calsfoundation@cals.org
August 15, 2010
The Cherokee leader Sequoyah, using a name given to him by missionaries, was sometimes known as George Guess or Gist. He is best known for developing a Cherokee syllabary that transcribed the Cherokee spoken sounds into written form. He lived in Arkansas for a few years in the 1820s, and his syllabary resulted in the publication of a bilingual Cherokee newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, in 1828 in New Echota, Georgia. Sequoyah left Arkansas for the Indian Territory by the late 1820s and died while on a trip to Mexico in 1843. The hand-colored lithograph shown here was made circa 1836.