Sequoyah 'George Guess' Gist

Section 1

Sequoyah is a Cherokee man

“Despite the tremendous pressure at the time to adopt western writing and/or alphabetic orthographies for writing native languages, Sequoyah single-highhandedly ruptured the conceptual fields of civilization, humanity, and knowledge associated with what it means to be literate, "lettered," as in knowledgeble and learned. Ironically, when the tribe was said to have learned the new script in 3 years, they were widely praised as newly 'litearte,' (thus civilized), even though they were writing in characters and reading and writing Sequoyan.

His invention was the initial rupture that changed the terms of the conversation about what it meant, indeed what it means, to be literate. It's only fitting that the first entry for this blog be about such an important American Indian activist and change agent in American history.”

Cushman, Ellen. “ᏍᏏᏉᏯ/SEQUOYAH/ AS A CHANGE AGENT.” Ellen Cushman, 13 Aug. 2013, https://www.ellencushman.com/thoughts/sequoyah-as-a-change-agent.''
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Uncertain Father

Although Nathaniel Gist is attached as father here, there are no documents that identify Sequoyah's father. A newspaper article printed in Sequoyah's lifetime when he definitely would have seen it and had a chance to correct it stated that his grandfather, not his father, was white. [1] Nathaniel was first recorded in the Cherokee Nation in 1753, and was old enough to be Sequoyah's grandfather, so it may simply be that the generations are off. Gist returned briefly to the Cherokee Nation in 1778.

See the attached discussion by the genealogist John D. Gellispie that discusses the paternity of Sequoyah here: https://www.geni.com/documents/view?doc_id=6000000191676182831

Biography

Sequoyah, known in English as George Guess, Guest, or Gist was a Cherokee man who became world-famous due to his invention of the Cherokee syllabary, a system for writing the Cherokee language. [2] He is believed to be the only person to have ever created a writing system for an existing non-written language. He always signed his name and referred to himself as “Sequoyah” although he generally appears in English language records as George Guess. Sequoyah never learned to speak English and throughout his life maintained and supported the traditional Cherokee ways.

When Sequoyah was born, there were few records kept of any Cherokee families and he does not appear in any written records until he was an adult. Most accounts agree that he was born in the Cherokee Nation near Tuskegee (near what is now Vonore, Tennessee) about 1770-1775. [3] His mother was a Cherokee woman, called “Wurteh” or “Wuttee” by most accounts, described by some as the niece of chiefs Old Tassel and Doublehead. [4] There are no contemporary records that identify Sequoyah’s father. Emmet Starr suggested that he was a German trader (Curator note: a debunked theory), others suggest that he was a white man from Virginia named Nathaniel Gist, and one account states that his father was a Cherokee man. An 1828 article, in the Cherokee Phoenix newspaper, said, “Mr. Guess is in appearance and habits, a full Cherokee, though his grandfather on his father’s side was a white man.” [5] No siblings are mentioned in any accounts. Whoever his father was, Sequoyah grew up living with just his mother.

In 1835 George Lowrey, a relative by marriage recounted his version of Sequoyah’s life to John Howard Payne. Lowrey said that as a child Sequoyah lived with his mother on their small farm and trading post, helping her with the animals and later joining in the fur and deerskin trade. He apparently enjoyed working with his hands, making improvements to their dairy equipment. He then began making metal items like hoes and axes and also decorating items like knives and harnesses with silver. [6] In 1799, Brother Steiner, an early Moravian missionary, described a young Indian who had inlaid his tomahawk with silver and who wished to go east to learn more about the trade. He did not mention a name, but this is widely assumed to be Sequoyah. [7]

Although he had been lame since childhood, in 1813 Sequoyah joined the Americans in the War of 1812. He and about 400 other Cherokee men enlisted in a Cherokee regiment under Col. Gideon Morgan. The Cherokee troops supported American intervention in a Creek civil war. Sequoyah was discharged in 1814 and returned home to his family. [8]

Sequoyah had several wives and at least ten children. He once told a visitor that he had five wives and twenty children of whom ten survived. His first marriage probably took place in the early 1800s. Emmet Starr lists the first wife’s name as “U-ti-yu” but he may have confused her with a daughter-in-law by that name. [9] Sequoyah married his second wife, Sally Waters, in 1815. She survived him and was noted by John Ross in 1842 as “his only surviving wife.” [10] Although the family did not actually emigrate to Arkansas in 1818, Sequoyah signed the emigration roll indicating that his family had twelve persons. Since he and Sally had only been married three years, clearly some of the children were from another mother or mothers. [11] Sequoyah lost his home in Tennessee after the Treaty of 1817 and moved his family to Willstown, in what is now Alabama.

