119 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, May 22, I860. 
were, nt a blow, a perfect system of written speech; and these 
unrivalled trees may fitly hand him up to fame. 
See-quah-yah, {Sequoia) or George Guess, the inventor of 
the Clierohee alphabet, was a half-breed, his father being a 
white and his mother a Cherokee. He was, at the time of the 
invention, not only unacquainted with letters, but entirely 
ignorant of any other language but his own. His invention 
appears the more remarkable since he received no instruction 
from without; but by the unaided force of his reasoning and in¬ 
ventive powers, placed in the hands of his tribe the instrument 
by which they have advanced beyond all other Indians to a 
respectable degree of civilisation. He appears to have possessed 
a reputation for talent when very young, and was especially 
expert in the manufacture of ornaments in silver, which were 
the admiration of his people. As an artist in colours he was 
excellent, drawing from nature with surprising accuracy. A 
man of extraordinary shrewdness, of diversified talent: passing 
from metaphysical and philosophical investigations to me¬ 
chanical occupation with the greatest ease. 
He early understood and felt the advantages the white man 
had long enjoyed, of having the accumulation of knowledge 
from generation to generation, stored up by means of written 
language, while the Red man could transmit his thoughts and 
discoveries by uncertain tradition alone. To remedy this diffi¬ 
culty, and to place in the hands of his people the instrument of 
progress, was one of the great aims of his study ; one which he 
accomplished beyond that of any other who ever existed in a 
rude state of nature. 
The story of his invention is told ns follows:—Sequoia was 
present when a letter which had been found upon a prisoner 
was wrongly rend by him to the Indians. Reflecting on the 
power of the white man to impress his thoughts upon paper, 
the question arose whether the mysterious gilt of the talking 
leaf was derived directly from the Great Spirit or the dis¬ 
covery of the white man himself. Most of his companions 
were of the former opinion, while he strenuously maintained 
the lntter. 
At one of the council fires, at which the recollection of their 
fellow tribes who had perished as if blasted by the touch of 
civilisation, the retrospect of their former extent compared 
with the present limits of Indian power filled the chiefs with 
gloomy forebodings, and disposed them to envy the influence of 
that civilisation which rendered the white man immeasurably 
their superior. Sequoia arose from his seat, and pointing to a 
book told them that there lay the secret of the white man’s 
power; that it was by recording his thoughts and observations 
he had been enabled to effect the wonders they witnessed ; and 
that if the Indians could but invent a method of writing their 
language, their inferiority would no longer be felt. 
■ Having become disabled by lameness from partaking of the 
excitements of war and the chase, opportunity presented during 
his confinement for deep reflection upon the power of speaking 
by letters ; the very name of which was not to be found in his 
language. From the cries of wild beasts, the talents of the 
mocking bird, the voice of his children and companions, he 
knew that feelings and passions W'ere conveyed by different 
sounds from one intelligent being to another. He at first 
attempted to represent these by pictorial signs, but finding 
them to multiply infinitely he abandoned the method. He 
possessed a stamp which had been made for him by a white 
man, with which he marked his work. He knew that the white 
man could express himself by signs; and he had a fragment of 
a book, a sealed book to him, for he did not know how these signs 
expressed the sound in English. His next effort was to find a 
sign for every sound in the Cherokee language, but these be¬ 
came too numerous. At length his way appeared more clear. 
He found that many sounds were variously combined; that 
words could be divided into syllables ; and that these same 
syllables aided in forming many words; and that his language 
was made up of but a few sounds variously arranged. Could 
he give a sign for each of these sounds, his end would be attained. 
He was living apart from his people, absorbed in his labour, 
seeing but one attendant who supplied him with food. He had 
reached the right track and made rapid advances and already 
believed he had completed his labours. 
His daughter, however, possessed a more acute ear, and on 
teaching her the new alphabet, she detected differences which 
lie had not perceived, and pointed out compound sounds he 
had supposed to be simple. By these joint analyses the language 
was reduced to eightv-five monosyllables, for each of which he 
had assigned a separate letter. This invention was made in 
I 
I 
1821. Considerable improvement was afterwards made in the 
| formation of the letters. In 1827 a fount of type was cast 
1 and the first number of a paper called the Cherokee Phoenix 
issued. 
