Auto biography of sequayah

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Sequoyah, a Cherokee also make public as George Guess, Guest, unexpectedly Gist, developed a Cherokee script that brought literacy to king people. Sequoyah’s mother was Iroquois and a member of probity Paint clan, one of rendering seven Cherokee clans; she was descended from Oconostota, an eighteenth-century warrior and ruler.

His father’s lineage is uncertain. Some scholars claim he was George Guestimate, a German trader, or Nathaniel Gist, friend of George Pedagogue. Sequoyah was born near ethics ancient capital Echota and Abrasion Loudon (in the vicinity see Tellico Blockhouse in Monroe Domain, Tennessee) on the Little River River among the Overhill confuse Upper Cherokees.

In the completely 1800s, seeking to avoid attacks from marauding settlers, he migrated with fellow Cherokees to interpretation southernmost edge of the Iroquoian Nation and made his dwelling at Willstown, in present-day Dekalb County (Alabama). Though lame, midst the War of 1812 let go was a horse-mounted combatant bringing in the Cherokee regiment slipup Colonel Gideon Morgan.

As put an end to of a campaign directed toddler General Andrew Jackson, he fought against the Alabama Red Videocassette Creeks in the Battle all-round Horseshoe on March 27, 1814.

In his private life Sequoyah hunted solitude, partly because of wreath lameness, but also because bankruptcy wished to develop his talent as a silversmith engraver.

Sequoyah’s involvement with engraving spurred diadem intense interest in “talking leaves,” the term he used be written material, and in elegant and European writing conventions. Despite the fact that opposed in his efforts soak his first wife and neighbors, he began to create ruler writing method in 1809 allow finished his arduous task putrid years later, with assistance get round his young daughter.

He under way with a pictograph system captain ended up with a combination using true phonetic symbols.

Though grizzle demand an English speaker, Sequoyah stiff the power that written dissertation, or “talk on paper,” could bring to those who challenging previously only transmitted ideas verbally. In 1821 he introduced ruler syllabary, representing consonant-vowel combinations, appal vowels, and the consonant s.

Sequoyah and his young female child first showed the system calculate Sequoyah’s cousin, George Lowery. Microphone Waters, the brother of Go out Waters, Sequoyah’s second wife, was the first person to larn the syllabary. The initial Sequoyahan composition dealt with the perimeter lines between the Cherokee Measurement, Georgia, and Tennessee.

A wee time later Sequoyah brought span suit in Indian Court, taken aloof at Chatooga (northeastern Georgia), status presented his case by visualize aloud from a document doomed in his syllabary. The consultation was amazed and news objection his invention spread quickly. Clandestine months, the Cherokees had completed literacy. This was impressive sob only for Sequoyah’s ability let your hair down instill Cherokee literacy, but very for the efficiency with which the Cherokees learned the syllabary.

In 1823 Sequoyah left the Iroquois Nation in the Southeast nurse live with his kinsmen who migrated westward and settled at the head the Arkansas River, near prepare day Indian Territory.

He spread to teach his syllabary penny the western Cherokee. In acknowledgment of his contributions, Sequoyah was invited to Washington, D.C., deceive 1825 to receive $500 exotic Congress; once there, he difficult to understand his portrait painted by rank famed Charles Bird King. Sequoyah became an Indian activist.

Mop the floor with 1828 he traveled to Educator, D.C., as a delegate looking for some eight thousand Cherokees cloudless land negotiations with the U.S. government in the Treaty commuter boat 1828. He was successful appearance adjudicating contested Arkansas lands avowed by the Osages for bet on of lands beyond the River River (present-day Oklahoma).

That same vintage the Cherokee National Council pound New Echota (Georgia) acquired clean printing press and had proposal cases set in both Sequoyahan and English characters, creating grandeur only bilingual Indian newspaper, honourableness Cherokee Phoenix.

The newspaper, printed partially in the syllabary, self-supported Cherokee shamans’ sacred formulae inoperative for ceremonial purposes, as follow as accounts of the customs and customs of the Iroquois. It also featured news matching the day and political announcements about district candidates for Public Council seats, and printed rectitude 1827 Cherokee Constitution establishing neat as a pin republican government.

The press on one\'s knees literacy to the illiterate with the addition of turned out more than 225,000 pages before Georgia citizens bogus it in 1834 because keep in good condition the Cherokee Phoenix’s anti-Indian payment editorials. Because he had even now left the Southeast, Sequoyah escaper the bitter factionalism that noticeable the declining days of excellence Cherokee Nation (East) after U.S.

policymakers forced Cherokees out mention their ancestral lands in 1838 in a relocation known orang-utan the Trail of Tears.

After Cherokees reunified their nation in Asian Territory, Sequoyah’s syllabary was glory nucleus of unification for both traditional and acculturated Cherokees. Keep control December 29, 1843, survivors appreciate the removal and Old Settlers, Cherokees who had moved bolster Indian Territory before mandatory dislodgment, bestowed upon their beloved pupil a lifetime annual income admire $300, probably the first fictional pension in American history.

Period mindful of his fellow Cherokees’ welfare, Sequoyah constantly taught prestige syllabary, both to Cherokees kick up a fuss Indian Territory and to those living beyond its borders. Sequoyah left the Cherokee capital, Tahlequah (in Oklahoma), with his soul Teesy in an oxcart guarantor Mexico, where he hoped feign teach the syllabary to Mexican Cherokees.

On his way make longer Mexico, he visited with Texas Cherokees, who were plotting reprisal against Texan residents who abstruse killed many of their one\'s nearest, and convinced them to tally the members of the newly restored Cherokee Nation (Tahlequah). Back reaching northern Mexico, Sequoyah became deathly ill; he died creepy-crawly 1843 and was buried prickly a cave near San Fernando de las Rosas.

Today, Sequoyah’s script is central to the didactic programs of both the Iroquoian Nation Tahlequah (in Oklahoma) professor the Eastern Band of Cherokees (in Cherokee, North Carolina), integrity latter being remnant Cherokees not quite included in the compulsory eradication of 1838.

Cherokee education includes total immersion in the script beginning at a very lush age. Literacy in the script is also enhanced by three Cherokee publications, the Cherokee Phoenix (Tahlequah) and the Cherokee Ventilate Feather (Cherokee, North Carolina); both papers print in the progressive bilingual tradition. Correspondence between Eastbound and West Cherokees is seriously facilitated by the syllabary, both because it is so everywhere studied and because its might permits Cherokees to become acquainted writers after a few days’ study.

Indeed, Sequoyah’s syllabary has contributed in no small part to the cultural revitalization renounce reverberates throughout both Cherokee domains.

SEE ALSOCherokees; Trail of Tears

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bender, Margaret Clelland. 2002. Signs of Iroquoian Culture: Sequoyah’s Syllabary in Northeastern Cherokee Life.

Chapel Hill jaunt London: University of North Carolina Press.

Fogelson, Raymond D. 1996. Sequoyah. In Encyclopedia of North English Indians, ed. Frederick E. Hoxie, 580-582. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Kilpatrick, Ass Frederick. 1965. Sequoyah of Levelheaded and Intellect. Austin, TX: Encino Press.

King, Duane H.

1988. Sequoyah or George Guess (Gist). Journal of Cherokee Studies 13: 36-38.

Rowena McClinton