Sequoyah

Hello. My name is Sequoyah. I was born around the year 1770 in a Cherokee village called Tuskegee. When I was a boy, I didn't go to school or learn to read and write like you do. Instead, I learned to be a silversmith, making beautiful things from metal. One day, I saw American soldiers with what I called 'talking leaves'—pieces of paper with marks on them. They could send these papers to people far away, and the paper would 'talk' for them. I thought it was amazing and wondered, 'Why can't my people, the Cherokee, do that?'.

I decided I would create a way for the Cherokee language to be written down. It was a very big job. I started working around the year 1809. For years and years, I drew symbols. At first, some people thought my idea was silly, but I didn't give up. I realized that instead of a symbol for every single word, I could make a symbol for every sound, or syllable, in our language. After more than ten years of hard work, I finally finished it in 1821. I had created 85 special symbols that could write down any word a Cherokee person could speak.

To prove my writing system worked, I taught it to my clever daughter, Ayokeh. She learned it quickly. Then, we went to the Cherokee leaders. I would leave the room, and they would tell Ayokeh a message. She would write it down using my symbols. When I came back, I could read the message perfectly. The leaders were amazed. In 1825, the Cherokee Nation officially adopted my syllabary. Soon, thousands of my people could read and write. We even started our own newspaper in 1828 called the Cherokee Phoenix.

I spent the rest of my life proud of what I had accomplished for my people. I lived to be about 73 years old. Today, my syllabary is still used by the Cherokee people to read, write, and keep our language strong. My gift of 'talking leaves' helped preserve our stories and our culture for all time. People also honored me by naming the giant, strong sequoia trees in California after me, so my name would always be remembered among the tallest living things on Earth.