The paper was originally printed partly in Cherokee and 
partly in English, and I am not aware that the plan has been 
changed. The alphabet, which is before me, is composed mainly 
of English capitals, Roman and Italian, small letters advanced 
to the dignity of capitals, Arabic numerals, some resembling 
the Greek letters, the remainder inventions and combinations 
of English, and new forms bearing no analogy to any ancient 
language, but allied to the inventions of the phonographer. 
Like all other inventors, See-quah-yah was not permitted to 
pursue his investigations undisturbed. Alone, secluded from 
his fellows, who passed his wigmam without entering it, he 
persevered amid ridicule and the imputation of witchcraft and 
J mystery. Without the knowledge of the pen as an instrument, 
' he made his characters on a piece of bark with a knife or nail, 
i Afterwards he procured pen and paper from an Indian trader. 
The ink he supplied from some bark whose colouring properties 
he had previously known. After seeing the construction of a 
pen lie learned to make one, but the first being without a slit, 
Lis own sagacity soon removed the difficulty. 
He was now prepared to bring his invention before the 
assembled wisdom of his nation, and demonstrate that he had 
indeed made a discovery with which no supernatural agency 
■ was concerned. His daughter, ns yet his only pupil, was 
ordered to go beyond hearing distance, while ho requested 
his friends to name a word or sentiment which he wrote out. 
She was then called in, and read it to them. The father 
then retired, and the daughter wrote with similar success. 
The Indians were wonder-struck, but not satisfied. “I have 
learned to talk on paper, and hereafter the Indian may do what 
the white man has done," said Sequoia; “ I will prove it to your 
satisfaction." He proposed to select several of the brightest 
young men of the tribe, to whom he might communicate the 
mystery. This was agreed to, not without a lurking suspicion 
of necromancy aiding the business. The tribe watched the 
youth for several months, and when they offered themselves for 
examination the feelings of all were wrought up to the highest 
pitch. The boys were separated from their master and from 
each other and watched with great care. The untaught 
directed what the master and pupils should write to each other, 
and the tests were varied so as to prove their accuracy and 
freedom from any collation except a common knowledge of the 
signs invented by Sequoia, and to firmly fix their faith. See- 
quah-yah became at once distinguished. A great feast was pre¬ 
pared, in which he was made conspicuous. lie became at once, 
schoolmaster, professor, philosopher and chief. His country¬ 
men were proud of his talents, and held him in reverence 
as one favoured by the Great Spirit. The council of the 
nation voted him a money reward, which he declined. A silver 
medal was obtained for him by the delegation to Washington 
City, in 1821, but wlmt inscription it contained I have not 
learned. 
From this hour the progress of the Cherokees has been on¬ 
ward and upward. Their system of government is republican, 
their religion the Christian; bringing the attendant blessings 
in their train—public schools and seminaries of high grades, 
for both sexes, are in operation. Bible Societies and agri¬ 
cultural associations prosper, and under the wise government 
of their chief, John Boss, every stimulus is given to aid in 
developing the resources of the country, and a wise improve¬ 
ment of the manifold social, intellectual and political privileges 
they are permitted to enjoy, and by which they have made so 
wonderful a progress in the pursuits and knowledge of civilised 
life. 
Honour to the inventor, to the man who pioneered the path 
of civilisation and enlightenment, and sowed the seeds of in¬ 
numerable blessings, to be renped by millions unborn. Let the 
name of See-quah-yah, whose genius towers aloft above that of 
every other native of this inventive land, live for ever in the 
majesty of the denizens of the primaeval forest that bear his 
name in the Sequoia.—L. 
[Endlicher does not give, in his Synopsis Conifer arum, 
where he names and describes the genus, any reason for his 
choice of the name, and ns lie was no less noted for his 
philologicnl knowledge than his botanical, it is not at all 
unlikely that he knew Sequoia’s history, and that “ L," has 
hit on tho secret. 
The whole history is one of the most interesting we have had 
