(1885) Se-Quo-Yah: The American Cadmus and Modern Moses: A Complete Biography of The Greatest of Redmen

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bE-QUO-YAH.
SE-QUO-YAH,
AMERICAN CADMUS AND MODERN MOSES.
A COMPLETE BIOGRAPHY OF THE GREATEST OF RBDMEN,

AROUND WHOSE WONDERFUL LIFE HAS BEEN WOVEN
THE MANNERS, CUSTOMS AND BELIEFS OF THE
EARLY CHEROKEES, TOGETHER WITH A
RECITAL OF THEIR WRONGS AND
WONDERFUL PROGRESS TO-
WARD CIVILIZATION.
By GEO. E. FOSTER,
EDITOR OF MILFORD (n. H.) "ENTERPRISE.
Ilbistrated by Miss C. S. Robbins.
PHILADELPHIA :
Office of the Indian Rights Association, 13 i6 Filbert St.

Tahlequah, Cherokee Nation ; B. H. Stone.
Milford, N. H. : By the Author.

1885.
1045
Copyright, 18S5,
BY GEO. E. FOSTER, Milford, N. H.

TO THE INDIAN ASSOCIATIONS
IN THE UNITED STATES,
COMPOSIDD OF NOBLE MEN AND PHILAN-
THROPIC WOMEN, WHO ARE ZEALOUSLY
LABORING IN THE CAUSE OF JUSTICE,
THAT THE REDMEN OF OUR NATION,
MAYBE FAIRLY DEALT WITH,
THIS LITTLE VOLUME
IS DEDICATED.
PEEFACE.
Some years ago, the attention of the
author was called to a brief but unsatis-
factory item in a historical work to the
**Cadmus" of America. A love of re-
search finally induced me to collect
from all possible sources the leading
events of his life. In so doing the fact
developed, that while many of our best
scholars in the land are fully posted
concerning the Cadmus of old, there are
comparatively few who even know that
an American Cadmus ever lived, and
holds a high place among the great bene-
factors of mankind. It has been too much
iv PREFACE.
our custom to look at all Indians
as savages, while in fact, there is much
concerning them that is noble and even
worthy of being imitated by a white
brother. No Indian race has made such
progress or possesses such a remarkable
history as the Cherokee. Such history
as theirs is not found in ''Dime Novel"
literature. Their achievements are of a
higher nature: indeed, the truth con-
cerning this people more remarkable
is
than the greatest fiction. In the prepara-

tion of this work, I acknowledge in
the first place the very kindly assistance of
many Cherokees, who are anxious to have
the people of the States know more of the
capabilities of their race. The records of
early missionaries have been consulted for
the early customs and beliefs of this peo-
ple, and several who have spent years in
the Cherokee nation have kindly given
assistance. I am also under obligations
to the writings of the Dodges, Drake,

Schoolcraft, W. A. Phillips, C. C. Jones,
Ramsey and others. Thus correctly as
PREFACE. V
possible around Se-quo-yah and his fam-
ily has been woven the customs, manners
and the ever changing beliefs of the Cher-
okees for over one hundred and twenty-
five years. While this work is designed
to be the first of a series, it has been the
purpose of the author to have it complete
in itself, so that, on closing the book, the
reader will not only have a complete bi-
ography of Se-quo-yah, but a general idea
of the past struggles and present condition
of the Cherokee people. This work is
written especially for the enlightenment
of whitemen on the subject treated, yet
the author not without secret hope that
is
his red brothers and sisters in the Chero-

kee Nation will be glad to have the story
of their benefactor freshly told. If this Bi-
ography shall raise to a higher degree, the
respect and sympathy of the more fortu-
nate white man for his red brother; if it
shall encourage him more in the future
than in the past to aid the Indian races
in their struggles toward civilization, then
the work of the author has not been in
VI PREFACE.
vain. That the day may soon come when
Justice shall be the portion of all Indian
tribes is the prayer of
T
Riverside Cottage,
Milford, N. H.
July 1885.
J
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
SALZBURGERS AND EBENEZERITES.

—
Cause of Emigration Their Journey Their Ori- —
— —
gin Books of Devotion Arrival in America
—
Founding Ebenezer The Contrast with their
—
Native Land Appearance of the Town Provis- —
ions for the Colonists —Final Fate of the Town
New Ebenezer — Its Rise and Progress — Present
Desolation. Page 12.
CHAPTER II.
GIST, THE DUTCH PEDLER.

A —
Swabia-Franconia Arrival Birth of a Baby Boy
— A Pest —
to Ebenezer The Unlicensed Pedler
—
Wooes a Cherokee Maiden Purchases Her for a
—
Wife He Smokes and She Works The Wigwam —
— —
Indian Hospitality Around the Dinner Kettle
— —
Sudden Disappearance A Cause of American
"Blues." Page 2^.
Vlll CONTENTS.
CHAPTER III.
BIRTH OF SE-QUO-YAH.
Cotemporary Historj — Primitive Child-birth —The
—
Guest Reception Seat Occupied Visit of the Old
— —
Grand Parent The Name Cradle An Indian —
—
Lesson True Elements of success The Religion—
of the Early Cherokee. Page 37.
CHAPTER IV.
FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD.
Boj'hood pursuits- An important help to his mother
— —
Silver-smith Black-smith Trade-mark Sacred —
— — —
Pipe Debauch Remorse A Good Samaritan
Reformation, and Good Work among his Peo-
ple. Page 49.
CHAPTER V.
FESTIVALS, GAMES AND DANCES.
— Conjurers —The Magic Seven — Con-
Ball-playing
juring for Health— The Health Roast —Tradition
Keeping — Green Corn Dance — Chungke — A War
Song. Page 62.
CHAPTER VI.
A WARRIOR'S CONQUEST.
Warrior —
Making War-dance and Song — Would
—
make him dreadful Fair Honors sought by the
—
Cherokees Se-quo-yah's Courtship Marriage — —
—
The Early Cherokee Woman Nature's Teaching
He Dreams and She Works A Family Disa-—
greement Consequent. Page 73.
CONTENTS. IX
CHAPTER VII.
STORY TELLING.
The Pisa described — Owatogâ Dreams — Offers
—
Himself as a Sacrifice The Pisa Slain Cher- —
—
okees and Catawbas wage War Hiwassee and
—
Not-ley Where the Waters Unite- -The Fawns
— —
Success Hiwassee's Warning Flight Reunion —
—
Marriage Valley Home— The Story of Okefin-
okee. Page 87.
CHAPTER VIII.
AN INSPIRATION OF NATURE.
Se-quo-yah's Native Land —Nature the prime-motor
of Genius — The White Prisoner— A Letter
The Mania to Solve the Mystery of the Talking
—
Leaf— Se-quo-yah writes on Stone A Derisive
— —
Laugh Stung to Action Dreaming. Page 97.
CHAPTER IX.
THE GREAT INVENTION.

The Voice of Nature — Picture Writing — Arbi-
trary Signs — Perfection
of the Alphabet Theo- —
retical— —
The Scornful Laugh His Perseverance
— —
"A Prophet not without Honor" His Final Tri-
umph. Page III.
X CONTENTS.
CHAPTER X.
THE MISSION OF JOHN ARCH.
—
The Babe of Nun-ti-ya-lee A Father's Care In- —
—
separable Companion Expert with Bow and Gun
—
A Hero at Home— 111 Luck — Its Results Life —
—
"Empty and Void Joins the Mission School — Ca-
—
reer as a Student Teacher and Preacher — His
Journies —Translates Scripture into Se-quo-jah's
Alphabet. Pag^ 126.
CHAPTER XL
THE KEY OF PROGRESS.
The Alphabet a National Institution — Suited for
All— The Medal— The "Phoenix"— Its effect on
the Nation — Circulation of Books and Tracts
The Rapid Growth of Civilized Ways — Laws on
Scandal. Page 136.
CHAPTER Xn.
CHECKS TO PROGRESS.
The Rapacious Whites — Speech of Speckled Snake

— Troubles in Georgia — Unjust Laws — Driven
out by the Guard — The "Phoenix" Suppressed
Emigration — Trouble and Suffering — Civil War
—Their Alphabet now a Key to Progress.
Pasê 153.
CONTENTS. XI
CHAPTER XIII.
SE-QUO-YAH, THE MODERN MOSES.
As a Teacher —Again a Dreamer —Would write a
Book— Queer Expedition in Search of Knowledge
Received in Honor — The Last Trip — Sickness
Death —Vision of the Past and Result of his in-
vention —The Great Conception. Page 153.
CHAPTER XIV-
THE ABORIGINES ELYSIUM.
True Indian Faith — The Gates Ajar — Beyond
to the
The Gates—The Lost Race at Last— From Dust-
Worn Ruts — Forgotten Benefactors —Among In-
dian Lore- -The Little Book — Its Result— Wonder-
ful Progress. Page 172.
CHAPTER XV.
A GRATEFUL PEOPLE.
Public Services— The Treaty of 1816—Treaty of
1828 —The Literary Pension —
Still Perpetuating
His Name— Literary — District — Bust,

Societies
— Pictures —Testimonials of his People. Pai(e 179.
CHAPTER XVI.
A LAW ABIDING PEOPLE.
The Cherokee Constitution and Government
Chief—Judiciary System— Courts—Jurors and
—
Jury Trials Laws on Treason — Murder immor- —
Xii CONTENTS.
ality —Intemperance — Recognition of the Sabbath,
etc. Page 206.
CHAPTER XVII.
PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS.
—
Schools Seminaries — Revenues — Asylums —P r i s-
—
on Churches, etc. Page 217.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE FAIR LAND.
Location The— Surface — Productions — Statistics
Recuperati ve — —
Powers Missionaries Never -the-
less a —
Cherokee Civilization Oconnostota's
Prophesy. Page 226.
ADDENDA.
CONGRATULATORY,
During the researches of the author,

he has had many words of encourage-
ment from those acquainted with the
result of Se-quo-yah's invention, and a
few extracts from these letters are given
below.
FROM REV. W. A. DUNCAN, CHAIRMAN OF
CHEROKEE BOARD OF EDUCATION.
**You have selected Se-quo-yah as
a special subject. He is worthy the pen
of any student of human character. To
my mind in the long chain of incidents
that mark the development of the hu-
man race, no link can be found of purer
gold than the life and character of that
wonderful man. You cannot see him in
his true light without placing yourself by
his side, as he stood amid the disadvan-
XIV CONGRATULATORY.
tages which environed him at the time
he espoused the grand work of giving
letters to his people. I feel much interest
in the work you have taken in hand, and
beg to express my sincere thanks for
wîat is being done for the Indians by
their friends in the States. I wish we
could turn the Cherokee Nation up on
edge as a map on a wâll, so that peo-
ple all over the United States could see
us, each with his own eyes just as we are.
I wish you success in your work".
FROM humanity's POET.

''I am glad the story of the Indian
Cadmus is to be told in thy forth-coming
book. I am very truly thy friend,
John G. Whittier."
FROM Georgia's historian, c. c.jones.
Se-quo-yah, the inventor of the Chero-
kee alphabet was a remarkable Indian,
and I am glad to know that you are pre-
paring a sketch of him."
from the "CHEROKEE ADVOCATE."
"The truth is, most of the millions of
intelligent Americans are not intelligent
enough to make any distinction between
CONGRATULATORY. XV
the red men whom they have been in-
strumental in extinguishing. They do not
know that there are civilized as well as
savage tribes of Indians, and Mr. Foster
has kindly and generously set himself to
the task of giving this information. It is
indeed true, that the Cherokee people
have a republican form of Government,
—
well administered that they live in good
houses, cultivate farms, raise stock, fish
and hunt for recreation only, dress re-
spectably, educate their youngsters and
—
pay their own way asking only not to
be interfered with, and particularly, not
to be exterminated. They have over one
hundred public schools, an orphan asy-
lum, two high schools and fifty churches
with a population of twenty thousand.
They regulate marriage by law and —
allow no irregular intercourse between
the sexes, which are important facts most
American people do not know, but which
they ought to know. Mr. Foster in his
graceful, happy way tells these things.
Mr. Foster, is evidently a friend of Indi-
ans and humanity. Let us acknowledge
it and be thankful and grateful therefor."
XVI CONGRATULATORY.
FROM W. P. BOUDINOT, EXECUTIVE
SECRETARY.
"I shall take great pleasure in giving
you what information I can in relation to
your subject at the direction of Principal
Chief, D. W. Bushyhead. Se-quo-yah's
invention made him a hero with his peo-
ple and he now occupies among the
Cherokees, by far the highest place
among the celebrities of the red race. It
is well that the American public should,
if possible, be given a correct idea of In-
dian life, which varies of course in differ-
ent localities."
MISCELLANEOUS.
Rev. Henry Morehouse, Secretary of
the American Baptist Home Missionary
Society writes —
"I shall be very glad in-
deed to see your forth-coming book
upon this famous man and the Cher-
okees. I have long wished that some one
would write up the biography of that man
and the history of his nation."
B. H. Stone, the Photographer at the
seat of Cherokee Government writes:
"I am glad if I can be the means, by
assisting you, of making the people of
CONGRATULATORY. XVll
your country see us as we are. I wish

I could show to the world in one complete
photograph, the exact stage of civiliza-
tion this people have reached. We are
glad, if there is one man in the States,
who is interested enough in our people
to perpetuate, for the first time after all
these years, in book form, the memory of
Se-quo-yah, the great benefactor of our
Nation."
L. D. Bailey, Editor of the "Cultiva-

tor and Herdsman," Garden City, Kan-
sas, writes :
—
"I congratulate you on the
work you have taken in hand. Se-quo-
yah is a name to be honored as that of a
great man, who rose high above his sur-
roundings, and was first in his race in
inventive capacity becoming a Cadmus to
his people. The ever living verdure of
our great valleys watered and fertilized
by the river that flows past his western
home perpetuates his name and should
continue to hand it down for posterity to
honor."
Rev. Timothy Hill, Supt. of Presby-
terian Missions, in the Indian Territory,
writes— "I am glad that 3'Our attention
is called to Se-quo-yah, for he is one of
XVlll CONGRATU L ATO RY.
the most remarkable men of the present
century. The invention of the Cherokee
alphabet was not only a philosophical
wonder, but was extremely useful. The
Cherokees not only used it because it
was convenient, but because it was an
invention of one of their number, and not
something brought to them by the white
man. The remarkable spectacle was soon
presented of a Nation completely igno-
rant of letters becoming at once a read-
ing people, without the aid of schools
and without any regular class of teach-
ers. Had the Cherokees been left un-
disturbed in their own home, they in all
probability would have gone rapidly for-
ward in all arts and comforts of civilized
life. As matters now are, the Cherokee
language itself must, in the nature of
things, soon give place to the English,
and Se-quo-yah's alphabet and Se-quo-
yah's people will no longer be separated
from the great mass of the American
people, but blend into one and thus fade
away."
SE-QUO-YAH.
CHAPTER I.
THE SALZBURGERS AND EBENEZERITES.

