Sequoyah, << sih KWOY uh >> (1775?-1843), a Cherokee man, is best known for inventing a system for writing the Cherokee language. His name is often spelled Sequoya. The giant sequoia tree and Sequoia National Park in California were named after him, using the Latin spelling of his name.
Many details about Sequoyah’s life are unknown or uncertain. He was born in Loudon County, Tennessee. Most historians believe his father was white and his mother was Cherokee or part-Cherokee. Sequoyah spoke little or no English. He was married and had several children.
As an adult, Sequoyah became interested in the written language of whites. At that time, there was no written form of the Cherokee language. In 1809, Sequoyah began to develop a system for writing Cherokee words. He created a set of 86 symbols to represent each of the speech sounds used in spoken Cherokee. He perfected the system in 1821.
Nearly all of the Cherokee could learn Sequoyah’s writing system in a short time. The Cherokee used it to publish books and newspapers in their own language.
Sequoyah became active for a time in Cherokee political affairs. In 1828, he moved to the part of the Indian Territory that is now Oklahoma to join the western Cherokee. When the eastern Cherokee were forced to migrate west in 1838, Sequoyah worked to reestablish unity among the two groups. Later, he traveled to Mexico seeking a lost group of Cherokee. He died there in August 1843. In 1917, Oklahoma placed a statue of Sequoyah in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.
