| Notes |
- (The following was found on website of N. Georgia)
Sequoyah(a.k.a George Gist) a North Georgia Notable
Born: 1776 near Tuskeegee, Tennessee; Died: 1843, near Tyler, Texas.
Developed the Cherokee alphabet
(Sequoyah's mother, Wut-teh was sister to Chief Doublehead)
"Near the town of Tanasee, and not far from the almost mythical townof Chote lies Taskigi(Tuskeegee), home of Sequoyah. In this peacefulvalley setting Wut-teh, the daughter of a Cherokee Chief (Chief GreatEagle) , married Nathaniel Gist, a Virginia fur trader. The warriorSequoyah was born of this union in 1776. Probably born handicapped,and thus the name Sequoyah(Sikwo-yi is Cherokee for "pig's foot"),Sequoyah fled Tennessee as a youth because of the encroachment ofwhites. He initially moved to Georgia, where he acquired skillsworking with silver. While in the state, a man who purchased one ofhis works suggested that he sign his work, like the white silversmithshad begun to do. Sequoyah considered the idea and since he did notknow how to write he visited Charles Hicks, a wealthy farmer in thearea who wrote English. Hicks showed Sequoyah how to spell his name,writing the letters on a piece of paper. Sequoyah began to toy withthe idea of a Cherokee writing system that year(1809).
He moved to Willstown, Alabama, and enlisted in the Cherokee Regiment,fighting in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, which effectively ended thewar against the Creek Redsticks. During the war, he became convincedof the necessity of literacy for his people. He and other Cherokeeswere unable to write letters home, read military orders, or recordevents as they occurred. After the war, he began in earnest to createa writing system.
Using a phonetic system, where each sound made in speech wasrepresented by a symbol, he created "Talking Leaves", 85 letters thatmake up the Cherokee alphabet. His little girl Ayoka easily learnedthis method of communication. He demonstrated his syllabary to hiscousin, George Lowrey, who was impressed. A short time later in aCherokee Court in Chattooga, he read an argument about a boundary linefrom a sheet of paper. Word spread quickly of Sequoyah's invention. In1821, 12 years after the original idea, the Cherokee Nation adoptedSequoyah's alphabet as their own. Within months thousands of Cherokeebecame literate.
The crippled warrior moved west to Arkansas. Mining and selling saltfor money he was active in politics. In 1824 the National Council atNew Echota struck a silver medal in his honor. Later, publicationbegan on the first Native American newspaper, The Cherokee Phoenix inthe same town. The painting of Sequoyah was made in 1828 on a trip toWashington to negotiate terms for removal from Arkansas to Oklahoma.Leaving the state in 1829, he had lived in Oklahoma for 10 years whenPrincipal Chief John Ross led North Georgia Cherokee on the "Trail ofTears" to the state.
He died in Mexico (now Texas) in 1843 after possibly visiting familyin a band of Chickamauga Cherokee who had moved there earlier.Perhaps the most eloquent praise paid to Sequoyah was by H.A. Scomp,member of Emory College faculty, when he said " "...perhaps the mostremarkable man who has ever lived on Georgia soil was neither apolitician, nor a soldier, nor an ecclesiastic, nor a scholar, butmerely a Cherokee Indian of mixed blood. And strange to say, thisIndian acquired permanent fame, neither expecting or seeking it."
Below is another article from N. Georgia site
Realizing a key to development of the Cherokee Nation was a writtenlanguage, Sequoyah began work on a graphic representation of theCherokee language. The syllabary, officially listed as being completedin 1821, took 12 years to create. Sequoyah came up with the idea of"Talking Leaves" when he visited Chief Charles Hicks, who showed himhow to write his name so he could sign his work like Americansilversmiths had begun to do.
Initially, Sequoyah tried pictographs, but soon discovered that thenumber of symbols in the Cherokee language would be in the thousands.Then he began to create symbols for each syllable the Cherokees use.This was the essential step in creating the syllabary. Sequoyah'swritten language was not the first example of the concept. A Japanesesyllabary was developed from 5th century A. D. Chinese ideographicwriting. The concept of an alphabet, which denotes sounds instead ofsyllables, originated in Phoenicia.
His work was interupted by the Creek War of 1813-1814, when he joineda Cherokee force under the leadership of The Ridge. After the war,Major Ridge would be called on as leader of the Lighthorse Patrol topunish to Sequoyah for trying to create the syllabary. The leaders ofthe tribe felt that this written language was the work of the devil,and to force him to stop they ordered Ridge to remove the tops of hisfingers.
Although he lacked a formal education he spoke several languagesfluently. Returning to the Lower Towns, he continued his work while hewas caught up in the Creek Path Conspiracy. His syllabary originallycontained 115 characters, but he reduced this number to 83 before itsfirst publication. Later, three additional sounds were added bringingthe number up to 86. Disenchanted with the movement towardsnationalism, Sequoyah left Georgia in 1821 and moved to Arkansas,arriving in 1822. He was living here when the syllabary was introducedto the Cherokee Nation. In a few short years one man had acheived ameans of communication that had taken other civilizations thousands ofyears to accomplish.
Use of the language spread quickly through the Chreokee Nation. Anyonewho could speak the Cherokee language could learn to read or write intwo weeks. Thousands of Cherokee began to use Sequoyah's invention ona daily basis and the syllabary gave the nation the ability to createthe first American Indian newspaper, The Cherokee Phoenix The name"Talking Leaves" was satirical of whites. The Cherokee felt that whiteman's words dried up and blew away like leaves when the words nolonger suited the whites. "
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1776 - 1843 (~ 83 years)