Cause of Emigration—Their Journey— Their Ori-
— —
gin Books of Devotion Arrival in America
Founding Ebenezer— The Contrast with their
—
Native Land— Appearance of the Town Provis-
ions for the Colonists— Final Fate of the Town-
New Ebenezer— Its Rise and Progress— Present
Desolation.
About one hundred and fifty years ago,

a little band of Germans, of the archbish-
oprick of Salzburg, in the circle of Bavaria,
smarting from the stings of religious per-
secution, in order to escape from the op-
pression, arbitrariness and violence of a
bigoted Popish Ecclesiastic, emigrated from
the land of their nativity, as nearly thirty
thousand of their countrymen had done
2 SALZBURGERS AND EBENEZERITES.
before them."^ Their objective point was
America. Taking their wives and little
ones in wagons, they jcurnied across the
country to Frankfort-on-the-Main; from
Frankfort they proceeded to the Rhine,
floated down the stream to Rotterdam,
and thence sailed to England, from whence
they were forwarded to America, by the
''Society for Propagating the Gospel. "§
History speaks of these emigrants as be-
ing of the Bavarian proper, springing from
the Vindelici and the Boii, a people an-
ciently grave, loyal, faithful, constant in
their affections, attached to the ceremo-
nies and faithful to the duties of religion^
ready to make any sacrifice that duty
might demand. And this little band of
*The only form of religion, that was tolerated,
was the Roman Catholic, and in 1732, injudicious
and intemperate zeal was exercised to extirpate the
Lutherans. Leave was given them to withdraw, and
take their effects, and thej were glad to do so, as
their persecutors became more severe. Some went
to Protestant Countries in Germany and Prussia,
and a few to the English Colonies in America.
§Organized in 1701, the outgrowth of The Society
for Promoting Christian Knowledge, which was
formed in 1698.
SALZBURGERS AND EBENEZERITES. 3
worshippers, joyfully left the scenes of their

persecutions, rejoicing also that they were
thus afforded an opportunity of spreading
the truth of the Gospel, as they saw it, to
the Indians of the New World. They took
with them their Bibles and Books of Devo-
tion and as they journied lightened their
fatigues with those grand old German
Hymns, which they were to make as pre-
cious in the New World, as they had been
to the people of God in the Old."^
From England they had a stormy pas-
sage of fifty-seven days and landed at the
port of Charleston, South Carolina. After
stopping there to recuperate for awhile
from their long, perilous and wearisome
journey, under the direction of General
*The Bibles accepted by these German Emigrants
were the Lutheran Versions, made up from the va-
rious editions of the Melancthon translations, Paul
Eber's translation was also accepted, and a few re-
tained the translations of Leon Juda and John Pis-
cator, who were Calvinists. The unacceptable edi-
tions were those of Jerome Emser, John of Dieten-
bergh, the Newstad edition of 1588, the Hebron of
1595 and the Jasper Ulenberg translation in 1630.
The Hymns of Luther were indeed the battle cry

and trumpet call of the Reformation. The children
learned them in cottage, and martyrs sung them on
Oglethorpe, an officer of the English Army
and member of Parliament, who had been
granted by King George II., the region be-
tween the Savannah and Altamaha Rivers
in trust for the poor, they proceeded in a
body up the Savannah River about twenty
five miles, and laid out a village which
they named Ebenezer, as they said in grat-
itude to God for his guidance of them to
a land of plenty and of rest from persecu-
the scaffold. No wonder that these emigrants loved
to sing the greatest of Luther's Hymns
''Ein"^ feste Burg zst tenser Gott."
had long been the favorite psalm with the peo-

It
ple. It had been one of the watchwords of the

Reformation, cheering armies to conflict, and sus-
taining believers in the hour of fiery trial. What
more appropriate words could they have sung on
their tempestuous voyage than
"A mighty fortress is our God,

A Bulwark never failing.
Our helper he, amid the flood,
Of mortal ills prevailing."
And how prophetic have proved the words of

another stanza
"And though the world with Devils filled,

Should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear for God hath willed,
His truth to triumph o'er us."
tion. They passed Savannah on Reminis-

cere Sunday, by the Lutheran Calendar,
the gospel of the day being, "Our blessed
Saviour came to the Borders of the heathen
after he had been persecuted in his own
country." It was on the morning of the
17th of March, 1734, that Mr. Van Reck

and General Oglethorpe, having left the
Salzburgers in tents went on and reached
the place designated for the future home
of the emigrants. It was four miles below
the present town of Springfield, Georgia,
sterile and unattractive.* From the earli-
est known history of the Salzburgers, as
the descendants of the Vindelici and the
Boii, they had lived on mountains or in
the valleys between the hills, and now for
the first time they were in a country total-
ly unlike that in which they or their an-
cestors had dwelt. To the eye of the
Commissary, however, tired of the sea and
wearied with persecutions, it appeared a
blessed spot, redolent of sweet hopes,
bright promise and charming repose. In
his journal he thus described the place:
"A little rivulet, whose waters are as clear
*History of Georgia. C. C.Jones.

as Crystal glides by the town; another runs
through it and both fall into the Ebenezer.
The Woods are not as thick as in other
Places. The sweet Zephyrs preserve a
delicious coolness, not-with-standing the
scorching Beams of the Sun. There are
very fine Meadows in which a great quan_
tity of Hay may be made with very lit-
tle Pains. There are also Hillocks very fit
for Vines. The Cedar, Cypress and Oak
make a greater part of the Woods. The
earth is so fertile that it will bring forth
anything that can be sown or planted in
it, whether Fruit, Herbs or Trees."
The Salzbiirgers at once began to clear

the land and to build their shanties. They
were not left without some assurance of as-
sistance. Before leaving England, the So-
ciety forpromoting Christian Knowledge
had agreed to a series of articles in their
behalf. Not only had they agreed to pay
the leading expenses of the voyage, but
also to such as required an allowance was
to be made for tools, and on their arrival
in Georgia, each family was to have pro-
vision giventhem gratis till they could
make a harvest, and seed was to be giv-
en them sufficient to sow the land that they

on the first year would make ready for the
sowing. By the agreement on the part of
the Salzburgers, they were to aid each oth-
er in preparing the land, and having at
once set to work, by the first of May, they
had made a goodly clearing. On that day,
they received from Savannah ten cows,
and calves and ten casks full of all kinds
of seeds. The condition of the Colony was
however extremely wretched, so m.uch so
that even the Indians, commiserating their
poverty frequently sent them deer. For
the first year, they depended almost entire-
ly on the charity of the trustees. They had
few tools to work with, and fewer mechan-
ics. The rude houses which they had con-
structed were poor protection from the

weather; the water proved bad and the
soil proved anything but good and consid-
erable sickness followed. The following
more emigrants were add-
year, fifty-seven
ed to the Colony, and among them were
several mechanics, so that the work of
building proceeded more satisfactorily.
In 1736, the settlement numbered two-
hundred people, but the greatest dissatis-
faction and there was reason
prevailed,
for their A conference was
discontent.
held, and leave was given the settlers to
remove their town, which they commenced
to do without delay. The removal took
scarcely two years, and in June 1738, old
Ebenezer had degenerated into a cowpen.
"Thus early," says Jones, Georgia's well-
known historian, *'did oldEbenezer take
its place among the lost towns of Georgia.
Its life of sorrows, of ill-founded hope and

sure disappointment was measured by
scarcely more than two years, and its frail
memories were speedily lost amid the sighs
and shadows of the monotenous pines
which environed the place." Not a trace
of old Ebenezer can be found to day.
The village of New Ebenezer they
founded on a high ridge, near the Savan-
nah river called Red Bluff from the pecu-
liar color of the soil. ''Strobel's Salzburg-
ers and their Descendants" has the follow-
ing concerning the new town.
"On the east lay the Savannah with its
"broad, smooth surface and its every va-

"rying and beautiful scenery. On the
"South was a stream, then called Little's
''Creek, but now known as Lackner's Creek
"and a large lake known as Neidlinger's
*'Sea; while to the North, not very far
''from the town, was to be seen their old

"acquaintance, Ebenezer Creek, sluggish-
"ly winding its way to mingle with the wa-
"ters of the Savannah. The surrounding
"country was gently undulating, and cov-
"ered with a fine growth of forest trees,
"while the jessamine, the woodbine and
"the beautiful azalea with its variety of
"gaudy colors, added a peculiar richness to
the picturesque scene."
But unfortunately for the permanent
prosperity of the town, it was surrounded
by low swamps, which were subject to pe-
riodical inundation and consequently prej-
udicial to the health of the inhab-
itants. New Ebenezer within a short
time after its settlement gave manifest to-
ken of substantial growth and prosperity.
The houses were larger and more comfort-
able than those which had been built in the
old town. Gardens and farms were cleared,
inclosed and brought under creditable cul-
tivation, and the sedate, religious inhabi-
tants enjoyed the fruits of their industry.
lO SALZBURGERS AND EBENEZERITES.
Funds received from Germany for the pur-
pose were employed in the erection of an
orphan house, in which for the lack of a
church, the community worshipped for sev-
eral years. "^ It is not necessary for the
purpose of this work to follow further the
history of New Ebenezer, except to say
that it became a town of considerable note
and the capital of Effingham County. The
people who lived there were exceedingly
religious, and for many years there was no
necessity for a Court of Justice. The chil-
dren were brought up in the most decorous
ways, with a strictness hardly equalled by
New England most puritanic days,
in its
and their early was given to industry.
life
A large church was built there, and quite

a library was collected, but for all this pros-
perity, New Ebenezer, like the old, has
been numbered among the ''Dead Towns
of Georgia." Jerusalem Church, a substan-
tial brick structure there, still remains as
a monument of holy memories, but

all else of that smiling settlement has
passed away; it is Goldsmith's ''Deserted
Village" over again:
History of Georgia.
"The sports are fled, and all the charms withdrawn

Amidst thv bowers thy tyrant's hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green:
One only master grasps the whole domain.
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain;
No more thy glassy brook reflects the da}', s
But choak'd with sedges, works its winding way;

Along thy glades a solitary guest.
The hollow sounding bittern guards its nest;
Amidst the desert wilds the lapwing flies,
And tires their echoes with imvary'd cries.
Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all,
And the long grass o'er tops the mould'ring wall.

And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand
Far, far away thy children leave the land."
Why is it, in all nations, that so many

towns, famous for being, as it were, the
birthplaces of reforms, and of purer and
better things, are permitted, by that Prov-
idence who rules the world, to become
ruins or extinct?
CHAPTER II.
GIST, THE DUTCH PEDLER.