Sequoyah had apparently been interested in the concept of a written Cherokee language since 1809, but after his move to Willstown he devoted himself fully to developing his idea for the “talking leaves” and devising his Cherokee syllabary. The syllabary is a system of writing that has a separate character for each sound in the spoken Cherokee language. He was so intent on his creation that he lived in a hut apart from his family, angering his wife and neglecting his responsibilities. He first taught his young daughter to read and then presented his system to his neighbors with little success.

Illustration of Sequoyah and Daughter Ayoka by C.S. Robbins in Se-quo-yah, the American Cadmus and modern Moses…by Geo. E. Foster. From the Georgia Historical Society Rare Collection.

In 1821 Sequoyah traveled to Arkansas, taught the syllabary to anyone who was willing, and then asked one of the western Chiefs to write a letter in the syllabary and seal it in an envelope. Sequoyah brought the letter back to Willstown, broke the seal, and read it aloud to his skeptical neighbors. Many Cherokee suspected that witchcraft was involved, but Sequoyah demonstrated the system by sending his daughter out of the room and having people dictate messages which he wrote down. When she returned she promptly read the messages aloud. Sequoyah soon began training others to read and write and within a short time, the leaders of the Nation recognized the value of the syllabary. By the time of the 1835 census, it was reported that the Cherokee had a higher literacy rate than their white neighbors. [12]

A copy of the original document

A detailed chart of the Cherokee Syllabary including the consonants and vowels

In 1824 Sequoyah moved his family again, joining the Cherokee who had already settled in the Arkansas Territory. In 1827 he went to Washington with a delegation of western Cherokee in an attempt to preserve the Arkansas lands. While there he had his portrait painted [13] and signed the Treaty of May 6 in the syllabary. [14] The delegation was unsuccessful and the members acceded to the treaty which gave up the Cherokee lands in Arkansas in exchange for land in the new Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). In 1828 the U.S. Government told the Arkansas Cherokee that they must leave their homes and move to Indian Territory. Sequoyah registered a family of five and they moved in 1829, settling on Skin Bayou near what is now Sallisaw, Oklahoma. [15]

Sequoyah’s cabin near Sallisaw, Oklahoma, ca. 1912 (Muriel Wright Collection). Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society (before the 1936 enclosure)

(Curator Note: Sequoyah's actual cabin has now been restored and encompassed by the SEQUOYAH'S CABIN MUSEUM in Sallisaw, OK. built around the original in 1936. A 3D virtual Tour is available here: https://visitcherokeenation.com, tap Culture and History then scroll to More Stories:Cabin in the Woods)

After Removal Sequoyah worked towards reconciliation of the three Cherokee factions (the Western Cherokee, Treaty Party, and Ross Party). In May 1839 he signed the “Act of Union” between the Western and Eastern Cherokee and on September 6, 1839, signed the new Cherokee constitution. [16] He was also concerned about the Texas Cherokee, a group that had moved from Arkansas to Texas under Duwali/Chief Bowles in 1818. Sequoyah’s son Teesee (who had remained in Alabama) was married to one of Duwali’s daughters, and some accounts say that Sequoyah’s son George had moved to Texas with Duwali’s group. The Mexican government expelled the Cherokee from Texas in 1839. Although Duwali and many of his supporters were killed, some survived and moved to Indian Territory while some went south into Mexico. [17]

In 1842 or 1843 (accounts vary) Sequoyah decided to search for the remnants of Duwali’s band in Texas and in Mexico. He set off with his son, Teesee, and several other men. [18] After an eventful trip, Sequoyah, Teesee, and a man named The Worm finally reached the Cherokee community in Mexico. Sequoyah stayed in Mexico for several months while The Worm headed back to Texas. While there he received the news that Sequoyah had died in San Fernando in August, 1843. [19] Several expeditions were later mounted to search for Sequoyah’s grave, but none were successful.

1885 Map of Zaragoza, Coahuila, México (Note San Fernando de Rosas)

Starr lists two wives for Sequoyah, U-ti-yu, and Sallie, and seven children: Teesee, George, Polly, Richard, E-ya-gu/Rachel, Oo-loo-tsa, and Gu-u-ne-ki/Patsy. [20] The Old Settler Roll lists Sallie and three additional children, Andrew, Lucinda, and Susie. [21]A visitor in 1840 stated that Sequoyah had an eight-year-old son named Joseph as well as an unnamed two-year-old, but given Sallie’s age at the time these were more likely grandchildren. Sequoyah is believed to have had a son named Richard by a woman named Lucy Campbell. Two men, Moses, and Samuel Guess, may also be his sons but there is no documentation to support their claims. [22]

Curator Note: A previous version of this profile attached a North Carolina / Tennessee woman, Lucinda Guess (who married a Daniel Palmer). Sequoyah didn't live in North Carolina and did not have children who remained in Tennessee. He moved with his family to Alabama in about 1818, then on to Arkansas, then Indian Territory. Wilson, Tennessee was not in the Cherokee Nation, (it's 150 miles away); there is no "Daniel Palmer" on the 1835 Cherokee Census or Lucinda Palmer on the 1851/52 Cherokee Siler and Chapman Rolls.[23]

