Sequoyah, also known as George Gist or George Guess, was a Native American polymath and neographer of the Cherokee Nation. In 1821, Sequoyah completed his Cherokee syllabary, enabling reading and writing in the Cherokee language. One of the first North American Indigenous groups to gain a written language, the Cherokee Nation officially adopted the syllabary in 1825, helping to unify a forcibly divided nation with new ways of communication and a sense of independence.
Creating a new script
Around 1809, Sequoyah began creating a system of writing for the Cherokee language. Initially, he pursued a pictograph or logographic system, where every word in the language had a character or symbol. Turning his attention away from his agricultural fields, which endangered his survival, his friends and neighbors thought he had lost his mind. His wife is said to have burned his initial work, regarding it to be witchcraft, a notion shared by some of his peers. Ultimately, he realized that the pictograph approach was impractical because it would require too many pictures to be remembered.
Sequoyah's third approach was to develop a symbol for each syllable in the language. He used the Bible as a reference, along with adaptations from English, Greek, and Hebrew letters. By 1821, he had created a set of 86 symbols (later streamlined to 85), each depicting a consonant-vowel sequence or a syllable of the Cherokee language. The symbols can be written in a chart layout, with the columns being each vowel and the rows being each consonant.
Demonstrating that symbols could speak
Sequoyah's six-year-old daughter, Ayokeh (also spelled Ayoka), was the first person to learn it. News spread that they had created a new way to communicate, and they were charged and brought to trial by the town chief. Sequoyah and Ayokeh were separated but still communicated by sending letters to one another. In time, the warriors overseeing the trial, along with the entire town, came to believe that Sequoyah had truly created a new form of communication—and they eagerly asked him to teach it to them.
Sequoyah traveled to the Indian Reserves in the Arkansas Territory, where some Cherokee had settled west of the Mississippi River. To demonstrate the value of his syllabary, Sequoyah invited each local leader to say a word aloud. He carefully wrote each one down, then called in his daughter to read the words back. Impressed and intrigued, the leaders agreed to let Sequoyah teach the syllabary to a few members of the community. The lessons took several months, during which rumors circulated that he might be practicing sorcery.
When the training was complete, Sequoyah conducted a final test: he dictated a letter to each student and then read aloud their dictated responses. This successful demonstration convinced the western Cherokee that he had indeed created a practical and powerful writing system. When Sequoyah visited the eastern tribes, he carried a sealed envelope containing a written speech from a Cherokee leader in Arkansas.
Print and a new readership
In 1825, the Cherokee Nation officially adopted the writing system, making them one of the first indigenous groups to have a functional written language. By the end of the year, the Bible and hymns were translated into Cherokee. In 1826, the Cherokee National Council commissioned George Lowrey and David Brown to translate and print eight copies of the laws of the Cherokee Nation in the Cherokee language. In 1828, religious pamphlets, educational materials, and legal documents were all made using the syllabary. A newspaper was founded, the Cherokee Phoenix, the first bilingual newspaper in North America.
The Cherokee Phoenix newspaper helped maintain unity within the dispersed Cherokee Nation by providing them with their own network for communication and information sharing. Sequoyah completed his syllabary in 1821. It was not immediately accepted by the Cherokee nation, but soon spread. In 1824, Sequoyah was awarded a medal from the Cherokee National Council and also moved from Alabama to Arkansas. Four years later, he was one of the "Old Settler" delegates that went to Washington, D.C., to sign the treaty that exchanged the Cherokee land in Arkansas for Indian Territory (modern-day Oklahoma).
In 1829, Sequoyah settled in present-day Sallisaw, Oklahoma, with his wife and daughter. In 1838, the Cherokees from the southeast were moved to Indian Territory under Chief John Ross. After this, Sequoyah set out to unite the 16 other Old Settlers with the Ross Party because they already had established their own government.