Garrett W. Wright

Garrett Wright explores the ways in which American Indians living in the Central Great Plains (the mixed=grass prairie between the Platte and Arkansas rivers) diplomatically engaged with outsiders to protect their homelands and profit from the rapid changes of the eighteenth century. He follows the Otoes, Missourias, Kaws, Pawnees, and Iowas as they traveled across the North American continent and around the globe to negotiate with their Indian and European neighbors. In his dissertation, Garrett argues that these Central Plains nations leveraged their position at the nexus of continental trade routes to expand their networks of alliances, defy imperial monopolies, and expand their territory even as other American Indians across the continent endured increasing European encroachment.