108 MYTHS OF THK CHEROKEE (eth.ann.19 



lack of iicfommodation. The suj)ciiiilcM(lont reported that the children 

 were apt to learn, willing to Ial)()r. and readily submissive to discipline, 

 addine- that the Cherolvee wer(> fast advaiieiiio- toward civilized life and 

 generall}- manifested an ardent desire for instruction. The Valley- 

 towns mission, established at the instance of Currahee Dick, a promi- 

 nent local mixed-blood chief, was in charge of the Reverend Evan 

 Jones, known as the translator of the New Testament into the Cherokee 

 language, his assistant being James D. Wafl'ord, a mixed-blood pupil, 

 who compiled a spelling book in the same language. Reverend S. A. 

 Worcester, a prolific translator and the compiler of the Cherokee 

 almanac and other works, was stationed at Brainerd, removing thence 

 to New Echota and afterward to the Cherokee Nation in the West.' 

 Since 1817 the American Board had also supported at Cornwall, Con- 

 necticut, an Indian school at which a number of young Cherokee were 

 being educated, among them being Elias Boudinot. afterward the 

 editor of the Chevo'kee Phan'ui'. 



About this time occurred an event which at once placed the Cherokee 

 in the front rank among native tribes and was destined to have profound 

 influence on their whole future history, viz., the invention of the 

 alphabet. 



The inventor, aptly called the Cadmus of his race, was a mixed- 

 blood known among his own people as Sikwa'yi (Sequoya) and 

 among the whites as George Gist, or less correctly Guest or Guess. 

 As is usually the case in Indian biography much uncertainty exists in 

 regard to his imrentage and early life. Authorities generally agree 

 that his father was a white man, who drifted into the Cherokee Nation 

 some jrears before the Revolution and formed a temporary alliance 

 with a Cherokee girl of mixed blood, who thus became the mother of 

 the future teacher. A writer in the Cherokee Phcenix, in 1828, says 

 that only his paternal grandfather was a white man." McKenney and 

 Hall say that his father was a white ni;in named Gist.' Phillips 

 asserts that his father was George Gist, an unlicensed German trader 

 from Georgia, who came into the Cherokee Nation in 17<i8.' By a 

 Kentucky family it is claimed that Sequoya's father was Nathaniel Gist, 

 son of the scout who accompanied Washington on his memorable 

 excursion to the Ohio. As the story goes, Nathaniel Gist was cap- 

 tured by the Cherokee at Braddock's defeat (17.55) and remained a 

 prisoner with them for six yi-ars. during which time he became the 

 father of Sequoya. On his return to civilization he married a white 

 woman in Virginia, by whom he had other children, and afterward 



iList of missions and reports of missionaries, etc., American State Papers; Indian Affairs, ii, pp. 

 277-279, 459, 1834; personal information from James D. Wafl'ord concerning Valley-towns mission. 

 For notices of Worcester, Jones, and Waflord, see Pilling. Bibliography of the Iroquoian Languages, 

 1888. 



-G. C, in Cheroliee Phieni.x; reprinted in Christian Advocate and Jovirnal, New York, September 26, 

 1828. 



sMcKenney and Hall, Indian Tribes, i, p. 35, et passim, 1858. 



* Phillips, Sequoyah, in Harper's Magazine, pp. 542-548, September, 1870. 



