In 1809, nearly 200 years ago, a man named Sequoyah began to create what would become the Cherokee syllabary. As an illiterate young man with physical disabilities, Sequoyah had a lot to overcome to succeed in life. This man had an idea to create a written language for all Cherokee people to parallel that of the white man. First attempting to use pictoral characters and other hieroglyphic means, Sequoyah realized that this was illogical and turned to more modern letters and figures. He soon created an eighty-six character alphabet which would come to be used by Cherokee Indians throughout North America. .
Sequoyah was born in 1776 in Tuskeegee Town, which is located in modern-day Tennessee. His father was Colonel Nathaniel Gist, an influential and important man involved in the American Revolution. Colonel Gist left Seqouyah, also known as Sikwayi, Sogwili, Sikwaji, Tsikwaya, and even George Gist (this surname was often confused with Guess and Guest, neither of which are accepted today), at a very young age. Seqouyah's mother was a Cherokee woman called Wurteh and was said to be either the sister or daughter of a Cherokee Indian chief in Echota Town. Sequoyah was raised like most other Cherokees, with trade and hunting being primary. He became physically handicapped when "An injury to his leg while on a hunting trip developed into a form of arthritis, leaving him permanently crippled and with the nickname "The Lame One""(Dockstader 249). .
With that, Sequoyah turned to drinking and soon became a young alcoholic. He quickly realized that this would take him no where and began to dabble in the art of metal working. In time he became a silversmith and was very good at the job. But this wasn't enough for Sequoyah. In 1809 he started to devise what would become the universal alphabet of the Cherokee Indians. At first he was accused of sorcery and witchcraft and at one point his documentation was burned for this.