302 CHEROKEE NATION OF INDIANS. 
severally led the opposing parties, and whether the discontent was of such 
extent and intensity among the great mass of the Old Settler and Treaty 
parties as to forbid their living peaceably together under the same goy- 
ernment with the Ross party. This commission convened at Fort Gib- 
son on the 16th of November,! but their labors resulted in nothing of 
practical benefit to the sorely distressed Cherokees. 
DEATH OF SEQUOYATL OR GEORGE GUESS. 
Sequoyah or George Guess, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, re- 
moved to the country west of the Mississippi long anterior to the treaty 
of 1835,? and was for several years one of the national council of the 
Western Cherokees. 
In the year 1843 he left his home for Mexico in quest of several scat- 
tered bands of Cherokees who had wandered off to that distant region, 
and whom it was his intention to collect together with a view to induc- 
ing them to return and become again united with their friends and 
kindred. 
He did not meet with the success anticipated. Being quite aged, 
and becoming worn out and destitute, he was unable without assistance 
to make the return trip to his home. Agent Butler, learning of his 
condition, reported the fact to the Indian Department’ and asked that 
sufficient funds be placed at his disposal for the purpose of sending 
messengers to bring the old man back. Two hundred dollars were au- 
thorized! to be expended for the purpose, and Oo-no-leh, a Cherokee, 
was sent on the errand of merey, but upon reaching Red River he en- 
countered a party of Cherokees from Mexico who advised him that 
Guess had died in the preceding July, and that his remains were in- 
terred at San Fernando.® 
OLD SETTLER AND TREATY PARTIES PROPOSE TO REMOVE TO MEXICO. 
In the fall of 1845 the bulk of the Old Settler and Treaty parties, 
having become satisfied that it would be impossible for them to main- 
tain a peaceful and happy residence in the country of their adoption 
while the influence of John Ross continued potent in their national 

1Letter of General Jones to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, November 17, 1844. 
2 He was one of the chiefs of the Arkansas delegation who signed the treaty of May 
6, 1828. (See United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 314.) 
5 Letters of September 12 and November 23, 1844, from Agent Butler to Commissioner 
of Indian Affairs. 
‘Letter of Commissioner Indian Affairs to Agent Butler, January 17, 1845. 
° Letter of Oo-no-leh to Agent Butler, May 15, 1845. Guess left a widow, a son, and 
two daughters. Hon. T. L. McKenny, ina letter to the Secretary of War, December 
13, 1825, says: ‘‘ His name is Guess, and he isanative and unlettered Cherokee. Like 
Cadmus, he has given to the people the alphabet of their language. It is composed 
of eighty-six characters, by which in a few days the older Indians who had despaired 
of deriving an education by means of theschools * * * may read and correspond.” 
Agent Butler, in his annual report for 1845, says: “The Cherokees who cannot speak 
English acquire their own alphabet in twenty-four hours.” 