Sources
1. ↑ Cherokee Phoenix, August 13, 1828, p. 2, column 1. Image at: Cherokee Phoenix
2. ↑ Some of his honors and recognitions were: 1824 the Cherokee National Council voted to have a medal struck in his honor; 1847 Austrian botanist Stephen Endlicher named the giant California redwoods “Sequoyah gigantea” in his honor; 1890 an Act of Congress created Sequoia National Park in California; 1917 Sequoyah became the first Native American to have his statue placed in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol building.
3. ↑ Sequoyah did not know exactly when he was born. Descriptions by people who met him between 1828 and 1842 strongly support a birth between 1770 and 1780. Jeremiah Everts described him as “about 50” in 1828. John Howard Payne stated in 1835 that he was “about 60.” Ethan Allen Hitchcock said in 1842 that he was “between 55 and 60.” Stanley Hoig concludes that he was born about 1778, concurrent with the presence of Nathaniel Gist in the Cherokee Nation.
4. ↑ Anderson, Brown, Rogers, eds., The Payne-Butrick Papers. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 2010. pp. 138-139.
5. ↑ Cherokee Phoenix, August 13, 1828, p. 2, column 1. Image at: Cherokee Phoenix
6. ↑ Notable Persons in Cherokee History: Sequoyah. Recounted by Major George Lowrey, translated as he spoke, and recorded by John Howard Payne, 1835. Missionary John Huss also transcribed the account in Cherokee. Reprinted in the Journal of Cherokee Studies, Vol. II, No. 4, Fall, 1977 pp. 385-392
7. ↑ Williams, Samuel Cole. Early Travels in the Tennessee Country, 1580-1800 Johnson City, Tennessee, Watauga Press, 1928. pp. 494-495
8. ↑ National Archives and Records Administration. War of 1812 Pension files, indexes to the Carded Records of Soldiers Who Served in Volunteer Organizations During the War of 1812, compiled 1899 - 1927, documenting the period 1812 – 1815. Images at Fold3
9. ↑ Starr, Emmet. History of the Cherokee Indians. Oklahoma Yesterday Publications edition, Tulsa, OK. 1979. p. 366
10. ↑ National Archives and Records Administration, War of 1812 Bounty Land Applications, 1855
11. ↑ Baker, Jack D., transcriber. Cherokee Emigration Rolls 1817-1835. Baker Publishing Co., Oklahoma City, OK. 1977. p. 7.
12. ↑ Hoig, Stanley W. Sequoyah The Cherokee Genius. Oklahoma Historical Society, Oklahoma City, 1995. pp. 31-42
13. ↑ Portrait: National Portrait Gallery, The Smithsonian Institution, NPG East Gallery 132, Washington D. C., United States
14. ↑ Image of a signature at Signature
15. ↑ Sequoyah’s cabin: Sallisaw, Oklahoma, ca. 1912 (Muriel Wright Collection). Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society
16. ↑ Starr, Emmet. History of the Cherokee Indians. Oklahoma Yesterday Publications edition, Tulsa, OK. 1979 pp. 121-130
17. ↑ Starr, Emmet. Cherokees “West”, chapter “Texas Cherokees.” Emmet Starr, Claremore, OK. 1910. pp. 153-164
18. ↑ Starr, Emmet. Early History of the Cherokees. Emmet Starr, Claremore, OK. 1917. Digitized by Google. pp. 63-67
19. ↑ Cherokee Advocate newspaper, May 14, 1846, an account of The Worm.
20. ↑ Starr, Emmet. History of the Cherokee Indians. Oklahoma Yesterday Publications edition, Tulsa, OK. 1979. p. 366
21. ↑ Hampton, David K., transcriber Cherokee Old Settlers, combined transcript of 1851 and 1896 Old Settler Payrolls. 1993. Skin Bayou, family group #7. p. 268
22. ↑ Hoig, Sequoyah, p. 110
23. ↑ Thank you Kathie Forbes for looking into and clarifying this claimed relationship. See additional biographical notes here: Sequoyah history and biography @ https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Sequoyah_history_and_biography

See also:
There are numerous published biographies for Sequoyah, but few are considered reliable. In addition to the sources cited above, generally, reliable sources are:

• McKenney and Hall, Sequoyah in History of the Indian Tribes of America, Philadelphia, 1856 (language is extremely dated, but text appears to be accurate)
• Cherokee Advocate newspaper articles published during Sequoyah's life
• Cherokee Phoenix newspaper articles published during Sequoyah's life

Sequoyah biographies by :

• Stanley Hoig: Sequoyah The Cherokee Genius. Oklahoma Historical Society, Oklahoma City, 1995, and * Grant Foreman: Sequoyah. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK. 1938.
• Sequoyah was famous in his own lifetime and there are also many contemporary records of persons who visited him between 1828 and 1843.

