Everything about Sequoyah totally explained
Sequoyah (ᏍᏏᏉᏱ
S-si-quo-ya in
Cherokee) (circa
1767 -
1843), known as
George Guess,
Guest or
Gist, was a
Cherokee silversmith who invented the
Cherokee syllabary.
Birth and early life
The exact place and date of Sequoyah's birth are unknown, since no written record exists.
James Mooney, a prominent anthropologist and historian of the Cherokee people, quoted a cousin in saying that as a little boy Sequoyah spent his early years with his mother in the village of
Tuskegee, Tennessee.
The names Sequoyah or Sequoia are both spellings given by missionaries, said to be as corruptions of the Cherokee name Sogwali or Sikwâ'yǐ which is believed to be derived from the Cherokee word
siqua meaning '
hog'. This is either a reference to a childhood deformity or a later injury that left Sequoyah
disabled (London, 193).
Of his mother, Wut-teh, it's known that she was a Cherokee and belonged to the
Paint Clan. Mooney states that she was the niece of a Cherokee
chief. His father was either
white or part-white and part
Native American. Sources differ as to the exact identity of Sequoyah's father, but many (including Mooney) suggest that he was possibly a
fur trader or the son of
Christopher Gist or Nathaniel Gist, a
scout for
George Washington.
The fact that Sequoyah didn't speak
English may be an indication that he and his mother were abandoned by his father. At some point before
1809, Sequoyah moved to the
Willstown of Alabama. There he established his trade as a silversmith. He may have fought in the
Creek War between
1813 and
1814 against the
Red Sticks. If he in fact was disabled, it's highly unlikely that he'd have fought, but his disability could have even been a result of the battle itself.
"Talking Leaves" and a syllabary
As a silversmith, Sequoyah dealt regularly with whites who had
settled in the area. Often, the Native Americans were impressed by their
writing, referring to their correspondence as "talking leaves". Around
1809, Sequoyah began work to create a system of writing for the Cherokee language. From 1828 to 1834 the language was used in the
Cherokee Phoenix which represented the
Cherokee Nation.
After attempting to create a
character for each word, Sequoyah decided to divide each word into
syllables and create one character for each syllable. Utilizing the
Roman alphabet and quite possibly the
Cyrillic alphabet, he created 86
characters to represent the various syllables. This work took Sequoyah 12 years to complete.
There was some doubt amongst his fellow Cherokee as to the worthiness of his syllabary. In order to prove his creation, Sequoyah taught his daughter Ah-yo-ka how to
read and write in Cherokee. After amazing locals with his new writing, Sequoyah attempted to display his feat to tribal
medicine men only to be rebuffed by them for being
possessed by evil
spirits. Sequoyah finally proved his feat to a gathering of
Chickamaugan warriors. Quickly news of the syllabary spread and the Cherokee were filling
schools in order to learn the new written language. By
1823 the syllabary was in full use by the Cherokee Nation. The writing system was made official by the Cherokee Nation in
1825. It is still used today by many Cherokee speakers, more in Oklahoma than in North Carolina (Bender 2002). It is used primarily in Christian worship and study, centered around reading the Scripture in Cherokee, but also by some for traditional medicine.
Life in Arkansas and further west
After the acceptance of his syllabary by the nation in 1825, Sequoyah walked to the new Cherokee territory in
Arkansas. There he set up a
blacksmith shop and a salt works. He continued to teach the syllabary to anyone who came to him. In
1828, Sequoyah journeyed to
Washington, D.C. as part of a
delegation to negotiate a treaty for land in
Oklahoma.
His trip brought him into contact with representatives of other Native American tribes from around the nation. With these meetings he decided to create a syllabary for universal use among all Native American tribes. With this in mind, Sequoyah began to journey to areas of present day
Arizona and
New Mexico seeking tribes there.
In addition, Sequoyah dreamed of seeing the splintered Cherokee Nation reunited. It was on a trip seeking Cherokees who had moved to
Mexico that he died between 1843 and 1845.
Sequoyah's Cabin, a frontier cabin that he lived in during 1829-1844, is located in Oklahoma. It was declared a
National Historic Landmark in 1965.
Sequoyah's namesakes
Further Information
Get more info on 'Sequoyah'.
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