A Swa bia-Franconia Arrival— Birth of a Baby Boy
— A Pest to Ebenezer — The Unlicensed Pedler
Wooes a Cherokee Maiden — Purchases Her for a
Wife— He Smokes and She Works— The Wigwam
—Indian Hospitality— Around the Dinner Kettle
— Sudden Disappearance — A Cause of American
"Blues."
These devout Salzburgers left in Bava-

ria another class far less religious in na-
ture, who were a cross between the in-
habitants of Ancient Swa bia and the
people of Ancient Franconia, who mark-
edly retained some of the leading charac-
teristics of the from whom they
people
descended, viz., ignorance and superstition
on the one hand, and a wicked cunning on
the other. In the month of March, 1739,
when the worshippers had become fully es-
tablished in their home in New Ebenezer,
they addressed a call through the Trustees
to their friends, relatives and countrymen
GIST, THE DUTCH PEDLER. 1
in the old country to come over and set-

tlewith them. Though they pledged the
Trustees, that these friends should all be
godly men, a family of Bavarians of the
Swabia-Franconia Branch came over and
with them took up their residence. They
were influenced only by hope of gain, hav-
ing no holy aspirations like those who came
before them. Not long after their arrival,
they had born to them a baby-boy, who
was very markedly possessed of the lead-
ing traits of his Swabia-Franconia ances-
tors, which led him to grow up in igno-
rance, superstition and that cunning, which
him into doubtful
often, in after days, led
enterprise. This Dutch boy named by his
parents George Gist* grew up to be the
bane of the village of New Ebenezer. He
was too indolent to study and he would
not work, and when he reached manhood,
he could speak but a few words of English
and of the Cherokee tongue he knew abso-
lutely nothing. Though Ebenezer was still
noted for itsfreedom from disreputable
characters, George Gist chose to be among
By some authorities Gisb.
14 GIST, THE DUTCH PEDLER.
that few. He could hardly be called a vaga-
bond as he possessed too much energy, but
he was held in so low repute that he could
not obtain a pedler's license, and he be-
came a traveling trader of the contraband
order, trading and bartering without a li-
cense, and from the Indians often charging
aprofit of twoor three hundred percent*.
On Oct. 7th, 1763, King George prohibited all
provincial governors from granting lands, or issu-
ing land wârrants, to be located upon any territory
lying west of the mountains, or west of those
streams which flow into the Atlantic, and all settle-
ments by the subjects of Great Britain, west of the
sources of the Atlantic rivers. It was further de-
creed and required, "that all traders should
take a license from their respective governors for
carrying on commerce with the Indians." This proc-
lamation of the distant King was often disregarded^
and indeed it was impossible to prevent those in-
clined from trading more or less without the license
required by law. Ramsey
An account is "The Annual Register of
given in
1763, of the method one of these Indian traders took
to stirup trade among the Cherokees. It says: —
an Indian trader, having sold to the
•'Jeffreys,
Cherokees several garments of red baize, much of
the nature of the Highland uniform, for which he
had a valuable return of furs and deer-skins and his
;
excellency^ the governor finding these things liked

One bright spring morning in 1768, this

George Gist, it is said, left Ebenezer. He
passed through Augusta, and taking the
path marked out by the Cherokees in
1740,"^ he entered the Cherokee Nation by
and the Cherokees not a little proud of their new
dress, ordered a very magnificent suit of rich scar-
let, in the same form, and trimmed with silver tas-
sels, to be presented to each of their chiefs; so if
this humorholds, they might see the whole Chero-
kee nation clad in regimentals, which may probably
extend all over North America." On this subject
the editor of the "Register" reflected as follows: "As
a change in dress has been ever deemed, a step at
least, toward a change in manners, it would, per-
haps, be well worth the while of our colonies to
supply all the savages in general, even gratis, with
garments of this kind. It would probably have one
good effect, if it had no other, that of rendering
them in time dependent upon us, by creating among
them a want, which neither themselves or any Eu-
ropean nation, but the English, could supply."
*In this year there was a handsome fort at Au-
gusta, where there was a small garrison of twelve or
fifteen men besides officers. The safety the traders
derived from this fort drew them to that point. An-
other cause of the place, was the fertility of the land
around it. The Cherokees marked out a path from
Augusta to their nation, so that horsemen could
ride from Savannah to all parts of the Indian Na-
tions. Annals of Tennessee.
l6 GIST, THE DUTCH PEDLER.
the northern mountains of Georgia. He
had two pack horses laden with merchan-
dise suited for Indian trade. In thus start-
ing out Gist was a violator of law. This he
well knew, for Capt. Stewart, the British
Superintendent of Indian affairs, was reg-
ulator of that traffic among them, and
none could lawfully engage in it without
license. But Gist chose to run any risk
there might be, and on this Spring morn-
ing in 1768 he started on a trading trip
among the Cherokees. On this round, he
saw a Cherokee maiden who pleased his
fancy. She in return was pleased with
him; a few glittering gewgaws from his
pack passed over to her father sealed the
marriage contract. Though her family
were not numbered among the chiefs of
the Cherokee tribes, they were prominent
and influential, and she had brothers* who
spoke in the Council. Even as George
Gist could not speak a word of Cherokee,
brothers was Ke-a-ha-ta-kee It is
*One of these
stated that he was atone time President of Echota,
their ancient town of refuge. Like the Jews, the
Early Cherokees had a "City of Refuge" to which
an Indian having committed murder in his tribe
could flj for safety.
neither could she speak a word of Dutch

or English. At it was
this early day, even,
no unusual thing for the Whites to make
these marriages with Cherokee girls. It
was a matter of convenience, for the early
Cherokee women were willing slaves, and
in all respects she was the typical Cherokee
woman of one hundred and twenty-five
years ago. In her early life, before this
marriage, she helped her mother about
the wigwam as much, if not more, than
the American girl of to-day helps hers.
She cooked, she mended, dressed the ven-
ison and made ornamental work, and
though she was not accounted a handsome
maid, Gist seemed to appreciate her worth
and purchased her as his wife; and this
woman, as history records it, so long as
he lived with her, was a model Indian wife,
for she prided herself in permitting her
husband to do just nothing at all, and on
her success in this particular she based
her hope of heaven.
While our Dutch pedler smoked his
home-made pipe around the fire or joined
in the chase when his indolence would
l8 GIST, THE DUTCH PEDLER.
allow, she cultivated even the maize,
cleared a piece she
of land for tillage;
helped put up a wigwam; she prepared
and dried the and fashioned them
skins,
into clothing, and cooked his food over
the wigwam fire. She even butchered the
game, saddled the horses, and cared for
them on his return; she brought the wood,
—
fetched the water, and yet, though prac-
tically a slave, as she knew no better way,
she was accounted a very happy woman.
Her hope of happiness was based on her
devotion to her husband; so the more she
did for him, the more contented she be-
came. Her home was the dream of Mogg
Megone over again, where:
'*The Sum of Indian happiness!
A wigwam, where the warm sunshine
Looks in among the groves of pine
A stream, where round thy light canoe,
The trout and salmon dart in view,
And the fair girl — * * *
* * plying in the dews of morn.
Her hoe amidst the patch of corn,
Or offering up at eve to thee.
Thy birchen dish of hominy."
In short, all the duties of every kind re-
lating to the home, the family and its sur-
GIST, THE DUTCH PEDLER. Ip
roundings devolved upon the Cherokee
woman. It was her duty to relieve her
husband of every drudgery and care it ;
was the business of the man to hunt and

fish in time of peace, and fight for the
protection of his wife and children in case
of war, and it was not until 1826, thatthe
Cherokees began to feel that the raising
of corn and the management of their lit-
tle plantations belonged exclusively to
the male sex, and from that time, this so

called barbarous nation strove to elevate
woman to her appointed place, while in
the States, the land of boasted civilization
and enlightenment where missions have
their spring and support, and contribu-
tion boxes are so freely passed for funds
Says Irving: "The Indian women were far from

complaining of their lot. On the contrary, they de-
spised their husbands could they stoop to any me-
nial office, and would think it conveyed an imputa-
tion on their own conduct. It was the worst insult
one virago could cast upon another in a moment of

altercation. 'Infamous woman,' she would cry,
*i have seen your husband carrying wood into his
lodge to make the fire. Where was his squaw that
he should be obliged to make a woman of himself."
to convert far-off heathen, too many per-
sist in apeing the laziness and custom of
those red barbarians of old, and become
store and street corner loafers, and pat-
rons of drinking saloons, while their tired
wives earn their bread by taking in sale
work.
But Gist soon wearied of Indian life
and the neat wigwam made largely by
his wife's own hands lost its attraction,
and one night, suddenly gathering to-
gether his effects he went away he never ;
returned, nor is there any record that he

was ever heard of more. And thus the
Cherokee wife was left alone in the wig-
wam, which, by the way, was not the
worst place to be left in after all ; for it
was warm and comfortable,* circular in

form, thirty or forty feet in diameter, con-
structed of forked pieces of timber, six
feet in placed in the ground, at
length,
small distances from each other, in ver-
tical position supported by others placed
obliquely. Four taller beams placed in
Mil lot.
the middle served as a support to the

poles or rafters, which were covered with
fine willow branches thickly matted with
grass or clay. The door or entrance was
four feet wide, a hole in the middle of the
roof served as an escape for smoke and
the admission of light* The beds and
seats were made of the skins of different
animals, but what is most important to
us now, was a platform raised three feet

from the floor and covered with the hairy
skin of a bear. This was the reception
seat for guests. At any hour of the day
guests were welcome. No race is more
hospitable to strangers if it be in time of
peace than the Indian, and it is to be re-
gretted, that the old fashioned hospitality

of our New England people, followed so
closely in the moccasin footprints of our
Indians toward the setting sun. This hos-
*In the narrative of Col. James Smith, who was
for many years a captive among the Indians, he
gives an incident illustrative of Indian hospitality :
"Tontileango went out and when he was

to hunt,
gone a Wyandotte came to our camp. I gave him a
shoulder of venison which I had by the fire, well
pitalityis characteristic with all Indians.
While George Gist remained in the
wigwam, Indian hospitality was fully car-
ried out. The savory smells, which es-
caped from the aperture at the top, drew
many from other wigwams, who were
made very welcome when the cooking
;
was done, they would gather around a

great earthen kettle, from which, having
no knives or forks, with the most prima-
tive, but effective tools, their fingers, they
would pick out the meat having only

;
one meal per day, and that well and

roasted, and he received it gladly, told me he was
hungry, and thanked me for my kindness. When
Tontileango came home I told him that a Wyan-
dotte had been to camp, and that I gave him a
shoulder of venison. He told me that was very
well, and I suppose you gave him also sugar and
bears oil to eat with his venison. I told him I did
not, as the sugar and bears oil were down in the
canoe, I did not go for it. He replied, '*You have
acted just like a Dutchman. Do you not know, that
when strangers come to our camp, we ought always
give them the best we have?" I acknowledged that
I was wrong. He said that he could excuse this, as
I was but young, but I must learn to behave like a

warrior and do great things, and never be found in
such little actions.
thoroughly cooked, dyspepsia, that ene-
my to the white men and women of to-day
never dared approach the early Cherokee
people, and so this world, which God
made to look so charming and bright to
all humanity, never appeared to be a
gloomy place to them, as they never per-
mitted a disordered stomach to blight
their hope of an eternity of bliss in their
*' happy hunting ground" beyond.
CHAPTER III.
BIRTH OF SE-QUO-YAH.
Cotemporary Histor}' — Primitive Child-birth —The
—
Guest Reception Seat Occupied Visit of the Old
— —
Grand Parent The Name Cradle An Indian —
— —
Lesson True Elements of success The Religion
of the Early Cherokee.
It was in the year 1770, when the peo-

ple of New York erected the first pole,
where the City Hall now stands, in favor
of "Liberty," and all America was strug-
gling to shake off the British yoke, that
the real hero of our sketch was born.
But George Gist had cared not to wait
even for that event. Some time before the
advent of the child, the deserted wife, ac-
cording to the early custom of her tribe,
alone and unattended, left her friends and
BIRTH OF SE-QUO-YAH. 2$
kindred, and in a secluded thicket, far
away from camp, she gave birth to her
child, and thus the first music, that greet-
ed this Indian child, was the sighing of
the forest, the musical rustle of leaves
and the song of Nature, which he loved
through life, which seems to have been
the inspiration of his genius and the key-
to his grand achievement. While the
Dutch father was perhaps making new
conquests in other localities, the deserted
mother came back to her now lonely-
wigwam and placed on the guest's re-
ception seat a cradle in which was her
new-born child. And the father of this
deserted Cherokee wife came in and
The burdens of maternity to these simple child-
ren of the forest, strengthened by toil and inured
to hardship, were generally light. According to the
quaint account "In one quarter of an hour a wo-
:
man would be merry in the wigwam, and delivered

and merry again and ; in two days abroad, and after
four or five days at work." In case of a difficult tra-
vail, the stern will and resolute fortitude of Indian
character triumphed over nature, and scarcely a
complaint was uttered, lest she should be esteemed
worthy to be the mother only of cowards.
26 BIRTH OF SE-QUO-YAH.
looked at his grandchild and seeing thai
it was a boy, he gave a grunt of approval.
Had it been a girl, he would have turned

silently away to the wigwam fire, to count
by anticipation, the bright jewels or horses
she would bring, when she became of mar-
riageable age. As the Cherokee mother
stood by the guest reception seat, and
looked lovingly on her sleeping child, her
mind turned in silent sadness toward her
truant husband, to whom she had been,
and to whose memory she was ever after
true; then and there, she named her child
Se-quo-yah, which in the musical language
of his people means *'he guessed it."*
Authorities differ concerning the naming of Se-
quo-jah. Rev. C. C. Torrey, for many years a
missionary among the Cherokees, in a personal let-
ter writes us that it was not given until after the
invention of the alphabet, and had reference to
guessing it out; but W. A. Phillips, who prepared
an extended account of Se-quo-yah for Harper's
Magazine, and who was acquainted with the family,
and even had one of Se-quo-yah's sons in his regi-
ment during the civil war says "The deserted
:
mother called her babe Se-quo-yah; his fellow

clansmen, as he grevj up, gave him an English
name, that of his father, or something like it," and
BIRTH OF SE-QUO-YAH. 2/
The cradle in which Se-quo-yah slept,
was like those all Indians used. A piece
of dried buffalo hide cut in proper shape,
then turned on itself, and fastened togeth-
er with strings; the face always exposed,
the whole then tightly fastened to a board
to which were attached straps, which
passed over the head, so the mother could
carry the child on her back as she jour-
nied, or to the field where she worked, ôr
hang on an alder bush near by. In a
it
cradle like this, Se-quo-yah staid for ten

months. Think of it! For ten long months
except to be bathed once a day, did Se-
quo-yah stay strapped in his hard cradle,
which was either hung on a tree branch,
or packed away at an angle of forty-five de-
grees in some out of the way corner of
the wigwam. Doubtless the reader will
think that there must have been a very
squally time of it Se-quo-yah was
if little
brought up in this way. But it was not so.
inEnglish he is usually spoken of as George Guess.