Source: The WikiTree Native American Project @ https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Cherokee-314

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Section 2
Will The Real Sequoya Please Stand Up? (An alternative history)

Most every school child knows the true story of the great Cherokee, Sequoya. He was born in 1770 or 1776 in a Cherokee town named Tuskegee in eastern Tennessee. (1) Sequoya stated that when an Iroquoian Peace Delegation visited Chota in 1770, he was living with his mother as a small boy and remembered the events. While in Washington in 1828, he told Samuel Knapp he was about 65. (2) His birth name was either George Guess or George Gist.  His father was a white man named George/Nathaniel Gist/Guess or a half-blood Cherokee of the same name. (1) His mother was the beautiful full-blood/half-blood Wurtah, Wutah or Wuta-he, the daughter of a great Cherokee Chief in the Paint Clan and therefore, of Cherokee royalty.  Some official stories of Sequoya, such as in Wikipedia, make him an only child.  Other histories give him siblings and provide their names.

Most histories state that at age 10 he and his mother moved alone to a spacious log cabin and trading post in the Cherokee town of Chota on the Little Tennessee River.  As a youth, he herded cattle and raised vegetables in a garden, while his mother ran a trading post. (3)


Sequoyah or George Guess (Gist), Inventor of the Cherokee Alphabet

When he became a man, he took on his mother’s name Sequoya and moved to Wills Town on the Tennessee River in Alabama, which was far removed from any white settlements.  Alternatively, his mother and he moved their trading post to Wills Town. (4) Alternatively, he moved to Wills Town after his mother died, where he alone ran a tavern.  Alternatively, he moved to Arkansas in the 1780s, because white men were moving into Tennessee and taking over the best hunting land. (5)

On becoming a man, George Guess/Gist also became a skilled silversmith in addition to running a tavern.  He had become lame at an early age, which prohibited him from herding cattle, farming, hunting or going to war. (4) Much of his sales of silverware were to the many whites living near Wills Town, which was far removed from any white settlements. He came to hate his white neighbors. This caused him to change his name to his mother’s name of Sequoya, to express his pride in being Indian. (2)

Alternatively, while living in Pine Log, GA he became even closer friends with his fellow Chickamauga Warriors and neighbors, the Ridge, the Vann and the Hicks families.  The Vann’s quickly became wealthy and therefore patrons of Sequoya’s talent at making silverware.  The income from silverware and jewelry gave him the leisure time to pursue intellectual interests, such as creating a Cherokee writing system.
In Wills Town Sequoya became a skilled hunter and feared warrior, which enabled him to marry in 1815, the beautiful, full-blooded Cherokee Sally Benge, the sister or daughter of a great, red-haired, Cherokee chief named Robert Benge. (5) Robert Benge, had so much European DNA in him that he passed for a full-blooded Scotsman. 6 Sally had red/brown/black hair and a bronze/fair complexion.

George Guess had no formal education in the European sense, but he dreamed of his people being able to communicate with paper in the same way as white men.  He then independently developed a writing system for his people. (4) He was frustrated for several years because he couldn’t create a system like the white man had.  His wife, being the pure-blood Cherokee daughter of a famous 1/16th Cherokee chief, didn’t understand what he was doing.  She accused him of witchcraft and burned all of the bark shingles that he used for writing pads. 7 He left her.  Then to show his love and admiration for white people, the 43 or 53 years old, lame, alcoholic, tavern owner and silversmith to wealthy whites, walked all the way from Arkansas to Wills Town to enlist in the United States Army of Gen. Andrew Jackson.  Red Stick Creek Indians had gone to war in protest to the illegal encroachment of white settlers on Creek-owned land. (8)

After helping defeat the fellow Native Americans who lived on the other side of Lookout Mountain from Wills Town, he became enlightened.  He walked back to Arkansas, married another Cherokee woman, who was the daughter/niece/sister of Chief Jolly. (3) Here he spent his last days except when he was living in Mexico, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia.

Sequoya did not succeed until he gave up trying to represent entire words and developed a symbol for each syllable in the language. According to Elias Boudinot (editor of the Cherokee Phoenix Newspaper) after approximately a month, he had a system of 86 characters, some of which were Latin letters he obtained from a spelling book. (9) In other words, Boudinot told the Cherokees and other readers of his newspaper that the writing system that Sequoya created in one month was the same as the one used by the Cherokee Phoenix and in the Holy Bible published by the Rev. Samuel Worcester.

The lame and by now, elderly Sequoya, again walked from Arkansas to northwest Georgia to present his syllabary to the Cherokee National Council. (10) It was immediately accepted.  Soon all Cherokees were learning his syllabary.  In a matter of a few years, the Cherokees were more literate than their white neighbors.  Sequoya was given a silver medal by the Cherokee National Council.  He then traveled to Washington, DC in 1828 at the age of 55 and 65 to be honored by President John Quincy Adams and Vice President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, who at that time was becoming rich from gold mines he stole from the Cherokees the previous year.  Sequoya died in 1840 while trying to find a lost band of Cherokees in northern Mexico.

