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Sequoyah

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Sequoyah
ᏍᏏᏉᏯ
SE-QUO-YAH – a lithograph from History of the Indian Tribes of North America. This lithograph is from the portrait painted by Charles Bird King in 1828.
Bornc. 1770
Taskigi, Cherokee Nation (near present day Knoxville, Tennessee)[1]
Diedc. 1840
Tamaulipas, Mexico
NationalityCherokee
Other namesGeorge Guess or Gist
Occupation(s)silversmith, blacksmith, teacher, soldier
Spouse(s)1st: Sally (maiden name unknown), 2nd: U-ti-yu
ChildrenFour with first wife, three with second
Parent(s)Wut-teh and Nathaniel Gist

Sequoyah (ᏍᏏᏉᏯ Ssiquoya, as he signed his name,[2][3] or ᏎᏉᏯ Se-quo-ya, as his name is often spelled today in Cherokee) (c. 1770–1840), named in English George Gist or George Guess, was a Cherokee silversmith. In 1821 he completed his independent creation of a Cherokee syllabary, making reading and writing in Cherokee possible. This was the only time in recorded history that a member of a non-literate people independently created an effective writing system.[1][4] After seeing its worth, the people of the Cherokee Nation rapidly began to use his syllabary and officially adopted it in 1825. Their literacy rate quickly surpassed that of surrounding European-American settlers.[1]

Early life

Sequoyah's heroic status has led to several competing accounts of his life that are speculative, contradictory, or fabricated.[5]

James Mooney, a prominent anthropologist and historian of the Cherokee people, quoted a cousin as saying that as a little boy, Sequoyah spent his early years with his mother in the village of Tuskegee. Estimates of his birth year ranged from 1760 to 1776. His name is believed to come from the Cherokee word siqua meaning 'hog'. This is a reference either to a childhood deformity or to a later injury that left Sequoyah disabled.[6]

His mother, Wut-teh, was known to be Cherokee, belonging to the Red Paint Clan. Mooney stated that she was the niece of a Cherokee chief. McKinney and Hall noted that she was a niece of chiefs who have been identified as the brothers Old Tassel and Doublehead. Since John Watts (also known as Young Tassel) was a nephew of the two chiefs, it is likely that Wut-teh and John Watts were siblings.

Sources differ as to the identity of Sequoyah's father. Mooney and others suggested that he was possibly a fur trader, who would have been a man of some social status and financial backing.[7] Grant Foreman identified him as Nathaniel Gist, who later became a commissioned officer with the Continental Army associated with George Washington.[8] Josiah C. Nott claimed he was the "son of a Scotchman".[9] In one Cherokee source, his father is said to be a half-blood and his grandfather a white man.[10]

Marriage and family

Sequoyah first married Sally Waters, with whom he had four children. Another wife was Utiyu, with whom he had three children. He may have also had three other wives, since polygamy was common among the Cherokee. At some point before 1809, Sequoyah moved to Willstown, in present-day northeast Alabama. There he established his trade as a silversmith.[11]


Sequoyah had to deal with whites,as a silversmith,settled in the fferedrea. The Cherokee were impressed by their writing,they refered to it as the "talking leaves." Around 1809,Sequoyah began working a language for the Cherokee. At first he sought to create a character for each word. He spent a year on this effort, leaving his fields unplanted, so that his friends and neighbors thought he had lost his mind.

Sequoyah did not succeed until he gave up trying to represent entire words and developed a symbol for each syllable in the language. After approximately a month, he had a system of 86 , some of which were letters which he obtained from a spelling book. "In their present form, many of the syllabary characters resemble Roman," says Janine Scancarelli, a scholar of Cherokee writing, "but there is no apparent relationship between their sounds in other languages and in Cherokee."

Unable to find adults willing to learn the syllabary, he taught it to his daughter. He traveled to the Indian Reserves in the where some Cherokee had settled. When he tried to convince the local leaders of the syllabary's usefulness, they doubted him, believing that the symbols were merely reminders. Sequoyah asked each to say a word, which he wrote down, and then called his daughter in to read the words back. This demonstration convinced the leaders to let him teach the syllabary to a few more people. This took several months, during which it was rumored that he might be using the students for sorcery. After completing the lessons, Sequoyah wrote a dictated letter to each student, and read a dictated response. This test convinced the western Cherokee that he had created a practical writing system.

When Sequoyah returned east, he brought a sealed envelope containing a written speech from one of the Arkansas Cherokee leaders. By reading this speech, he convinced the eastern Cherokee also to learn the system, after which it spread rapidly. In 1825 the Cherokee Nation officially adopted the writing system. From 1828 to 1834, American missionaries assisted the Cherokee in using Sequoyah's syllabary to develop type characters and print the, the first of the Cherokee Nation, with text in both Cherokee and English.