Se-quo-yah is still the name the Cherokees fondly
cling to. One of the counties of their nation bears
his name, and one of their literary institutions is
called after him.
Indian children of those days were educa-
ted not to fuss. What a difference between
the teaching of this Indian and some of
our white mothers! The first lesson the
Indian mother taught her children was
that of self dependence and obedience.
The Good Lord gave to this simple Indian
woman, Se-quo-yah's mother, an intuition
that half her child's squalls were not from
the stomach's ache, but from the evil sug-
gestions of Satan himself; so having given
him due care, she placed Se-quo-yah in the
most out of the way corner of the wigwam
orhunghimon an alder bush outside,
and if Satan did prompt him to an unnec-
essary squall, she grasped Se-quo-yah's
nose between her thumb and forefinger
and held on until the little one was nearly
suffocated; she then let go, only to seize
and smother him again at his first attempt
at an outbreak, and thus in the very
first month of his life was Se-quo-yah
taught that obedience was the best policy
and unlike many white children, who are
pampered in their early life to their future
destruction, Se-quo-yah grew up strong.
BIRTH OF SE-QUO-YAH. 29
selfreliant and obedient."^ Let the life of
this barbarous mother teach us this les-
—
sen of judicious training not her methods
"It but justice," says a writer, after speaking of
is
these peculiar methods of rearing children, "to bear

our testimony to the maternal affection of the Indian
women, in which they fall nothing behind their
more civilized and more polished sisters. We have
often marked the anxiety of the Indian mother
bending over her sick child; her untiring watchful-
ness, and so far as a mother's love can make it so,
refined attentions to its claims upon her tenderness.
In times of danger, we have witnessed its anxiety
for security, and her fearless exposure of her own
person for its protection. We have looked npon the
ix)ugh-clad warrior in the solitude of his native
forest attired in the skinsof beasts or wrapped about
with his blankets, and realized all our preconceived
impressions of his ferocity and savage-like appear-
—
ance but when we have entered the lodge and be-
held in the untutored mother, and amid the rude
circumstances of her condition, the same parental
love for her children, that we have seen in other
lands, we almost forgot that we stood at the thresh-
old of the ruthless savage, whose pursuits and feel-
ings we had supposed have nothing in common

to
with ours, and have felt, that both as children of
one father, we were brothers of the same blood
heirs of the same infirmities — victims of the same
passions, and though in different degrees, bound
down to the same common feelings of our nature."
but her principle and purpose. It is a
erave error of the American mother to do
too much for her children when they are
small and too long delay teaching them
the lesson of self reliance. Of all the ele-
ments of success in life none is more vital
than to be ones own helper, and not look
to others for support. It is the secret of
intellectual growth and vigor, the master
key that unlocks all difificuities in all pro-
fessions and every calling. In all her seem-
ing rudeness, Phillips tells us, ''No truer
mother ever lived and cared for her child.
She reared him with the most watchful
tenderness. With her own hands she clear-
ed her little field and cultivated it, and
carried her babe while she drove up the
cows and milked them." Se-quo-yah's
mother and her parents had no established
religion. They were not idolaters, for they
did not worship idols; yet like many Cher-
okees of that day, they were more relig-
ious than the average white man. In the
early days of the Cherokee people no war-
riorthought himself secure until he had
addressed his guardian angel, and no
hunter ever dreamed of success until be-
fore the rising sun* he had asked assis-
tance of his God, to whom on his return
at eventide he forgot not to offer sacrifice.
And thus the early Indian, though hav-
ing no established religion, believed in a
God and worshipped him, and this adora-
tion of his good god was generally far
greater than a white man's love. We
are taught in childhood on our mother's
knee that certain things are right and
Even the early Cherokeesgave the East due rev-
erence in all their solemn ceremonials, especially
in the opening of the council. Says Irving, "All

being seated the old Seneschal prepared the pipef
of ceremony or council, and having lit it handed it
to the chief. He inhaled the sacred smoke, gave a
puff upward to the heaven, then downward to the
t2iX\h^ then toward the East \ after this it was as
usual passed from mouth to mouth, each holding it
neighbor had taken several

respectful Ijj^ntil his
whiffs, and now the grand council was considered
as opened in due form."
fMuch labor was bestowed on the ornamentation
of these pipes both common and ceremonial. They
often represented birds and animals, but especially
did the Cherokees make their pipes in human
shape, as Adair remarks, not much to be com-
mended for their modesty.
Others wrong. Morality is inculcated
with our religion, andwe cannot divorce
them. But the religion that Se-quo-yah's
mother taught him, though crude and
undeveloped, became as firmly seated in
his belief as Christianity is in the faith
of the Christian, but it was a religion
with no mor^l code. It taught no duty or
obligation to God or man. Right and
wrong were abstract terms and had no
meaning to Se-quo-yah in his early life.
Hence he believed all right that he wished
to do and all wrong that opposed him. It
was right to steal horses from another
tribe or a white man,* but wrong to steal
from his own tribe. Beside the ''good
god" to whom he bowed so reverently
toward the East, that he might be aided
in all of hisundertakings, be protected
The firstknown battle between the Whites and
Cherokees was the result of thus taking a few
horses. A few Cherokees took several horses from
the Whites, and thev gave them no quarter. They
murdered several Cherokees, and the feud thus be-
gan was of long continuance. The Cherokees took
conciliatory measures, which the Whites rejected.
from danger and privations and to be
given all the good and pleasurable things
of life, Se-quo-yah's mother taught him
that toward the setting sun dwelt the
"bad god" the red man's enemy, and that
from him came all the privations, disas-
ters and life's misfortunes. And Se-quo-
yah grew up, believing that there was to
be for him a happy hunting ground, a
belief that answered the same purpose to
this untutored savage as St. John's vision
of the New Jerusalem does to us.*
Around the wigwam fire Se-quo-yah
was taught, that before the good Indian
dies, he orders his favorite horse to be
slain, that he may enjoy with him an
eternity of beautiful pastures that he ;
would need him to hunt beyond the milky

*The idea of a future state was of very early or-
igin. A missionary of the A. B. C. F. M., in 1824,
had an interview with an aged chief whose boyhood
dated previous to the birth of Se-quo-yah He said
.
that when he was young, he was told that they went

to another country when they died, where were very
many people, and great towns and villages, *'but
we never talked much about those things."
way of the sky, which he believed to be
the wide road of the Indian dead,
made white by the myriads of journeying
ghosts that he would need him, as he
;
hunted the phantom deer or buffalo, to get

phantom food, or phantom clothes for his
own phantom body. And Se-quo-yah's
mother taught him in the simple language
of her tribe, that in the region of the
hereafter he might expect phantom pain,
phantom hunger, and that all the ills that
flesh is heir to would follow him there
except death. She bade him take care
of his body here, for should he become
one legged on earth, he would be one
legged in the happy hunting ground be-
yond if he lost an eye on earth, he would
;
continue to grope darkly through all time ;
if he died in health, he would be a beau-

tiful phantom, but if he died after a dis-
.stressing illness, he must forever be a de-

crepit spirit if he died at night there
;
could be only an eternity of darkness ;

in short a mutilated Indian body meant a
mutilated Indian soul. And Se-quo-yah
in boyhood believed that but two things
could keep his soul from the happy hunt-
ing ground —
if he should be scalped his
;
soul was lost if he should be strangled,

;
it never could escape. Such were the be-
liefs of the Cherokee people in the days
of Se-quo-yah's boyhood a century ago,

but naturally susceptible to new truths,
changed from time to time,
these beliefs
and iniSiy, when the American Board
established mission stations among them,
they declared that no other barbarous na-
tion had been so willing to accept the Bi-
ble as this. Of his later religious belief
in his manhood Phillip's says :
"Se-quo-yah, who never saw his father

and never could utter a word in the Ger-
man tongue, still carried deep in his na-
ture, an odd compound of Indian and
German trancendentalism essentially In-
;
dian in opinion, but German in instinct

and thought. He talked with his associ-
ates upon all the knotty points of law, re-
ligion and art. Indian Theism and Pan-
theism were measured against the gospel
as taught by the land-seeking, fur-buying
adventurers. A good class of missionaries
had indeed entered the Cherokee Nation ;
but the shrewd Se-quo-yah and the disci-

ples this stoic taught among the moun-
tains, had just sense enough to weigh the
good and the bad to-gether and to strike
an impartial balance as the footing of this
new proselyting race. It has been errone-
ously stated that Se-quo-yah was a be-
liever in or practiced the old Indian re-
ligious rites. Christianity had, indeed,
done little more for him than to unsettle
the pagan idea, but it had done that."
Se-quo-yah seems to have never been
on good terms with the missionaries, even
though his alphabet was at last accepted
by them, when they saw him
"The Cadmus of the blind,
Giving the dumb lip language,
The idiot clay a mind."
yet it is only too evident that a few looked
upon him as an interloper, who by his in-
vention, had taken from them the laurels
they strove to win.
CHAPTER IV.
FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD.
Boyhood Pursuits — Important help to his Mother
Silver-smith—Black-smith —Trade-mark — Sacred
Pipe — Debauch — Remorse — A Good Samaritan —
Reformation, and Good Work among his Peo"
pie.
The days of the Revolution were the

days of Se-quo-yah's boyhood. His moth-
er was a woman of uncommon energy, and
Se-quo-yah being of a different temper
than other Indian boys of his time, and
many Yankee boys of our time, felt it no
disgrace to labor and to help her. Says
Phillips:
—
'*He lived alone with his mother
and had no old man to teach him the use
of the bow. He would wander alone in
the forest and showed early mechanical
38 FROM BOY TO MANHOOD.
genius in carving with his knife many
objects from pieces of wood. He employed
his boyish leisure in building houses in
the forest. As he grew older, these me-
chanical pursuits took a more useful shape.
He first exercised his genius in making an
improved kind of wooden milkpans and
skimmers for his mother. Then he built
her a milk-house, with all suitable conve-
niences, on one of those grand springs
that gurgle from the mountains of the old
Cherokee Nation. As a climax, he even
helped her to milk her cows, and he also
cleared additions to her fields and wôrked
on them with her." Another account says:
'*Se-quo-yah's mother maintained herself
by her own exertions. That she was a
woman of some capacity is evident from
the undeviating affection for herself with
which she inspired her son, and the influ-
ence she exercised over him. Her property
consisted chiefly in horses and cattle, that
roamed in the woods, and of which she
owned a considerable number. Her farm
consisted of eight acres. He took care of
the cattle and horses, and when he grew
FROM BOY TO MANHOOD. 39
to sufficient size, would break the colts to
saddle and harness." To his mother, with-
out doubt, was due all the energy and
perseverance of his nature; his meditative
and philosophical inclinations came from
his father or dated beyond him, and at last
developed into an odd compound of In-
dian and German trancendentalism. But
one trait he seemed to inherit from his
father direct, and that was his love of trade
and barter. Indeed, he also became a trav-
elling trader, though not a contraband
like his father. The Cherokee woman mar-
ried or single owned her property in her
own right, and in time Se-quo-yah's
mother had contrived to get a stock of
goods and she traded with her country-
men. She taught Se-quo-yah to be a good
judge of furs and he would go on expedi-
tions with hunters, and would select such
skins as he wanted for his mother before
they returned. Often he came back heav-
ily laden with peltries, which his mother
exchanged for articles of European make.
A hatchet, a pocket looking-glass, a piece
of scarlet cloth, paints, guns, and powder
were exchanged for furs. The exchange
was necessarily slow, but the profits real-
ized were large. In the valleys of the
Ohio and the Tennessee, the English and
French still hunted the buffalo, and Se-
quo-yah often paid visits to these hunters
with pack-horse trains for his mother.
When his mother died he still occupied
her cabin which soon became the resort
of all his lively countrymen, for he was
the genial story teller of his tribe. As he
grew toward manhood, his mechanical
ingenuity rapidly developed. For his
goods he now received the broad silver
pieces of the Spaniards, and the old
French and English coins. This silver
he beat into rings and broad, ornamented
silver bands for the head. He made some
handsome breastplates and necklaces of
his own invention, also bells for the
ankles and rings for the toes. He soon
became the greatest silver-smith of his
tribe, as his articles excelled all similar
manufactures among his countrymen.
From the earliest days, the Southern
FROM BOY TO MANHOOD. 4I
Indians had been marked for their works

