He has been credited with the name Oklahoma (Choctaw word meaning "Home of the Red Man" in English) for the land that would become the state.

[1] Allen Wright was born Kiliahote ("Come, let's make a light")[2] in Attala County, Mississippi, in November 1826, at that time still a part of the Choctaw Nation.

The father and surviving members of the family left Mississippi in October 1833 and settled in what is now McCurtain County, Oklahoma, in March 1834, during the period of forced Indian Removal by the federal government from the Southeast.

He enrolled at Union College in Schenectady, New York, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in July 1852 and joined a fraternity.

[4] 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, 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:[1][4] One of their sons, Eliphalet Nott Wright (1858–1932), became a medical doctor and later also served as president of the Choctaw Oil Company.

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.

When the war ended, Choctaw Chief Peter Pitchlynn sent him as a delegate to the Fort Smith conference, where an armistice was signed with the United States.

Some of his major accomplishments were based on his extensive education and included:[4] Wright was a polyglot, speaking in addition to his native Choctaw, English, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew.

[9] Wright represented the Choctaw Nation at the Fort Smith Council and signed the Reconstruction Treaty of 1866.