And now for the rest of the story

Scholar John B. Davis has correctly pointed out that there are very few primary documents that collaborate facts of Sequoya’s life. (3) As seen in the preceding text, the official histories of Sequoya often conflict with each other and with the actual history of the times, to the point of being ludicrous.  The only fact that can be stated with absolute certainty is that a man named George Gist was presented with a silver medal in 1824 by the Cherokee National Council.  The word “Sequoya” was not on the medal.

Sequoyah’s Original Syllabary

Some of the more obvious conflicts involve where Sequoya lived, his age, his physical condition and his trade as a silversmith. How could a 43 or 53-year-old man, who was too lame to farm or hunt, participate in the vicious combat of the Red Stick War?  If he was anti-white, why would he go to war on their behalf against his Creek neighbors just over the other side of Lookout Mountain?   How could he have learned to be a silversmith, if he always lived on a remote Cherokee farmstead with a single mother? Wills Town was one of the last hideouts of the Chickamauga Cherokees.  That means that if he lived there, Sequoya was a Chickamauga warrior. In that case, he was not a great admirer of European civilization and potential wealthy Caucasian patrons for his silverware were over 200 miles away.


Actual Cherokee Syllabary

One thing else is quite obvious about the conflicting histories of Sequoya.  Most were written by people, who lived hundreds of miles from Sequoya’s original home, and who probably never stepped on earth that Sequoya walked on.  They share a complete cultural amnesia of the indigenous Native American tribes that lived in the Southern Highlands before the Cherokees . . . and still lived around them in the early 1800s.
The diverse descriptions of Sequoya strongly suggest that Caucasian historians have assembled descriptions of several men, who lived during the same era, and combined them into one person.  It is more probable that the George Guess who fought for Andrew Jackson was either another man other than Sequoya, or Sequoya’s son.

In 1971 Traveller Bird, a Kituwah Band Cherokee, who claimed to be a direct descendant of Sequoya, published, Tell Them They Lie: the Sequoya Myth. (11)  Virtually, all of the Kituwah Band version of history is in direct conflict with the mainstream histories of Sequoya.  In Bird’s version, Sequoya, was a full-blood Cherokee, who was born in the town of Taskegi (Tuskegee) in North Carolina.


Georgian Aramaic Syllabary

Bird states that as such, Sequoya was a member of the Tuskegee Clan, not the Paint Clan.  His real name was Soguli, which means “horse” in Cherokee. That is very close to s’gili, the Cherokee word for witch.  He insists that the images of Sequoya are of another man, who was used to impersonate Sogwili.  This man was illiterate.  It is a fact that the man presented to whites as “Sequoya” never demonstrated his writing system in front of them.

The site of the town of Taskeke (Taskegi in Cherokee) that was described in Prayer we will give… and often is at the foot of the mountain range where Juan Pardo discovered silver ore.  Taskegi was a half day’s horseback ride to the ancient Spanish silver mine described in The Lost Silver Mine.  About five miles east of Taskeke was the capital town of Chiaha, where Juan Pardo built a fort and left behind a garrison. (12)   The inscribed memorial of a Sephardic wedding in 1615 is 12 miles west of the site of the town of Taskeke, and 12 miles east of the site of Chota, where Sequoya spent his youth.  (Calculations made by GIS software.)

Bird’s description of the Taskegi Clan relates directly to this series.  He described them as once being a separate tribe that was absorbed by the Cherokees.  This exactly matches the historical fact that the Taskegi majority in the Smoky Mountains migrated to Alabama to join the Creek Confederacy in response to Cherokee aggressions, while the minority became a division of the Cherokees.

Bird also said that the Taskegi became the scholars and historians of the Cherokee Alliance.  They had their own language (Creek) which other Cherokees couldn’t understand, and also had a writing system.  Soquili was trained as a scribe in the Taskegi Clan.  Over time, he learned the history of the Taskegi Clan, plus English and Spanish.  He was not illiterate and provincial as portrayed in Caucasian-authored stories.  Why would Sequoya need to become fluent in Spanish, if the nearest Spanish-speaking town was 400+ miles to the south?   Traveller Bird never addressed that issue.

Bird said that the Chickamauga Cherokees used this writing system to communicate with each other.  The existence of this syllabary is discussed in several eyewitness accounts of the Chickamauga Wars, but is conveniently forgotten by contemporary historians.  Bird said that Sogwili intentionally developed the Taskegi syllabary into the Cherokee syllabary because he did not want whites to understand Cherokee communications.