of skill. Famous were the arrow-makers
of this region
"Making arrow-heads of jasper,
Arrow-heads of chalcedony."
"These arrow and spear points were re-
markable for beauty of material and ex-
cellency of workmanship. Party-colored
jaspers, smoky, milky and sweet-water
quartz, pure crystals, chalcedony and va-
rieties of flint and chert were the favorite
stones from which these implements were
fashioned."* From marine, fiuviatile, and
lacustrine shells were manufactured pen-
dants, beads, arm-guards, masks, pins,
drinking-cups, spoons and money. The
imposing calumet, with its long stem
adorned with feathers was often made of
serpentine, gneiss, steatite oolite, soap-
stone and a tough stone composed of mi-
ca and a dark brown feldspar.
Observation appears to have been a
keynote in Se-quo-yah's progressive ca-
reer. He was always foremost in what
History o( Georgia.
ever he undertook, and as we have said
was the best silver-smith of his tribe, but
he was never taught the trade. In later
years, after the white men had thickly
settled his nation, he resolved to be a
blacksmith. He never asked to be taught,
but visiting their shops, he freely used
his eyes, and with them learned how to
use his hands. remarks
Phillips :
**When he bought the necessary mate-

rial and went to work it is characteristic
that his first performance was to make

his bellows and his tools, and those who
afterward saw them say that they were
well made." Among the leading chiefs
in the days of Se-quo-yah's young man-
hood were Crawling Snake, Path-killer,
Big Half Breed, Gentleman Town, Big
Cabin, Major Riley, Rising Fawn and
Charles Hicks. The latter had picked up
a little learning at the Moravian school*
*In 1733, the Trustees of Georgia offered Count
Zinzendorf a tract of land to be colonized bj the
Brethren ; this offer was gladlj accepted, in the
hope that a way might thus be opened for preaching
was interested in religious matters, and
had more than a passing interest in Se-quo-
yah. One day while working at his trade
of silver-smith, the idea of a trademark
dawned upon mind, and he went to
his
his friend Hicks and asked him to write his
English name. What followed is thus re-
lated —
by Phillips: "The real name of his
father was George Gist. It is now written
by the family as it has long been called in
the tribe when his English name is used
**Guest." Hicks, remembering a word
that sounded like it wrote George Guess.
It was a "rough guess," but answered the

purpose. The silversmith was as igno-
rant of English as he was of any written
language. Being a fine workman, he made
in his Blacksmith shop a steel die, a fac-
simile of the name written by Hicks, and
with this he put his "trade mark" on his
silver wares and it is borne, to this day,
on many of these ancient works of art
in the Cherokee Nation".
the gospel to the Creeks Chickasaw and Cherokee
Indians. Moravian Schools were organized the fol-
lowing year.
Thus for years, Se-quo-yah, when not
engaged in the chase, of which he was
passionately fond, traded in furs, made
Indian jewels and forged in his little shop
and was accounted quite well-to-do by
his tribe.
Through life he was an inveterate user
of tobacco , and for this he certainly is not
tobe accorded blame for the pipe was
ever esteemed by the Cherokee as a sa-
cred object, and tobacco a divine gift.
With them, smoking at times became a
devotional exercise, as they believed the
incense of tobacco was pleasing to the
*' Father of Life." The ascending smoke
was selected as the most suitable medium
for communicating with the great un-
known. Says Longfellow :
"Gitche Manito, the mighty,

The Great Spirit, the Creator,
Smiled upon his helpless children !
And in silence all the warriors

Broke the red stone of the quarry,
Smoothed and formed it into Peace-Pipes,
Broke the long reeds by the river.
Decked them with their brightest feathers,
And departed each one homeward.
While the Master of Life, ascending,
Throngh the opening of cloud-curtains,
Through the doorways of the heaven,
Vanished from before their faces.
In the smoko that rolled around him,
The Pukwana of the Peace-Pipe."
We now come to a page in Se-quo-

yah's history that gladly would we leave
out. Civilized white man taught this bar-
barous Indian to indulge in the intoxica-
ting cup. A vicious hospitality surround-
ed him, which led him onwa^Jt in his
course until, at the age of thirty-five he
found his business seriously impaired and
himself degenerated into almost a com-
mon sot. Says Phillips on this subject: —
"With the acuteness that comes of
this foreign stock he learned to buy his
liquor by the keg. This species of econ-
omy is as dangerous to the red as to the
white race. The auditors who flocked to
hear him were not likely to diminish,
while the philosopher furnished both dog-
mas and the whiskey. Long and deep
•^\;bauches were often the consequence.
Still it was not in his nature to be a wild
shouting drunkard ; when he was too far
gone to play the mild sedate philosopher,
he began that monotonous singing whose
melody carried him back to the days
when the shadow of the whiteman never
darkened the forest, and the Indian canoe
alone rippled the tranquil waters. Then
ashamed he would wander away to the
woods, and sleep off the effect of his de-
bauch, and he never returned among his
people again without being thoroughly
ashamed." A
little over three miles from
his cabin lived Col. Lowrey, a Cherokee

noted for many good works among his
people. He was deeply interested in Se-
quo-y ah and his genius. He regretted to
see his downward course, and he expos-
tulated often with him, until he saw the
reasonableness of his warning and with
an almost superhuman effort,
**One brave and manful struggle,
He gained the solid land."
he gave up his drink, and ever after he
was enrolled for temperance. Think of it
A barbarian sot saying **Iwiir' and be-
coming a temperance man, while around
us are hundreds and thousands of bum-
mers, wearing the garb of civilization,
who are saying "I can't" and with this as
their watchword going down to drunk-
ards' graves. When Col. Lowrey in
connection with David Brown drew up a
temperance pledge, many Cherokees
through Sequoyah's influence signed the
—
pledge and kept it too.
SaysColton's North American Indians :
he continued to employ himself in black-

smithing for some years, and in the mean-
while turned his attention to the art of
drawing. He made many sketches of
horses, cattle, deer, houses and other fa-
miliar objects, which were as rude as
those which the Indians draw upon their
dressed skins, but which improved so
rapidly as to present at length, a very tol-
erable resemblance of the figures intend-
ed to be copied. He had probably at this
time never seen a picture or an engrav-
ing, but was led to these exercises by
the stirring of an innate propensity for the
imitative arts. He became extremely pop-
ular. Amiable, accommodating, and un-
assuming, he displayed an industry un-
common among his people, and a genius
which elevated him in their eyes as a
prodigy. They flocked to him from the
neighborhood, and from distant settle-
ments, to witness his skill and to give him
employment ; and the untaught Indian
gazed with astonishment at one of his
own race, who had spontaneously caught
the spirit, and was rivaling the ingenuity
of civilized man.
CHAPTER V.
FESTIVALS, GAMES AND DANCES.
— Conjurers —The Magic Seven — Con-
Ball-plajing
juring for Health —The Health Roast —Tradition
Keeping— Green Corn Dance — Chungke—A War
Song.
Se-quo-yah was the leader in many of

the Indian sports ; the chase was to him a
passionate delight ; as a fisherman none
could him excell ; of all athletic games
he was the life, his favorite being the In-
dian game of ball. A description of one
of these early games of ball as played by
the early Cherokees is described as fol-
lows by an eye witness :
*The grounds were a beautiful hickory

level entirely in a state of nature, upon
History of Walton County, Ga.
50 GAMES AND DANCES.
which had been erected several tents con-
taining numerous articles, mostly of In-
dian manufacture, which were the stakes
to be won or lost in the contest. The two
contending parties were composed of fifty
men each, mostly in a state of nudity, and
having their faces painted in a fantastical
manner and were headed by their chiefs.
The war whoop was then sounded by one
party and then by the other, and was
continued alternately, as they advanced
slowly and in regular order toward each
other toward the center of the ground al-
lotted for the contest. Two parallel lines
ground near
of stakes are driven into the
each other, each extending for about one
hundred yards, and having the space of
one hundred yards between them. In the
center of these lines were the contending
towns, headed by their chiefs, each having
in their hands two wooden spoons, curi-
ously carved, not unlike our large iron
spoons. The object of these spoons is to
throw up the ball. The ball was made of
deerskin wound around a piece of spunk.
GAMES AND DANCES. 5
To carry the ball through one of the lines

mentioned above is the purpose to be ac-
complished. Every time the ball is carried
through the line counts one. The game is
commenced by one of the chiefs throwing
up the ball to a great height by means of
the wooden spoons. As soon as the ball
was thrown up, the contending parties
mingled together. If the chief of the op-
posite party catches the ball as it descends
with his spoons, which he exerts his ut-
most skill to do, it counts one for his
side. The respective parties stand pre-
pared to catch the ball if there should be
a failure on the part of their chiefs to do
so. The strife begins. The chief has failed
to catch the ball. A stout warrior has
caught it, and endeavors with all speed to
carry it to his lines, when a faster runner
knocks his feet from under him, wrests the
ball from him, and triumphantly makes his
way with the prize to his own line; but
when he almost reaches the goal, he is
overtaken by one or more of his oppo-
nents, who endeavor to take it from
him. The struggle becomes general, and
it is often the case that serious per-
sonal injuries are inflicted. It is very com-
mon during the contest to let the ball fall
to the ground. The strife now ceases for a

time, until the chiefs again array their
bands. The ball is again thrown up, and
the game continued as above described.
Sometimes half an hour elapses before
either side succeeds in making one in the
game. It was usual at these ball-plays for
each party to have their conjurers at work
at the time the game was going on; their
stations were near the center of each line.
In their hands were shells, bones of snakes
There was a tradition among the Indians that the
line between the Creeks and the Cherokees com-
menced on the Chattahoochee, about the Lower
Shallow Ford, running out to the ridge dividing the
Etowah and the Chattahoochee rivers, around
to the head waters of the Tallapoosa and those
streams that flow into the Etowah, and thence on to
the Coosa River. At a ball play in which the Cher-
okees and Creeks were engaged, the latter staked
that portion of their territory that lay south ot this
line, and the former won the game and obtained
possession of the territory, in which the counties of
Cobb, Paulding and Polk are now included. His-
torical Collections of Georgia.
GAMES AND DANCES. 53
and other articles of conjury. These con-
jurers often came great distances. They
were estimated according to their ages,
and it was supposed that by their charms
they could influence the game.
These conjurers* played an important
part and were especially consulted in the
case of serious illness. Seven has ever
been a mystic number among barbarous
and semi-barbarous tribes. It was the mys-
tic symbol in the days of the Jews, and
even among us to-day are those who have

the greatest faith in the seventh son. In
case of sickness among the Cherokees, a
conjurer was called in, when he immedi-
ately dispatched seven of the best hunters
with orders to kill seven deer, and to carry
them to an appointed place. The conjurer
then fasted in the woods, and collected
herbs of medicinal qualities, or those sup-
posed to have important powers with evil
spirits. While the people were assembling
he crumpled the magical herbs in an

earthen pot, hanging over the fire, in which
he had previously placed the meat in alib-
Missionary Herald.
eral supply of water. In the meanwhile,
the conjurer kept tasting the compound,
which he shared with the braves around
him. Then he commanded all the wo-
men old and young, to dance seven times
around the fire, drumming on kegs. One
after another, the men and boys join in the
dance until the hour of sunrise, when all
again partake of the nauseous compound.
Seven men are then chosen to stay and
watch the pot and keep it filled with fresh
herbs till the days when the conjurer's
spell is and the guests depart bearing
over,
with them a portion of the magic com-
pound, in which to wash and in seven days
to return for the final ceremonies. Then
the conjurer takes his fees, v/hich are the
skins of deer and strings of pure white
beads from every person present, for thus
he would keep them from disease. But for
all this disease would come, and often, in
those early days, when one fell sick, the

conjurer would cause to be hollowed in the
ground a hole, over which he ordered to
be built a wigwam, constructed of soil
and stone. Around this he would build
a furious fire until the wigwam smoked
with fervent heat, until the close interior
had reached almost an oven temperature.
Then the Indian doctor having raked away
the fires, into the interior of this smoking
wigwam would thrust his patients, leaving
them until they roasted or perspired. Then
from this oven the conjurer would pull
out the perspiring and often dying patient,
and plunge him in the river where the
water flowed coldest, and then repeat the
treatment from time to time, until the
conjurer grew tired or the patient died.*
The "Morning Star" of Dec. 18S4 has the follow-
ing, the tribe notnamed :
"The women make a kind of hut, of bended wil-

lows, which is nearly circular, and if for one or two
persons only, not more than fifteen feet in circum-
ference, and three or four in height. Over these
they lay the skins of the buffalo, &c. and in the
center of the hut, they place heated stones. The
Indian then enters, perfectly naked, with a dish ot
water in his hand, a little of which he occasionally
throws on the hot stones, to create steam, which, in
connection with the heat, puts him into a profuse
perspiration. In this situation he will remain for
about an hour but a person unaccustomed to en-
;
dure such heat, could not sustain it for half that

time. They sweat themselves in this manner, they
In the early days of the Cherokee peo-
ple, important incidents were communica-
ted, and their remembrance preserved by
wampum, formed of strings of beads, orig-
inally made of white clay, in a rude man-
ner, by themselves, so arranged as to bear
a distinct resemblance to the objects inten-
ded to be delineated. The belts were par-
ticularly devoted to the preservation of
speeches, the proceedings of councils, and
the formation of treaties. They had an of-
ficer, whose duty it was from time to time
to repeat the speeches and narratives con-

nected with those belts to impress them
fully upon memory and transmit them
his
to his successor. At a certain time each
year they were taken from their places of
deposit, and exposed to the whole tribe,
while the history of each was publicly re-
cited. Could a collection of these ancient
say, in order that their limbs may become more
supple, and they more alert in pursuing animals
which they are desirous of killing. They also con-
sider sweating a powerful remedy for the most of
diseases. As they come from sweating, they fre-
quently plunge into a river, or rub themselves
with snow."
belts be made and the accompany-
to day,
ing narratives recorded, it would afford
curious and interesting materials, reflect-
ing, no doubt, much light upon the for-
mer situation and history of the Indians.
In later years the beads were discon-
tinued, but still the traditions were han-
ded down by some old man appointed for
the purpose. In each assembly of the
Cherokees, he was expected to rehearse
the story of their early history and sub-
sequent achievements. This he did in a
set speech, continuing his discourse al-
though the company might be dancing,
or however inattentive. Many of those
traditions were early forgotten. In the
mutation and migrations of the various
tribes, misfortunes pressed heavily upon
them the old men died and with them
;
the memories of a lifetime.

