110 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 



on an upper branch of Coosa I'iver, in Alaljania. The ,syHa})ai'y was 

 soon recognized as an invakiable invention for the elevation of the 

 tribe, and within a few months thousands of hitherto iliitei-ate Chero- 

 kee were able to read and write their own hmguage, teaching each 

 other in the cabins and along the roadside. The next year Sequoya 

 visited the West, to introduce the new science among those who had 

 emigrated to the Arkansas. In the next year, 1823, he again vi.sited 

 the Arkansas and took up his permanent abode with the western band, 

 never afterward returning to his eastern kinsmen. In the autumn of 

 the same year the Cherokee national council made public acknowledg- 

 ment of his merit by sending to him, through John Ross, then presi- 

 dent of the national committee, a silver medal with a commemorative 

 inscription in both languages.' In 1828 he visited Washington as one 

 of the delegates from the Arkansas band, attracting much attention, 

 and the treaty made on that occasion contains a provision for the pay- 

 ment to him of five hundred dollars, "for the great benefits he has 

 conferred upon the Cherokee people, in the beneficial results which 

 they are now experiencing from the use of the alphabet discovered by 

 him.'" His subsequent history belongs to the West and will be treated 

 in another place (10).' 



The invention of the alphabet had an immediate and wonderful 

 effect on Cherokee development. On account of the remarkable adapta- 

 tion of the syllabary to the language, it was only necessary to learn 

 the characters to be able to read at once. No schoolhouses were built 

 and no teachers hired, but the whole Nation became an academy for the 

 study of the system, until, "in the course of a few months, without 

 school or expense of time or money, the Cherokee were able to read 

 and write in their own language.* An active correspondence began 

 to be carried oil between the eastern and western divisions, and plans 

 were made for a national press, with a national library and museum to 

 be established at the capital. New Echota.^ The missionaries, who had 

 at first opposed the new alphabet on the ground of its Indian origin, 

 now saw the advisability of using it to further their own work. In 

 the fall of 1824 Atsi or John Arch, a young native convert, made a 

 manuscript translation of a portion of St. ,fohn's gospel, in the sylla- 

 ))ary, this being the first Bible translation ever given to the Cherokee. 

 It was copied hundreds of times and was widely disseminated through 



1 McKenney and Hall, Indian Tribes, i, p. 46, 1,S5S; Phillips, in Harper's Magazine, p. 547, September, 

 1870. 



- Indian Treaties, p. 425, 1837. 



3 For details concerning the life and in%'ention of Sequoya, see McKenney and Hall, Indian Tribes, 

 I, 1858; Phillips, Sequoyah, in Harper's Magazine, September 1870- Foster, Sequoyah, 1.S85. and Story 

 of the Cherokee Bible, 1899, based largely on Phillips' article; 6. C, Invention of the Cherokee 

 Alphabet, in Cherokee Phcenix, republished in Christian Advocate and Journal, New York, Septem- 

 ber 26, 1828: Pilling, Bibliography of the Iroquoian Languages, 1888. 



< G. C, Invention of the Cherokee Alphabet, op. cit. 



f* (Unsigned) letter of David Brown, September 2, 18"25, quoted iu American State Papers: Indian 

 Affairs, II, p. 65-2, 1834. 



