biography
| name: |
Sequoia or Sequoyah
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originally Sogwali, also known as George Guess or Gist
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pronunciation:
[sekwoya]
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (?1770–1843)
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| biography:
| Native American leader and inventor of the Cherokee writing system, born in E Tennessee, USA. He was born into a Cherokee family respected for its knowledge, and became a silversmith and trader. By 1821, after 12 years of work, he perfected his system of writing to record the Cherokee language; drawing on English, Greek, and Hebrew letters, he came up with 85 or 86 new characters. He travelled about teaching his syllabary to other Cherokee, and within a few years it was used to print newspapers and books, including parts of the Bible, in Cherokee. He went to Washington, DC (1828) to negotiate a treaty governing the exchange of the Cherokees' land in Arkansas for land in the territory that became Oklahoma, and worked to improve relations among the Indians forcibly relocated there. The giant trees and then a national park, in California, were named after him. Named Sequoyah by Christian missionaries, it is claimed he was fathered by a white explorer-soldier, Nathaniel Gist. |
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