The Green Corn Dance was the an-
nual festival, the origin of which is not
now known. At this the conjurer pre-
pared a sort of medicine, on a day ap-
pointed by the old people, and seven fam-
ilies were appointed to furnish corn foi
the feast. Every one was obliged to take
a portion of the medicine, and a portion
was offered, by throwing corn into the
fire before any one could eat. Before the
feast it was unlawful to eat of the new

corn of the season, and no person was
ever known to transgress. After that all
might eat freely.

*'Chungke* was gambling
the great
game among the Cherokees, in
early
which the contestant engaged from morn-
ing until night, caring nothing for the
sun's rays, staking their ornaments, ap-
parel, weapons, and even wife's personal
liberty upon the hazard, and refraining
not from its excitement, until all was lost
or utter prostration forbade further exer-
tion. The spaces prepared for playing
this game have not fully disappeared in
the old Cherokee country. Rectangular
in outline, slightly elevated, rendered
level,and freed from all impediments
such as roots and stones, their surface
History of Georgia, by C. C. Jones.
was some times hardened by a flooring
of rammed clay. Were we upon
called
to suggest a class of which am-
articles,
ply expressed the patient industry and
mechanical skill of these primitive work-
ers in stone we would be inclined to se-
lect those beautiful objects known as the
discoidal stones with which this game
was played. They were made of furrugi-
nous quartz, marble, agate, and a hard,
black, close-grained stone. Polished to
the last degree, they were fashioned with
a mathematical accuracy, which could not
be excelled were the skill of a modern
workman with compass and metalic tools
invoked. Little now remains save these
stones to remind us of the former exist-
ence and prevalence of this popular game
characterized by severe exercise, singu-
lar dexterity and desperate ventures".
The dances* of the Indians were not
designed to be graceful amusements, nor
healthful exercises, and bore no resem-
blance to the elegant, joyous scenes of
Colton'tj North American Indians.
6o GAMES AND DANCES.
The music, the lights, the
the ball room.
women, and above all the charms thrown
about the hilarious exhibition, by cour-
tesy and gallantry of the parties — all of
these were wanting in the war dance, in
which the warriors only engaged. It was
a ceremony, not a recreation, and con-
ducted with the seriousness belonging to
an important duty. The music was a mo-
notonous beating upon a rude drum with
no melody or tune. As they passed in a
circle, they uttered low, dismal and syl-
labic sounds, which they repeated with
but perceptible variations, throughout the
exhibition. The songs were in fact short
disjointed sentences, alluding to some
victory, passion for revenge, the object
of which was keep alive the recollec-
to
tion of injury,and to excite the tribe
against its enemies. Mr. Johnson, who
spent many years among the Indians and
was familiar with their language, many
years ago gave to Thomas L. McKinney,
who was then the U. S. Secretary of War,
the following translation of a war song :-
GAMES AND DANCES. 6l
On that day when our heroes lay low, lay low,
On that day when our heroes lay low;
I fought by their side, and thought ere I died,
Just vengeance to take of the foe, the foe,
Just vengeance to take of the foe.
On that day when our Chieftains lay dead, lay

dead.
On that daywhen our Chieftains lay dead ;
I fought hand to hand, at the head of my band,

And here on my breast have I bled, have I bled,
And here on my breast have I bled.
Our Chiefs shall return no more, no more,

Our Chiefs shall return no more;
And their brothers in war, who can't show scar
for scar.
Like women their fates shall deplore, deplore,
Like women their fates shall deplore.
*
Five winters in hunting we'll spend, we*ll spend,

Five winters in hunting we'll spend ;
Then our youth grown to men, to the war lead

again.
And onr days like our fathers, we'll end, we'll
end.
And our days like our fathers we'll end.
CHAPTER VI.
A WARRIOR'S CONQUEST.
Warrior —
Making War-dance and Song Would —
—
make him Dreadful Fair Honors sought bj the
Cherokees — Sequoyah's Courtship —Marriage
—
The Early Cherokee Woman Nature's Teaching
— He Dreams and She Works — A Family Disa-
greement Consequent.
Among the very many entertaining ac-

counts of early Indian customs, none are
more novel than those of warrior making
and the preparations for war. No two
tribes appear to have had the same cus-
toms, and even different branches of the
same tribe had their peculiar practices.
The redmen of the Ohio Valley* at their
war dance had both vocal and instrumen-
Narrative of Col. James Smith.
A WARRIOR'S CONQUEST. 63
tal music, they had a short hollow drum,
closed at one end with water in it, and
parchment stretched over the open end

thereof, which they beat with one stick,
and made a sound nearly like a muffled
drum. All those who were going on this
expedition, collected together and formed
and an old Indian then began to sing,
and timed the music by beating on this
drum as the ancients formerly timed their
music by beating the tabor. On this the
warriors began the advance, or moved
forward in concert, as well disciplined
troops would march with fife and drum.
Each warrior had a tomahawk, spear,
orwar mallet in his hand, and they all
moved regularly toward the east and
thensuddenly wheeling quick about and
with a hideous yell, they would move
quickly back again. Then came the war
song ; performing this only one sung
in
at a time, in bending posture, with a
tomahawk in his hand, while all the
other warriors were engaged in calling
aloud a watch-word, which was con-
64 A warrior's conquest.
stantly repeated while thewar-song was
going on when the warrior that was
;
singing had ended his song, he struck the

war tomahawk, and with a
post with his
loud voice told what warlike exploits he
had done, and what he now intended
to do, which were answered by the other
warriors with loud shouts of applause.
Some who had not intended to go to
war before would be come so much ani-
mated by this performance, that they took
the tomahawk and sung the war-song,
which was answered with shouts of joy
they were then initiated into the present
marching company. Another method of
warrior-making is told by McKinney.
The usage of the nation, made it requisite
that martial training should be preceded
by a formal dedication to the life of a
warrior, and invocation to the Great Spirit
to endue him with courage and good for-
tune. For this purpose, the parents so-
a warrior, whose
licited the assistance of
numerous achievements in battle had es-
tablished for him a high reputation, and
A warrior's conquest. 65
whose sagacity and valor gave him, in the
estimation of his tribe, the envied rank of
an Ulysses. The assent of the war-chief
was conveyed in the brief avowal, that
he "would make him dreadful." The
ceremony took place immediately. The
hoary brave standing upon the brink of a
mountain stream called upon the Great
Spirit to mind of the young warrior
fill the
with warlike inclinations and his heart
with courage He then with the bone of
a wolf, the end of which terminated in
several sharp points, scratched the na-
ked boy, from the palm of the hand and
along the front of the arm across the
breast and along the other arm to the
hand, and in like manner lines were
drawn from the heels upward to the
shoulders, and from the shoulders over
the breast down to the feet, and from
the back of one hand along the back and
to the back of the other hand. The lines
thus made each covered a space of two
inches in width, and consisted of parallel
incissions, which penetrated through the
skin, and caused an effusion of blood
along the entire extent. He was then re-
quired to plunge into the stream and
bathe, after which the war chief washed
his whole body with a decoction of me-
dicinal herbs, and in conclusion he was
commanded not to associate with the fe-
male children or near a woman, nor
to sit
in short, to suffer one to touch him for a
period of seven days. At the end of this
time the war-chief came to him, and af-
ter delivering an address to the Great
Spirit, placed before the young candi-
date food consisting of partridges and
mush. The partridge was used on this
occasion because, in its flight, this bird
makes a noise with its wings resembling
thunder, while in sitting or walking, it is
remarkably silent and difficult to discover

— and thus were indicated the clamor of
contest, and the cautious stealth which
should govern the movements of the war-
rior at all other times.
The above is taken from the story and life of Ma-

jor Ridge, a distinguished Cherokee.
The Cherokees won their honors fairly;
their rank as warriors was not obtained on
the impulse of a momentary excitement.
So far as we
are able to determine, there
are no records to show how Se-quo-yah
became a warrior. It was doubtless from
and bravery in the chase; it was
his skill
not through thirst for human blood. It is
said to have been the custom of the early
Cherokee chiefs, at the age of sixteen, to
send the young Indians to the woods,
where, before their return home, they were
expected to do some daring deed. In im-
agination now, we must follow these
young braves, taught as they were to
glory in the chase and to rejoice in blood.
Before us passes a vision where they per-
form many cruel and warlike deeds, en-
gage in a struggle with warriors of hostile
tribes, or in fierce conflict with panther
or bear. Now the vision changes; home-
ward, besmeared with blood and often
wounded, the party of young braves pur-
sue their way and are welcomed by older
chiefs and heroes of many battles. Then
all assemble at the Council Lodge, where
the brave old chiefs, with utmost gravity-
listen to the story of the young braves'
deeds. Each in his turn still frenzied
with excitement, in bounds, in yells and
frantic gesture, pour forth in almost inco-
herent language, a recital of special deeds
on which he based his claims. The chiefs
deliberate and if the young braves' acts
seem of sufficient valor, the chiefs pro-

claim them "Warriors" from the door of
Council Lodge. In some such way as
this Se-quo-yah was proclaimed a warrior,
and then his first conquest was to get a
wife according to the custom of that time.
Having selected the Indian maid of his
fancy, he painted himself in the highest
style of Indian art, the blending to-gether
of nearly every color of the rainbow. He
greased his hair, smoothed out his locks
and adorned them with Indian jewels and
enveloping himself in a buffalo hide, he re-
paired to the lodge of his chosen one.
Hours he stood the re by the wigwam door,
ever smiling, never speaking, and day by
day he kept up these silent visits until the
old Indians fixed a price on the girl.
The price fixed, the Indian girl gave the
first demure smile of encouragement. Up
to this time neither had spoken a word
to the other in private. Then Se-quo-yah
hastened home to obtain the horses and
robes, which were to be the price of his
bride. He tied the horses near her wig-
wam door, andwent home in doubt and
fear to pass the night. Even before the
sun arose next morning he hastened to
the wigwam of his love, and joyfully he
found the horses stabled, and that she
had neatly packed away the robes. It was
thus he knew his suit was not rejected.
No other ceremony of marriage was per-
formed, the price was paid, the gifts ac-
cepted and the girl was Se-quo-yah's wife.
This wife which Se-quo-yah took was no
common Indian maiden. In form she was
like the women of her race; she was tall,
erect, and of a delicate frame; her features
formed with perfect symmetry, and her
countenance was cheerful and amiable.
Both in her soul and that of Se-quo-yah
was a higher intuition than appeared to
be bestowed on any other of the Chero-
70 A WARRIOR^S CONQUEST.
kee tribe. For a time their sympathies
were one, and for a time their lives
were markedly happy. For all nature
spoke in plainest utterances to them, that
which it only whispered unto others.
Every bird that sung, every scene of Na-
ture seemed to inspire new thoughts and
awaken new aspirations to Se-quo-yah.
Even the wind playing melodies on the
tree leaves seemed to him like words of
the Great Spirit, which his sensitive na-
ture translated intowords of wisdom.
Nature was his teacher through which
he lived a life beyond the ken of all other
in the Cherokee tribe. But as the honey
moon wore off, he became more medita-
tive, and philosophically inclined, and she
more thoroughly practical. She worked

and he dreamed and thus their lives grew
widely apart. She became a virago and
on many a morning, in later years, the
voice of Se-quo-yah's wife could be heard
giving her lord "Jesse" for the lack of
such industry as she exclusively held in
esteem. '* However," says, Boudinot, the
A WARRIOR'S CONQUEST. 7
Executive Secretary of the Nation, *'he

seemed to have taken all his scoldings
with great equanimit}^ No doubt he put
himself in her place and made full allow-
ance for the disagreeable prospect from
her standpoint." She never was divorced
or separated from him. Indeed, except
the few years, —those years devoted es-
pecially to dreaming — he was her pride.

