Sequoyah invented a writing system for the Cherokee without knowing how to read
Sequoyah never attended school and spoke no English, yet by 1821 he had built a syllabary that let Cherokee be written. The Cherokee Nation adopted it in 1825, and within about twenty-five years its literacy rate had climbed to nearly 100 percent, higher than that of the settlers around it.
Few documents survive about his early life, and oral stories conflict. He was born in the Cherokee town of Tuskegee in Tennessee, around 1770 or 1778 depending on the account, and raised by his mother Wut-teh, who ran a trading post. His father's identity is disputed: candidates include a Swabian fur trader, a German peddler named George Gist, and an officer linked to George Washington. A lameness of unknown origin kept him from farming or fighting well.
He was ingenious with his hands. As a boy he built milk troughs for a dairy house; later he became a silversmith working coins into jewellery, then a self-taught blacksmith who made his own forge and bellows. For a spell he drank heavily at his store before quitting both drinking and selling alcohol. He fought with the Cherokee Regiment at Horseshoe Bend in 1813 and 1814, where he saw white soldiers write home and read orders while Cherokee warriors could not.
Settlers' letters struck him as talking leaves. Around 1809 he started trying to capture Cherokee on paper, first with a picture for every word, then a sign for each idea; both demanded far too many symbols. Neighbours thought he had lost his mind, and his wife reportedly burned early drafts as witchcraft. In 2008 archaeologist Kenneth Tankersley found about 15 syllabary symbols carved in a Kentucky cave beside a date read as 1808 or 1818.
Few people from a society without writing have ever created an effective script on their own, and his is thought to have inspired 21 writing systems used for 65 languages. He also represented his people in treaty talks, helped unite Old Settlers with the Ross Party in the 1839 Act of Union, and later travelled to Mexico seeking Cherokee migrants. He died in August 1843.
Source: Sequoyah