Life in Arkansas and farther west

After the Nation accepted his syllabary in 1825, Sequoyah walked to the Cherokee lands in the Arkansas Territory. There he set up a blacksmith shop and a salt works. He continued to teach the syllabary to anyone who wished. In 1828, Sequoyah journeyed to Washington, D.C., as part of a delegation to negotiate a treaty for land in the planned Indian Territory.

During his trip, he met representatives of other Native American tribes. Inspired by these meetings, he decided to create a syllabary for universal use among Native American tribes. Sequoyah began to journey into areas of present-day Arizona and New Mexico, to meet with tribes there.

In addition, Sequoyah dreamed of seeing the splintered Cherokee Nation reunited. Sometime between 1843 and 1845, he died during a trip to Mexico, when he was seeking Cherokee who had moved there at the time of Indian Removal. His burial location is believed to be at the border of Mexico and Texas.

In 1938, the Cherokee Nation Principal Chief J. B. Milam funded an expedition to find Sequoyah's grave in Mexico.[12] A party of Cherokee and non-Cherokee scholars embarked from Eagle Pass, Texas, on January 1939. They found a grave site near a fresh water spring in Coahuila, Mexico, but could not conclusively determine the grave site was that of Sequoyah.[13]

In 2003, the Cherokee Nation of Mexico received a Congressional Record acknowledging the possible discovery of Sequoyah's burial site in Coahuila, Mexico, where pilgrimages were held for several years, in honor of his legacy.

Legacy and honors

Bronze panel featuring Sequoyah (1939), by Lee Lawrie. Library of Congress John Adams Building, Washington, D.C.

See also

Namesake honors

Notes

  1. ^ a b c Wilford, John Noble (22 June 2009). "Carvings From Cherokee Script's Dawn". New York Times. Retrieved 23 June 2009.
  2. ^ Morand, Ann (2003). Treasures of Gilcrease: Selections from the Permanent Collection. Tulsa, OK: Gilcrease Museum. ISBN 0-9725657-1-X. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ Holmes, Ruth Bradley (1976). Beginning Cherokee: Talisgo Galiquogi Dideliquasdodi Tsalagi Digoweli. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-1362-6. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  4. ^ "Sequoyah", New Georgia Encyclopedia, accessed 3 Jan 2009
  5. ^ Fogelson, Raymond D. (1974). "On the Varieties of Indian History: Sequoyah and Traveller Bird". Journal of Ethnic Studies. 2.
  6. ^ London, 193
  7. ^ Robert Bieder, "Sault-ste-marie-and-the-war-of-1812", Indiana Magazine of History, XCV (Mar 1999), accessed 13 Dec 2008
  8. ^ Samuel C. Williams (March 1937). "The Father of Sequoyah: Nathaniel Gist". Volume 15, No. 1. Chronicles of Oklahoma. pp. 10–11. Retrieved 27 September 2010.
  9. ^ Nott, Josiah C. (1849). "Two lectures on the connection between the Biblical and physical history of mankind" (Document). New York: Bartlett and Welford. p. 35Template:Inconsistent citations {{cite document}}: Unknown parameter |url= ignored (help)CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  10. ^ G. C. (13 August 1820). "Invention of the Cherokee Alphabet". Cherokee Phoenix. Vol. 1, no. 24.
  11. ^ Feeling, Durbin. Cherokee-English Dictionary: Tsalagi-Yonega Didehlogwasdohdi. Tahlequah, Oklahoma: Cherokee Nation, 1975: xvii
  12. ^ J. B. Milam, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa. Libraries & Cultures: Bookplate Archive. 2001 (retrieved 23 June 2009)
  13. ^ a b Meredith, Howard L. Bartley Milam: Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. Muskogee, Oklahoma: Indian University Press, 1985: 47. ISBN 0-940392-17-8
  14. ^ Sequoyah Birthplace Museum
  15. ^ Scheidt, Laurel. Hiking Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press, 2002: 68. ISBN 978-0-7627-1122-2 (retrieved through Google books, 23 June 2009)
  16. ^ Sequoyah Caverns and Ellis Homestead
  17. ^ "Welcome to Sequoyah Country Club". Retrieved 2 September 2010.

References

  • Bender, Margaret. (2002) Signs of Cherokee Culture: Sequoyah's Syllabary in Eastern Cherokee Life. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
  • Feeling, Durbin. Cherokee-English Dictionary: Tsalagi-Yonega Didehlogwasdohdi. Tahlequah, Oklahoma: Cherokee Nation, 1975: xvii
  • Holmes, Ruth Bradley; Betty Sharp Smith (1976). Beginning Cherokee: Talisgo Galiquogi Dideliquasdodi Tsalagi Digoweli. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-1362-6.
  • Foreman, Grant, Sequoyah, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman,OK, 1938.
  • McKinney, Thomas and Hall, James, History of the Indian Tribes of North America. (Philadelphia,PA, 1837–1844).
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sequoyah.
Wikisource has the text of the 1920 Encyclopedia Americana article Sequoyah.

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