She had considered herself fortunate to
secure him in her early days, for he was
the general favorite. "The females es-
pecially," says one of his biographers,
''were attracted by his manners and his
skill, and lavished upon him an admira-
tion which distinguished him as the chief
favorite of those ever quick-sighted in
discovering the excellent qualities of
the other sex."Se-quo-yah had a mild,
engaging countenance, which naturally
would attract. It was destitute of that
wild and fierce expression which almost
always marks the features, or character-
izes the expression, of the American In-
dian and their descendant. It exhibited
no trace of the ferocity of the savage it ;
wanted alike the vigilant eye of the war-

rior and the stupid apathy of the less in-
tellectual of that race. The contour of
the face and the whole style of expression
were decidedly Asiatic, and might be tri-
umphantly cited in evidenceof the Orien-
tal origin of our tribes, by those who men-
tion that plausible theory. "Indeed", says
one writer," it bore almost a feminine re-
finement and a luxurious softness about it
which might characterize the features of
an Eastern Sage."
CHAPTER VIL
STORY TELLING.
The Pisa Described — Owatoga Dreams — Offers
—
Himself as a Sacrifice The Pisa Slain Cher- —
okee and Catawbas wage War Hiwassee and —
—
Not-ley Where the Waters Unite The Fawns —
Success Warning — Flight— Reunion
— Hiwassee's
—Marriage —Valley Home —The Story of Okefin-
okee.
Should you ask me, whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odors of the forest,
With the dew and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams,
With the rushing of great rivers,
With their frequent repetitions,
With their wild reverberations,
As of thunder in the mountains?
* * * * * *
Ishould answer, I should tell you,

"In the bird's-nests of the forest,
In the lodges of the beaver.
In the hoof-prints of the bison,
In the eyry of the eagle."
—Longfell<yw,
74 STORY TELLING.
Se-quo-yah was the famous story teller
of his tribe and the legends and traditions
recited around the campfires of theChero-
kees would in themselves make a volume.
Many of them are forgotten, but a few
are still preserved, and may be found in
early history where mention is made of
this people. Counterparts of many Cher-
okee traditions are often to be found in
the legends of other tribes, especially
so in those with which they were allied.
THE PISA.
'*Many thousand moons ago, before the
arrival of the palefaces, when the great
megalonyx and mastodon, whose bones
are now thrown up, were still living in the
land of green prairies, there existed a
bird of such dimensions that he could ea-
sily carry off in his talons a full grown
deer. Having obtained a taste of human
flesh,from time to time he would prey up-
on nothing else. He was as artful as he
was powerful he would dart suddenly
;
and unexpectedly upon some Indian, bear

STORY *rELLING. 75
him off to one of his caves in the bluffs
and devour him. Hundreds of warriors
attempted for years to destroy him, but
without success. Whole villages were
depopulated and consternation spread
throughout all tribes. At length, Owa-
toga, a chief, whose fame as a warrior ex-
tended even beyond the great lakes, sep-
arating himself from the rest of his tribe,
fasted in solitude for the space ol a whole
moon, and prayed to the Great Spirit,
the Master of Life, that he would protect
his children from the Pisa. On the last
night of his fast, the Great Spirit appear-
ed to him in a dream and directed him to
select twenty of his warriors, each armed
with a bow with pointed arrows, and to
conceal them in a designated spot. Near
the place of their concealment another
warrior was to stand in open view as a
victim for the Pisa, which they must
shoot the instant he pounced upon his
prey. When the chief awoke in the morn-
ing, he thanked the Great Spirit, returned
to his tribe and told them his dream. The
76 '
STORY TELLING.
warriors were quickly selected and placed
inambush. Owatoga offered himself as
the victim, willing to die for his tribe,
and placing his feet firmly to earth began
to chant the death song of a warrior ; a
moment after, the Pisa arose into the air
and swift as a thunderbolt, darted down
upon the chief. Scarcely had he reached
his victim, when every bow was sprung,
and every arrow was sped to the feather
into his body. The Pisa uttered a wild,
fearful scream, that resounded far over
the opposite side of the river and expired.
Owatoga was safe. Not an arrow, not
even the talons of the bird had touched
him: for the Master of Life, in admiration
of his noble deed, held over him, an in-
visible shield. In memory of this event,
the image of the Pisa was engraved in the
face of the bluff."
THE ENCHANTED MOUNTAIN.

A century ago, a bitter war raged be-
tween the Catawba and Cherokee tribes
of Indians. In one of those frequent and
STORY TELLING. 77
bold excursions common among the
wild inhabitants of the forest, the son of
the principal Cherokee Chief surprised
and captured a large town belonging to
the Catawba tribe. Among the captives
was the daughter of the first chief of the
Catawbas, named Highwassee (or the
pretty fawn.) A young Cherokee hero
whose name was Not-ley, (or the dar-
ing horseman) instantly became captiva-
ted with the majestic beauty and graceful
manners of his royal captive, and was
overwhelmed with delight, upon finding
his love reciprocated by the object of his
hearts adoration. With two attendants,
he presented himself before the Catawba
warrior, who happened to be absent when
the town was taken by the Cherokees, to
whom he gave a brief statement of recent
occurrences, and then demanded his
daughter in marriage. The proud Ca-
tawba, lifting high his war-club, knitting
his brow, and curling his lips, with scorn
declared, that as the Catawbas drank the
waters of the east and the Cherokees the
78 STORY TELLING.
waters of the west, when this insolent
and daring lad could find where these
waters joined, then, and not till then,
might the hateful Cherokee unite with
the great Catawba. Discouraged but not
despairing, Not-ley turned away from the
presence of the proud and unfeeling fa-
ther of the beautiful Hiwassee, and re-
solved to hunt for the union of the eastern
and western waters, which was then con-
sidered an impossibility. Ascending a
pinnacle of the great chain of the Alle-
ghanies, more commonly called the Blue
Ridge, which is known to divide the wa-
ters of the Atlantic from those of the
great West, and traversing its devious
and winding course, he could frequently
find springs running each way, and hav-
ing their sources within a few paces of
each other ; but this was not what he
desired. Dayafter day was spent on this
arduous business, and there appeared no
hope that his energy and perseverance
would be rewarded. But on a certain day
when he had well nigh exhausted him-
STORY TELLING. 79
self with hunger and other privations, he
came to lovely spot on the summit of a
a
ridge affording a delightful plain. Here
he resolved to repose and refresh himself
during the sultry portion of the day. Seat-
ing himself upon the ground and think-
ing upon Hiwassee, he saw three young
fawns moving toward a small lake, the
stream of which was rippling at his feet,
and whilst they were sipping the pure
drops from the transparent pool, our hero
found himself unconsciously creeping
toward them. Untaught in the rules of
danger the little fawns gave no indica-
tions of retiring. Not-ley had now ap-
proached so near that he expected in a
moment by one leap to lay hold and cap-
ture one, at least, of the spotted prey
when to his surprise, he saw another
stream running out of the beautiful lake
down the western side of the mountain.
Springing forward with a bound of forest
deer, and screaming with frantic joy, he
exclaimed, *' Hiwassee !O Hiwassee, I
have found it." This romantic spot is but
8o STORY TELLING.
a few miles of Clatonville, Ga. Having
accomplished his object, he at once set
out for the residence of Hiwassee's father,
accompanied only by one warrior, and
fortunately for the success of the enter-
prise,he met the beautiful maiden with
some confidential attendants half a mile
from her father's house. She informed
him that her father was indignant at his
proposals, that he would not regard his
promises. *'I willfly with you to the
mountains," said Hiwassee, "but my fa-
ther will never consent to my marriage."
Not-ley then pointed her to a mountain in
the distance and said if he found her
there he should drink of the waters that
flowed from the beautiful lake. A few
moments afterward, Not-ley met the Ca-
tawba chief near the town and at once
informed him of this wonderful discovery
and offered to conduct him to the place.
The Catawba chief, half choked with
rage, accused Not-ley with the intention
of deceiving him, in order to get him
near the line of the territory, where
the Cherokees were waiting to kill
STORY TELLING. 8l
him. *'But", said "as you have
he,
spared mydaughter so will I spare you,
and permit you at once to depart ; but I
have sworn you shall never marry my
daughter, and I can't swear false." '*Then
by the Great Spirit, she is mine !" said
Not-ley, and the next moment he disap-
peared in a thick forest. That night
brought no sleep to the Catawba chief,
for Hiwassee did not return. Pursuit was
made in vain. He saw his daughter no
more. But Not-ley bounding the moun-
tains soon met his beloved Hiwassee, the
marriage was solemnized according to
the custom of their country they led a
;
secluded life in those wild regions for

three years, and upon hearing of the
death of his father, Not-ley settled in
the charming valley of the river on the
western side of the mountain and called
it Hiwassee, after his beautiful spouse.
In process of time he was unanimously
chosen first chief of the Cherokees and
was the instrument of making perpetual
peace between his tribe and the Catawbas.
82 STORY TELLING.
TRADITION OF THE FLOOD.
There is in Union County Georgia, in

the land of the early Cherokee, a beauti-
fulmountain called the 'Enchanted." *
The country around presents a most char-

ming prospect. The gently undulating
hills are covered by a carpet of richest
verdure —the deep green foliage of the
trees,and the countless varieties of the
most splendid flowers, scattered in gay
profusion over the whole face of the
country, gives it, indeed, the appear-
ance of enchantment. This mountain is
a spur of the Blue Ridge and derived its
name from the great number of tracks or
impressions of the feet and hands of va-
rious animals in the rocks, which appear
above its surface. Says a writer in 1834:
*'The number visible or defined is one
hundred and some of them
thirty-six,
quite natural and perfect, and others
rather rude imitations, and most of them
from the effects of time have become more
STORY TELLING. 83
They comprise human
or less obliterated.
feetfrom those four inches in length, to
those of great warriors, which measure
seventeen and a half inches in length and
seven and three quarters in breadth across
the toes. What is a little curious, all the
human feet are natural except this, which
has six toes, proving him to have been a
descendent of Titon. There are twenty-
six of these impressions, all bare save one,
which has the appearance of having worn
moccasins. A fine turned hand, rather
delicate, occupied a place near the great
warrior, and probably the impression of
his wife's hand, who no doubt accompa-
nied her husband in all his ex;cursions,
sharing his toils and soothing his cares
away. Many horse tracks are to be seen.
One seems to have been shod some are ;
very small, and one measures twelve

inches and a half by nine and a half.
This the Cherokees say was the footprint
of the great war horse, which their chief-
tain rode. The tracks of a great many
turkeys, turtles, terrapins, a large bear's
84 STORY TELLING.
paw, a snake's trail, and the foot prints
of two deer are to be seen." The tradi-
tion respecting these impressions varies.
O ne asserts that the world was once
deluged with water, and men with all
animated beings were destroyed, except
one family, together with various animals
—
necessary to replenish the earth that the
Great Spirit before the floods came com-
manded them to embark in a big canoe,
which after long sailing was drawn to this
spot by a bevy of swans and rested there,
and here the whole troop of animals was
disembarked leaving the impressions as
they passed over the rock, which being
softened by reason of long submersion,
kindly received and preserved them.
OKEFINOKEE.
On
one of the many islands of a great
swamp lying in the far South, is one of
the most beautiful spots in the world. It
is inhabited by a peculiar race of Indians,
Nvhose women were incomparably beau-
riful. This place was once seen by hunters
STORY TELLING 85
when in They were
pursuit of game.
swamps and bogs,
lost in the inextricable
and on the point of perishing, when
they were unexpectedly relieved by a
company of beautiful women, whom they
called "Daughters of the Sun," who
kindly gave them such provisions as they
had, chiefly fruit, such as oranges, dates
&c., and some corn cakes. They then
enjoined them to fly for safety to their own
country as their husbands were fierce
men and cruel to strangers. As they
left they obtained a view of their settle-
ment situated on the elevated banks of an

inland promontory in a beautiful lake
but in all their eflbrts to approach it they
were involved in perpetual labyrinths,
and, like enchanted land, when they im-
agined they had just gained it, it seemed
to fly before them, alternately appearing
and disappearing. They resolved to
leave the delusive pursuit and to return,
which, after a number of inexpressible
difficulties, they effected. When they
reported their adventures to their own
86 STORY TELLING.
countrymen, their young warriors were
inflamed with a desire to invade and
conquer so charming a country but all of ;
their attempts proved abortive, and to

this day no warrior has been able to find
that enchanted spot, or indeed any road
leading to it.
NOTE. —The last two stories in this chapter

have been adapted to this work from the Historical
Collections of Georgia.
CHAPTER VIII.
AN INSPIRATION OF NATURE.
Se-quo-yah's Native —
Land Nature the prime-motor
of genius —The —
White Prisoner A Letter
The Mania Mystery of the Talking
to Solve the
—
Leaf Se-quo-yah writes on Stone A Derisive —
— —
Laugh Stung to Action Dreaming.
Se-quo-yah's young manhood was spent
in a country where Nature was lavish
with her choicest gifts. Across the Cher-
okee Nation stretched a lofty range of
mountains, even such as Ramond wrote
of whose peaks seemed like beacons
beckoning one from the sins of earth to
the purity of heaven. Of Se-quo-yah's
native land, Ramsey says : — It was the
most beautiful and inviting sectionof the
United States a land which those moun-
;
taineers of Aboriginal America held onto

