Newark, New Jersey. is a small city in New Castle County, Delaware, United States. It is located west-southwest of Wilmington. According to the 2010 Census, the population of the city is 31,454. Newark is home to the Un ...
, from 1848 to 1850; that year the school closed. He enrolled at
Union College
Union College is a private liberal arts college in Schenectady, New York. Founded in 1795, it was the first institution of higher learning chartered by the New York State Board of Regents, and second in the state of New York, after Columbia Co ...
in
Schenectady, New York
Schenectady () is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2020 census, the city's population of 67,047 made it the state's ninth-largest city by population. The city is in eastern New Yo ...
, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in July 1852 and joined a fraternity.
In September 1852 Wright entered
Union Theological Seminary in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. He earned a Master of Arts degree in Theology in May 1855. He was the first Native American student from Indian Territory to earn this degree.
After graduation from the seminary, he was ordained as a minister by the
Presbyterian Church
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
.
He returned to the Choctaw Nation and became the principal instructor at
Armstrong Academy
Chahta Tamaha (Choctaw Town) served as the capital of the Choctaw Nation from 1863 to 1883 in Indian Territory. The town developed initially around the Armstrong Academy, which was operated by Protestant religious missionaries from 1844 to 1861 to ...
during the 1855–1856 school term. This was a school for Choctaw boys in
Chahta Tamaha, operated by Presbyterian missionaries.
Marriage and family
On February 11, 1857, Wright married Harriet Newell Mitchell, a European-American woman from Ohio whom he met at the Choctaw Nation. Born August 16, 1834, in
Dayton, Ohio
Dayton () is the List of cities in Ohio, sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County, Ohio, Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County, Ohio, Greene County. The 2020 United S ...
, she had been sent by the Presbyterian Board of Missions to the Choctaw Nation in 1855 to serve as a missionary. The couple had eight children together.
One of their sons, Eliphalet Nott Wright (1858–1932), became a medical doctor and later also served as president of the Choctaw Oil Company.
[Wright, Muriel H. "A Brief Review of the Life of Doctor Eliphalet Nott Wright (1858–1932)](_blank)
" ''Chronicles of Oklahoma''. Vol. 10, No. 2, June 1932. Accessed August 19, 2016. One of their granddaughters was
Muriel Hazel Wright, who became a noted Oklahoma author and historian.
Political career and service during the Civil War
Wright became a member of the Choctaw Council in 1856. He was elected treasurer of the Choctaw Nation in 1859, and a member of the Choctaw Council in 1861.
According to the ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture'', he was elected to two terms in the Choctaw House of Representatives and to three terms as treasurer of the Choctaw Nation.
Wright was among the signatories to the 1861 treaty that allied the Choctaw Nation with the
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States or the Confederacy was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confeder ...
. The Choctaw and some of the other Southeast tribes believed the Confederacy's promise of establishing a Native American state if they won the war. Subsequently, Wright he joined the Confederate Army.
Wright joined Captain Wilkin's Company of Choctaw infantry on July 25, 1862. He was transferred to Company F of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Mounted Rifles on June 13, 1863. When the war ended, Choctaw Chief
Peter Pitchlynn
Peter Perkins Pitchlynn ( cho, Hatchootucknee, italic=no, ) (January 30, 1806 – January 17, 1881) was a Choctaw chief of Choctaw and Anglo-American ancestry. He was principal chief of the Choctaw Republic from 1864-1866 and surrendered to the ...
sent him as a delegate to the Fort Smith conference, where an armistice was signed with the United States.
Post-Civil War
Wright was elected Principal Chief of the Choctaw Tribe in 1866, and served until 1870. Some of his major accomplishments were based on his extensive education and included:
*Translating laws of the Chickasaw Nation from English into Chickasaw
*Compiling a Choctaw dictionary for use in tribal schools.
*Translating the Book of Psalms (from the Bible) from Hebrew into Choctaw
Wright was a polyglot, speaking in addition to his native Choctaw,
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ...
,
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
,
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
, and
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
.
Wright represented the Choctaw Nation at the
Fort Smith Council and signed the
Reconstruction Treaty of 1866. When the Federal commissioners proposed to consolidate all of the Indian Territories tribes under an intertribal council, he suggested the term ''Oklahoma'' as the name for the Territory.
In 1885, Wright served as editor and translator of the ''Indian Champion''. He was a charter member of the first
Masonic lodge
A Masonic lodge, often termed a private lodge or constituent lodge, is the basic organisational unit of Freemasonry. It is also commonly used as a term for a building in which such a unit meets. Every new lodge must be warranted or chartered ...
in Indian Territory, present-day Oklahoma.
He was also a member of the Royal Arch Masons in Maryland, which he had joined in 1866.
Wright served as superintendent of schools for the Choctaw Nation from 1880 to 1884.
Wright died in
Boggy Depot, Indian Territory on December 2, 1885. He had been riding a circuit to evangelize the Gospel. After having to swim a river to continue his journey, he contracted
pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severit ...
. He was buried in the Boggy Depot cemetery.
His widow Harriet died December 25, 1894, in the town of
Atoka. She was buried next to him in Boggy Depot.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wright, Allen
Choctaw people
Converts to Christianity
1826 births
1885 deaths
Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma politicians
Native American Christians
People from Attala County, Mississippi
People of Indian Territory
Union Theological Seminary (New York City) alumni
Translators of the Bible into indigenous languages of the Americas
19th-century translators
Native American leaders
Native Americans in the American Civil War