Bird also stated that the Taskegi learned their writing system from a semi-mythical people known as the Taliwa.  The Taliwa wrote on thin sheets of gold.  No civilization in the Americas is known to have written their language on sheets of gold.  However, this was a custom in the land of the Golden Fleece, the Kingdom of Colchis just north of Armenia and among Armenian Christian book illustrators in the Middle Ages.  Of course, Armenia is a long way from Tennessee, so could have no connection with Sequoya.

Taliwa is the word for “town” in the Apalachee language.  The Apalachee lived in the gold fields of the Georgia Mountains.  In his memoir, Trois Voyages, Captain René de Laundonniére stated that the Indians he encountered in the Coastal Plain of Georgia between 1564 and 1565, possessed gold foil and beads that they had obtained from the Apalache Indians living in the Georgia Mountains. (13)

Things a tourist will never be told

Perhaps so as not to offend the Cherokees, contemporary histories on Sequoya, found in immediately accessible media such as online encyclopedias, intentionally leave out some important facts. They are:

1. The North Carolina Cherokees bitterly opposed Sequoya’s syllabary and considered it witchcraft. They abducted Sequoya and his wife, sentenced them to death by slow torture for practicing witchcraft and were in the process of torturing the couple to death, when a troop of Georgia Cherokee Lighthorse, led by John Ridge, rescued the couple. It was not his wife that accused Sequoya of witchcraft and burned his records. The Cherokee syllabary was ultimately taught to North Carolina Cherokees in the late 20th century as part of a tourism & economic development program.

2. Sequoya is the Cherokee way of writing and pronouncing the Creek word, sekuya. It literally means “excrement,” but in the 1700s its idiomatic meaning was “pariah, scum of the village or war captive.” (14) Sequoya’s mother could well have been a Creek war captive, not Cherokee royalty. For some unknown reason, she was also considered spiritually unclean and therefore, Cherokee men would not marry her.

(Curator Note: Sequoya’s mother could well have been a Creek war captive, not Cherokee royalty. For some unknown reason, she was also considered spiritually unclean and therefore, Cherokee men would not marry her.)

3. Elias Boudinot of the Cherokee Phoenix lied in his article about the introduction of the syllabary. The syllabary created by Sequoya, was not the syllabary adopted by the Cherokee Nation and in use today. Sequoya’s original syllabary was almost identical to the Cyrillic script used by Christians in eastern Turkey, Armenian and Georgia until modern times. Elias Boudinot thought that Sequoya’s letters would seem too “alien” to Caucasian Americans, so he and missionary Samuel Worcester changed the original symbols to look more like the Roman style letters in the English alphabet. That original syllabary is important evidence that the Tuskegee Creeks in the Smoky Mountains had direct contact somewhere in the past with Christians from eastern Anatolia, Armenia, Georgia or northern Mesopotamia. It seems odd that Cherokees, living outside the boundaries of the Cherokee Nation in North Carolina, who were under the influence of Protestant missionaries, would object to a writing system whose first use was the printing of a Cherokee language Bible. On the other hand, if the mother of Sequoya was a s’gili or witch, that would immediately place him under suspicion. It may or may not be a coincidence, but several Cherokee words association with bewitching and casting spells include the root word “jinn,” which happens to be the Turkish word for a spiritual being. The Anglicized word, jinni, comes from that Turkish word

Citations:
1. Williams, Samuel C., “The Father of Sequoya: Nathaniel Gist“. Volume 15, No. 1. Chronicles of Oklahoma, March 1937. pp. 10-11.
2. Official history of Sequoya, Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma web site.
3. Davis, John B., Chronicles of Oklahoma. Vol. 8, Number 2. “The Life and Work of Sequoya.” June, 1930.
4. “Sequoya” – The Encyclopedia of Alabama
5. “Sequoya” – The Encyclopedia of Arkansas
6. Bob Benge – Wikipedia.
7. “Sequoya” – Wikipedia
8. “Sequoya” – Encyclopedia of Alabama
9. Boudinot, Elias, Cherokee Phoenix newspaper – (1828-08-13). “Invention of the Cherokee Alphabet”.
10. “Sequoya” – The Encyclopedia of Arkansas.
11. Traveller Bird, Tell Them They Lie: The Sequoya Myth (Los Angeles: Westernlore, 1971).
12. Bandera, Juan de la, Relacion de la Florida, 1569; pp. 268-269 of the Ketchum translation.
13. De Laudonniére, René Goulaine, Trois Voyages, L’histoire notable de la Floride, contenant les trois voyages faits en icelles par des capitaines et pilotes français, 1586.
14. Martin, Jack B. & Mauldin, Margaret M., A Dictionary of the Creek/Muskogee, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000.

