They thrived on the northern plains, becoming known for their variedly rich and vibrant culture, as well as their diverse and far-reaching trade in agricultural and craft goods. In the next hundred years, this people would reach the pinnacle of their dominance over the area, as their numbers grew to around twelve thousand by the year 1500. The ancestors of the people who would eventually be known as the Mandans migrated to the fifty-mile stretch along the Missouri River between the mouths of the Knife and Cannonball rivers around the year 1400 AD. Fenn narrates the history of the Mandan Indians chronologically, explaining their first coalescing in the area, describing their cultural and economic heyday, and then examining one by one the causes of their dwindling numbers. This nonfiction book weaves together Fenn’s research into fragmented archives and primary sources recent archeological discoveries information gleaned by anthropologists, geologists, climatologists, epidemiologists, and nutritional scientists evidence gathered from paintings and drawings by frontier artists such as George Catlin and Karl Bodmer as well as her own detective work – creating a rich and detailed history of a nearly forgotten Native American tribe that flourished in the plains along the upper Missouri River before being almost entirely wiped out. Fenn won the Pulitzer Prize in History for her 2014 book, Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People.
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