*Final in a series
Sequoyah is known as the inventor of the written Cherokee language, but his legacy reaches beyond even that.
As the only person in 5,000 years to have created a system of reading and writing without first being literate in another language, Sequoyah was a creative genius who inspired literacy among indigenous people around the globe.
Sequoyah was born some time between 1765 and 1780 in the Cherokee town of Taskigi, which would later become Tennessee. His mother, Wut-teh, raised him on her own, as her only child’s father, probably a white trader named Nathaniel Gist, left the family while Wut-teh was pregnant. Wut-teh owned a trading post where her son encountered literate travelers who could transmit messages on “talking leaves.” As early as 1809, he began to attempt to put the Cherokee language down on paper.
Though Sequoyah never went to school or learned to speak, read, or write English, his work as a fur trader, hunter and silversmith brought him into contact with even more literate people, and his curiosity grew. Serving with Junaluska, Andrew Jackson and Sam Houston in the War of 1812’s Battle of Horseshoe Bend, Sequoyah watched soldiers read and write letters, and he yearned for that same ability.
His work on developing a writing system began with trying to create a symbol for each word. This proved too tedious, so he began inventing characters for each sentence or phrase before settling on the idea of making symbols for each sound in the spoken language. He drew on Greek, Hebrew, and Cyrillic lettering as he developed the Cherokee syllabary.
Some Cherokee thought Sequoyah was crazy. Writing was regarded by some as witchcraft, trickery, or pretension. Even his wife lost patience with his project, at one point throwing all of his work into the fire.
After twelve years of labor, Sequoyah had completed the 86 (eventually to become 85) symbols of written Cherokee. He first taught his six-year-old daughter, Ayokey, then used her skill to convince adults that the syllabary was just communication, not magic. Cherokee warriors soon realized the value of written language and were among the first to learn the syllabary.
In 1824, the General Council of the Eastern Cherokee awarded Sequoyah with a large silver medal acknowledging the importance of his work to his people.
He was said never to have taken the medal off,and the medal is prominent in every painted image of him that survives.
By 1825, the Cherokee had officially adopted the syllabary, and within just one year, 90 percent of the Cherokee Nation was literate, a rate that surpassed that of the white community.
Within two years, the syllabary was adapted for use in a printing press and in 1828, the Cherokee had their own newspaper: The Cherokee Phoenix. European travelers recorded their shock at seeing Cherokee people reading about international events in their own newspaper, in their own language.
Sequoyah’s old war buddy Sam Houston told him, “Your invention of the alphabet is worth more to your people than two bags full of gold in the hands of every Cherokee.”
However, the syllabary did not just benefit Sequoyah’s people. A missionary in Alaska who learned of Sequoyah’s invention developed another syllabary – the Cree syllabics – for Canadian indigenous groups. A Cherokee who moved to Liberia inspired speakers of the Bassa language to develop their own syllabary and speakers of other west African nations followed suit. Inspired by Sequoyah’s work, missionaries in China also created a syllabary for the local language.
In all, Sequoyah’s invention of the Cherokee syllabary spurred the creation of 21 scripts which are used for 65 languages.
Sequoyah spent the last decades of his life traveling to Cherokee communities and teaching the syllabary.
He died trying in 1842 or 1843 while trying to reach a group of displaced Cherokee in Mexico. He is said to have been buried with the silver medal around his neck.