Source: Cherokee, Sequoyah, Collection:
Thornton, Richard. The Appalachian Colonists from the Mediterranean Basin. Digital Rights Copyright 2013 by AccessGenealogy.com. @ https://accessgenealogy.com/native/will-real-sequoya-please-stand.htm''

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Section 3
Recommend Reading:
1. Davis, John B. “The Life and Work of Sequoyah.” Oklahoma Historical Society. Chronicles of Oklahoma, vol. 8, no. 2, June 1930, pp. 149–180.
2. United States, Congress, National Park Service, and Hugh R. Awtrey. "New Echota, Birthplace of the American Indian Press", History No. 6, National Parks Service, 1941, pp. 1–3. Popular Study Series.
3. GIEMZA, BRYAN. “The Strange Case of Sequoyah Redivivus: Achievement, Personage, and Perplexity.” The Mississippi Quarterly, vol. 60, no. 1, 2006, pp. 129–50. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26467045. Accessed 12 Feb. 2023.
4. Forbes, Kathie. “Sequoyah History and Biography.” WikiTree, 2023, https://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/WIKI.
5. Members, Various. “Sequoyah.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 5 Oct. 2022, https://www.wikipedia.org/.
6. Cushman, Ellen. “ᏍᏏᏉᏯ/SEQUOYAH/ AS A CHANGE AGENT.” Ellen Cushman, 13 Aug. 2013, https://www.ellencushman.com/thoughts/sequoyah-as-a-change-agent.
7. Cushman, Ellen. “Elias Boudinot and the Cherokee Phoenix: The Sponsors of Literacy They Were and Were Not.” ResearchGate, Jan. 2014, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290586148_Elias_boudinot_a....
8.---. “Elias Boudinot (Cherokee).” Wikipedia, 7 Jan. 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elias_Boudinot_(Cherokee).
9.---. “The Bowl (Cherokee Chief).” Wikipedia, 30 Dec. 2022, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bowl_(Cherokee_chief).
10. Fun Fact: Chavez, Will, editor. “Sequoyah Wins Cherokee Phoenix's 'Most Influential Cherokee' Poll.” Cherokee Phoenix, 2 June 2020.
11. “Sequoyah” https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/se...
12. ---. “Sequoyah.” Wikipedia, 31 Jan. 2023, en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoyah.
13. “Sequoyah.” Georgia Historical Society, 2023, https://georgiahistory.com/.

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Section 4
(Curator note: the following list of wives and children was input by Pam Wilson but the source link is now a dead link. For now, I will follow this list, unless otherwise noted)

Sequoyah first married 'TSI-YO-SA' about 1790. She was born about 1770. (Curator note: Emmet Starr lists the first wife’s name as “U-ti-yu” but he may have confused her with a daughter-in-law by that name.)
Their children were

• TI-SI Gist, b. Abt. 1790; d. September 17, 1867.
• George Gist, Jr. b. Abt. 1795.
• Polly Gist, b. Abt. 1800.

He next married 'Lucy Campbell' Abt. 1802, daughter of unk. Campbell and Elizabeth Watts. She was born about 1782, and died between 1818 - 1838. Their child was:

• Richard Gist, b. Abt. 1802; d. Abt. 1837; m. Eliza Lee, Bef. 1837; b. 1809; d. Aft. 1837. He is listed In the 1836 Valuations of Cherokee Co, AL, #20. Eliza Lee was the sister of Edward Lee and the heir of Thomas Rising Fawn Lee. She appears in the Register of Payments for 1837.

Sequoyah married 'A-GA-DI-YA' about 1820. She was the daughter of TSO-I-YU-KA. She was born about 1800, and died after 1851, when she appears on the Drennan roll: Skin Bayou, as a full-blood Cherokee. The children of Sequoyah and A-GA-DI-YA:

• Rachel A-YU-QUI Guess, b. Abt. 1822; d. Bef. 1895. Also spelled Ayokeh or Ayoka, this is the daughter who was his first pupil in learning the syllabary.
• Andrew Guess, b. Abt. 1824. He appears on the 1851 Old Settler roll: Skin Bayou, 8 (1896 page 145)

Sequoyah married 'Sallie Waters' before 1832, daughter of unk. Waters and Daughter Wolf. She was born about 1790, and died Abt. 1862. Sallie appears in the following records:

• 1842 Claims: Tahlequah, pg 147, estate of Woyeh-hutileh, as Sallie Guess "wife of George Guess"
• 1851 Old Settler roll: Skin Bayou, 7 as Sarah Guess (1896 pg 145), Clan: Ani'-Tsi'skwa = Bird Clan (Sallie Waters)
• RG15, BLW Files: May 08, 1860, BLW# # 92949 [widow of George Guess; witnesses: John Ross, John Drew & Archibald Campbell]
• Starr's Notes: D573; Sallie of the Bird Clan

The children of Sequoyah and Sallie Waters:

