Sequoyah

Sequoyah
SE-QUO-YAH – a lithograph from History of the Indian Tribes of North America. This lithograph is from the portrait painted by Charles Bird King in 1828.
Native name	ᏍᏏᏉᏯ
Born	c. 1770 Tuskegee, Cherokee Nation (near present day Knoxville, Tennessee)
Died	August 1843 (aged 72–73) San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico
Nationality	Cherokee
Other names	George Guess, George Gist
Occupation	Silversmith, blacksmith, teacher, soldier
Spouse(s)	1st: Sally (maiden name unknown), 2nd: U-ti-yu
Children	Four with first wife, three with second
Parent(s)	Wut-teh and unidentified father

Sequoyah (ᏍᏏᏉᏯ Ssiquoya, as he signed his name, or ᏎᏉᏯ Se-quo-ya, as his name is often spelled today in Cherokee) (c.1770—1843), named in English George Gist or George Guess, was a Cherokee silversmith. In 1821 he completed his independent creation of a Cherokee syllabary, making reading and writing in Cherokee possible. This was one of the very few times in recorded history that a member of a pre-literate people created an original, effective writing system (another example being Shong Lue Yang). After seeing its worth, the people of the Cherokee Nation rapidly began to use his syllabary and officially adopted it in 1825. Their literacy rate quickly surpassed that of surrounding European-American settlers.

Sequoyah's heroic status has led to several competing accounts of his life that are speculative, contradictory, or fabricated. As noted by John B. Davis, there were very few primary documents describing facts of Sequoyah's life. Some anecdotes were passed down orally, but these often conflict or are vague about times and places.

Sequoyah was born in the Cherokee town of Tuskegee circa 1770. James Mooney, a prominent anthropologist and historian of the Cherokee people, quoted a cousin as saying that as a little boy, he spent his early years with his mother. Estimates of his birth year ranged from 1760 to 1776. His name is believed to come from the Cherokee word siqua meaning 'hog'. However, Davis says the name may have been derived from sikwa (either a hog or an opossum) and vi meaning a place or an enclosure. This is a reference either to a childhood deformity or to a later injury that left Sequoyah disabled.