• Joseph Guess, b. 1832. Clan: Ani'-Tsi'skwa = Bird Clan (Sallie Waters)
• Lucinda Guess. b. Abt. 1833; d. Bef. 1895; 1851 Old Settler roll: Skin Bayou, 7 (1896 page 145); Clan: Ani'-Tsi'skwa = Bird Clan (Sallie Waters)
• Susie Guess, b. Abt. 1835; d. Bef. 1895. 1851 Old Settler roll: Skin Bayou, 7 (1896 page 145); Clan: Ani'-Tsi'skwa = Bird Clan (Sallie Waters)
• Child Guess, b. Abt. 1837.; Clan: Ani'-Tsi'skwa = Bird Clan (Sallie Waters) and believed to be a child of Sequoyah.
• Child Guess, b. 1838. Clan: Ani'-Tsi'skwa = Bird Clan (Sallie Waters) and believed to be a child of Sequoyah

Many researchers believe that there was an additional unknown wife or partner at the same time as A-GA-DI-YA or between A-GA-DI-YA and Sallie Waters. She could have been the mother of these children.

• U-LU-TSA Guess, b. Abt. 1826. Blood: 3/4 Cherokee
• Patsy Guess, b. Abt. 1828, CNE; d. Abt. 1867.
• Nerchatelaquah Nancy Guess (1827-1879), married Westley Dennis
• Peter Guess (1828-1890), married Rachel Cunningham

See also for similar conclusions:
Hicks, James R. “Cherokee Lineages: Register Report of Daniel Generation 2.” Genealogy.com, Sites.Rootsweb.com, 2023, https://www.genealogy.com/ftm/h/i/c/James-R-Hicks-VA/BOOK-0001/0008..., person 196

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Section 5
(Curator note: the text below no longer exists on Find A Grave, the original profile was merged and the current profile now quotes Wikipedia, it is retained here for historical value only, the information contained herein has not been verified.)

George was the son of Wut-Teh, the daughter of a Cherokee Chief, and Nathaniel Gist/Guess, a Virginia Fur Trader He was born in Tennessee but left as a youth and removed to Georgia. There he worked as a silversmith. Sequoyah did not sign his works since he did not know how to write. He began to study how to spell his name, and in 1809 he began working on a Cherokee writing system.

At Willstown, Alabama, he enlisted in the Cherokee Regiment, fighting in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, which effectively ended the war against the Creek Redsticks. During the war, he became convinced of the necessity of literacy for his people. He and other Cherokees were unable to write letters home, read military orders, or record events as they occurred. After the war, he developed a phonetic system, where each sound made in the speech was represented by a symbol. He created the "Talking Leaves", 86 letters that make up the Cherokee syllabary. In 1821 the Cherokee Nation adopted Sequoyah's alphabet, and thousands of Cherokee became literate. In 1824 the National Council at New Echota struck a silver medal in his honor. Later, the publication began on the first Native American newspaper, The Cherokee Phoenix in the same town.

H.A. Scomp, member of Emory College faculty, declared that '...perhaps the most remarkable man who has ever lived on Georgia soil was neither a politician, nor a soldier, nor an ecclesiastic, nor a scholar, but merely a Cherokee Indian of mixed blood. And strange to say, this Indian acquired permanent fame, neither expecting nor seeking it.'

Sometime between 1843 and 1845, George died during a trip to San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico, when he was seeking Cherokee who migrated there at the time of Indian Removal. His resting place is believed to be in Zaragoza near the Mexico-Texas border.

The following document gives the most circumstantial account of the death of Sequoyah:[6]

Warren's Trading House, Red River, April 21st, 1845.

"We, the undersigned Cherokees, direct from the Spanish Dominions, do hereby certify that George Guess of the Cherokee Nation, Arkansas, departed this life in the town of San-Fernando in the: month of August 1843, and his son Chusaleta is at this time on the Brazos River, Texas, about thirty miles above the falls, and he intends returning home this fall.:Given under our hands the day and date written."

STANDING X(his mark) ROCK

STANDING X (his mark) BOWLES

WATCH X (his mark) JUSTICE

WITNESSES Daniel G. Watson Jesse Chisholm."

In 1938, an expedition of scholars set out to find Sequoyah's grave in Mexico. They were unable to conclusively determine the grave site. A possible burial site is also noted in Coahuila, Mexico, where pilgrimages are held in honor of his legacy.

In 2011, the Muskogee Phoenix published an article relating a discovery in 1903 of a gravesite in the Wichita Mountains that they believed was Sequoyah's. The site was in a cave and contained a human skeleton with one leg shorter than the other, a long-stemmed pipe, two silver medals, a flintlock rifle, and an ax. However, the site was far north of the Mexican border

Source: Find A Grave @ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/16871717/sequoyah''
(Curator Note: It appears that some of this text was copied from Davis, John B. “The Life and Work of Sequoyah.” Oklahoma Historical Society. Chronicles of Oklahoma, vol. 8, no. 2, June 1930, pp. 149–180, without citation.)

Link added added at Geni member request. https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LZ8G-YY7