88 INSPIRATION.
and defended with a heroic constancy
and unyielding tenacity which cannot be
too much admired or eulogized." The
Northern part of the Nation was full of
beautiful hills, and there were also exten-
sive and fertile plains. Abundant springs
of pure water were found in every part
through tall treed forests full of game,
glided most beautiful streams of water,
in which sported abundant fish. In the
Spring the ground was clothed in
Spring's richest dress, and Cherokee
flowers of exquisite beauty met and fas-
cinated the eye in every direction. It is
well to speak thus minutely of the sur-
roundings of Se-quo-yah's early home,
because it appears that in the soughing of
the forest, the singing of birds, the bubb-
ling brooks, the grandeur of scenery and
the influence of nature were the prime
motors to Se-quo-yah's genius.
Says one: ''The secret and evidence
of human happiness is written in the
broad book of nature."
INSPIRATION. 89
'"Tis to have
Attentive and believing faculties;
To go abroad rejoicing in the joy
Of beautiful and well created things.
To love the voice of waters, and the sheen
Of silver fountains leaping to the sea;
To thrill with the rich melody of birds,
Living their life of music; to be glad
In the gay sunshine, reverent in the storm;
To see a beauty in the stirring leaf,
And find calm thoughts beneath the whisper-
tree
To see, and hear, and breathe the evidences
Of God's deep wisdom in the natural world."
Nature was always to primeval man

the wellspring of his imagination, and
imagination, says Stewart, is the great
spring of human activity, and the princi-
pal source of human improvement. From
earliest times, this gift seems to have
been bestowed barbarous man through
to
Nature. Man was first placed in a coun-
try, where constantly was going on a
seedtime and a harvêst. Nature was con-
opening to him new pages in her
stantly
living book,and it was not, until he had
well interpreted the pages of Nature's
book, that he was permitted to pass,
pO INSPIRATION.
where the pages were for a moment closed

by the frosts of winter. And this faculty
of imagination God-given hence, as a
is
— *'we are
;
writer says : always yearning

after things of beauty and shapes of grace ;
always picturing to ourselves things fairer
and brighter than those immediately be-
fore our vision, alwâys dreaming of the
worlds outside or inside of this actual
every day world." Indeed, all the grand
inspirations of mankind, appear to have
been received under the grand and inspir-
ing scenes of Nature. Read the earliest
history. It was on Mt. Sinai, while Mo-
ses stood surrounded by the grand pano-
rama of Nature, that he received from
God the ten commandments, which have
since constituted the moral code of the
world. It was on the mountains that Jo-
tham received the inspiration of his won-
derful parable it was on the mountains,
;
that Joshua was inspired to write the law

on stone it was on the mountains that
;
Jonah received a lesson through a gourd,

audit was on the mountain, that beauti-
INSPIRATION. 91
ful mountain of Olives, that God inspired
his son to preach that wonderful sermon
on the Mount. It was from the valleys
of the Alps, in the cold and darkness of
the middle ages, that the first cry of
awakening and the first challenge for tri-
umphant liberty went up to Heaven :
"Here stand we, for our homes, our wives and

our children."
Does not history repeat itself? — for not

a century ago, amidst the grand mountain
scenery of the old Cherokee country,
where Nature wore her wildest and love-
liest garb, that to Se-quo-yah, that untu-
tored hero of our sketch, came the inspira-
tion, that led to the civilization of his peo-
ple.
About the time that Gen. Washington
had taken, for the second time, his oath of
office as President of the United States
and Gen. St. Clair was Governor of the
great North West, in one of the skir-
mishes between the white men and Indi-
ans, the Cherokees took a white man pris-
oner, and in his pocket, they found a
92 INSPIRATION.
crumpled piece of paper, which was a let-
ter from a friend. The shrewdness of the
prisoner was such as to lead him to inter-
pret this letter for his own advantage. The
story that this talking leaf told filled them
with wonder and they accepted it as a mes-
sage from the Great Spirit. They laid the
matter before Se-quo-yah, who was ac-
counted by them as a brave favored by
the Great Spirit. He believed it to be sim-
ply an invention of the white men.
''Much that red men know, they forget,"
said Se-quo-yah, *'they have no way to
preserve White men make what they
it.
know on paper like catching a wild

fast
animal and taming it."
But long did Se-quo-yah ponder over
the mystery. For weeks and months did
he wonder and dream over that ''talking
leaf." If he engaged in the chase, the
longing to solve the problem ever followed
—
him and in the excitement of war, he
never forgot the mystery of that written
page. It became the mania of his life,
the subject of his thoughts by day, and
dreams by night. From this time at every
INSPIRATION. 93
opportunity, he watched the use of books
and papers in white men's hands. He fre-
quented the Moravian Mission Schools
though he never was a pupil. He simply-
observed. The United Brethren by this
time had a prosperous Mission, and Mr.
Blackburn had established his school some
time before this, so that a book was not a
rare thing to obtain. At this time he could
neither read or speak a word of English,
but as luck would have it, Se-quo-yah
came in possession of a whole bundle of
white men's talking leaves, in shape of an
English Spelling Book. Eagerly took he
this to his wigwam, attentively did he lis-
ten, and earnestly examine but not one of

the ''talking leaves" even whispered to Se-
quo-yah's listening ear of the mystery
they concealed. From a careful reading
of the reported interviews with Se-quo-
yah, it is safe to say, that the germ in his
mind leading to the invention of his alpha-
bet had begun to develop even a decade
of years before the meeting of the young
braves at Sauta,* the story of which can
be found in an early copy of the "Chero-
In 1820.
n4 INSPIRATION.
kee Phoenix." Some of the young Chero-

kee braves were one evening reclining
around the campfire, when they began
making remarks about the superior talents
of white people. One said that white men
could put their talk on paper and send it
to any distance, and it would be under-
stood by those who received it. They all
agreed that this was very strange, but they
could not see how it could be done. Se-
quo-yah, whose mind had long since cleared
up from the effect of his life of debauch,
sat there quietly listening. At length he
raised himself and said: — **You are all
fools. I can do it myself. The thing is
very easy," and picking up a flat stone, he

commenced scratching on it with a pin
and after a few moments, he read them a
sentence which he had written, making a
sign for each word. His attempt to write,
produced a laugh from his companions and
the conversation ended. But this laugh
stung Se-quo-yah to action and he put his
inventive powers to work. He was not
content, for nothing short of be-
ing able to put the Cherokee language in
INSPIRATION. 95
writing would now satisfy him; and now
comes another link in the long chain of
circumstances. How much we are in-
debted for our fortunesthrough life's
misfortunes. Se-quo-yah met with a mis-
fortune one day, which thereafter de-
prived him of the glories of war and the
excitement of the chase. Then day by
day, he sat at his cabin door, listening to
the voices of Nature. The "Katydids"
scolded at his feet; the "whip-po-wills"
called in the forest ; the robin would
*'Cure him, cure him," in the tree top and
the "Phoebe" would sing to him, from
the dead branch of the maple. And Se-
quo-yah perceived that feelings and pas-
sions were conveyed by different sounds,
and often, when he was wearied with
his long thinking of that talking leaf ta-
ken years before from the captive, he
would listen to the song of the birds, the
waving grass, the rustle of the oak leaves,
and the more measured tones of the
needles of sombre pines, and the ripple
of the brook until he dozed, and these
96 INSPIRATION.
songs of Nature often took in his dreams
the form of Cherokee words, and Se-
quo-yah would awake and tell his wife
and children what the leaves of the trees
and Nature had whispered to him in
Cherokee.
CHAPTER IX.
THE GREAT INVENTION.
The Voice of Nature — Picture —
Writing Arbi-
trary Signs — Perfection
of the Alphabet—Theo-
retical — —
The Scornful Laugh His Perseverance
— —
"A Prophet not without Honor" His Final Tri-
umph.
And when he recognized Cherokee

sounds in the voice of Nature, there
dawned upon his mind a plan by which
he could convey this voice to the minds
of others, and he sent his sons to the
woods for birch bark, and his daughters
to the fields for herbs with coloring prop-
erties, with which his wifemade ink, and
with this Se-quo-yah made pictures to
If he found in nature
represent words.
a tone,which he thought represented
some word, he drew a picture of that
98 THE INVENTION.
which made the sound. In short, when
he thought he had found a sound in na-
ture that represented a tone in Cherokee,
he used a picture of this bird or beast, to
convey this idea to others, and even his
wife and children at first aided him in
his work. But this plan, he soon found
would be an endless task and instead of
these pictures he began to make arbitra-
ry signs. For more than a year, he in-
vented different shaped signs for words
until he had several thousand that neither
he or any one else could remember. He
next hit upon a plan for dividing words
into syllables and he found he could
apply the same character in different
words, and that the number of charac-
ters would be comparatively few. He
then put down all the words he could
think of and then he would listen to the
conversationof strangers and for any new
syllable, he would make a new charac-
ter, and here for the first time the talking
leaves of the white men first whispered

to Se-quo-yah, for several of his charac-
THE INVENTION. 99
ters he took from an English Spelling
Book. But these English letters had no
relation to their English sound, when
used for Cherokee syllables for which
they stood. So closely had Se-quo-yah
listened for Cherokee sounds, that his
first perfected alphabet represented every
known syllable of the Cherokee lan-
guage save three. Who added these to
the eighty-two, whether Se-quo-yah or
some one else, is not now known ; but
thisremarkable comprehension of a lan-
guage seems all the more wonderful
when we know that before he invented it
he could not read. Indeed, it was a won-
der to scientific men that a language so
copious only embraced eighty-five letters,
a single verb often undergoing several
hundred That scornful laugh
inflections.
that stung Se-quo-yah to action, as he
scratched his simple sentence on a stone
at the evening meeting of the young
braves at Sauta, was not confined to the
—
narrow wigwam walls, for it soon be-
gan to echo and re-echo from all parts of
lOO THE INVENTION.
the nation. Se-quo-yah, now a crippled
man, would sit in his native dress at the
door of his hillside cabin, all the time
making strange marks on the birch bark
and paper at his side. The chiefs of the
nation, that once looked him, now
up to
passed coldly by, sadly shaking their
heads as they saw the old man's move-
ments. They called him crazy. Friends
and neighbors expostulated with him and
tried to persuade him his acts were fool-
ish, and that none but a delirious person
would do as he did. They called him an
idiot and a fool in Cherokee, but all their
efforts did not discourage him. Slowly
passing his fingers through his now sil-
vered locks, he would listen calmly to

these expostulations of friends, and when
they had wearied he would deliberately
light his pipe, draw several meditative
whiffs, adjust his spectacles and sit down
to his work again, with no attempt at a
vindication of his course. His wife even
began to desert him, being much dis-
gusted at his dreamy ways. His daugh-
THE INVENTION. lOl
ter, however, stood by him, and was al-

ways interested in her father's mystic
drawings. Still Se-quo-yah persevered.
He seemed to have a higher intuition,
that the difficulties, hardships and trials
of life, the obstacles one encounters on
the road to fortune, are positive blessings.
He seemed Great Spirit
to feel that the
never intended that strong and indepen-
dent beings should be reared by clinging
to others like ivy to the oak. He had
seen that the toughest plants grew on
the peaks of his native hills, and that the
weakest grew in sheltered places. For a
long time, without a single word of en-
couragement from any except from his
faithful daughter, Se-quo-yah labored
until his work was complete. His dreamy
meditations on this invention extended
from 1809 to 1821, when he completed
his work. The last three years of this pe-
riod he hardly left his cabin, and devoted
the whole time to his calculations. That
his alphabet was a calculative one is
shown by Phillips. He says :
I02 THE INVENTION.
Se-quo-yah discovered that the language possess-
ed certain musical sounds, such as we call vowels,
and dividing sounds called by us consonants. In
determining his vowels he varied during the pro-
gress of discoveries, but finally settled on the six
a, e, /,o, 11 and a gutteral vowel sounding like u in
ung-. These had long and short sounds, with the
exception of the gutteral. He next considered his
consonants, or dividing sounds and estimated the
number of combinations of these that would give all
the sounds required to make words in their lan-
guage. He first adopted fifteen for the dividing
sounds, but settled on twelve primary, the g" and k
being one and sounding more like k than g, and d
like /. These may be represented in English as ^,
k, /, dl or //, /5, w, y, z. It will be seen
m, «, qu^ i,
that if twelve be multiplied by six vowels,

these
the number of possible combinations or syllables
would be seventy-two, and by adding the vowel
sounds which may be syllables, the number would
be seventy-eight. However, the gutteral v, or sound
of win ««^ does not appear among the combina-
tions, making seventj -seven.
Still his work was not complete. The hiss-
ing sound of s entered into the ramification of so
many sounds, as in sta^ stu, sj>a^ si)e. that it would
have required a large addition to his alphabet to
mee4: this demand. This he simplified by using a
distinct character for the s(oo), to be used in such
combinations. To provide for the varying sounds
ând k. he added a symbol, which has been writ-
ten in English ka. As the syllable na is liable to
be aspirated, he added symbols written na/i and
THE INVENTION. IO3
kna. To have distinct representatives for the com-
binations rising out of the different sounds of d
and he added symbols for ta, ie, it and another
/,
for dla, thus tla. These completed the eighty-five

characters of his alphabet of syllables and not of
letters.*
Says Gallatin ;
When the first imperfect copy of that alphabet

was received at the War Department, it appeared
incredible that a language known to be so copious
should have but eighty-five syllables. * * * n
would have taken but one step more for Se-quo-yah
to have reduced the whole number of consonants
to sixteen, and to have had an alphabet similar to
ours — by giving to each
consonant a distinct char-
acter. In practice, however, the superiority of Se-
quo-yah's alphabet is manifest, and has been fully
proved by experience. You must indeed learn and
remember eighty-five letters instead of twenty-five.
But this once accomplished the education of the
pupil is completed he can read, he is perfect in
;
his orthography without making it the subject of

distinct study. The boy learns in a few weeks, that
which occupies two years of the time of our boys. It
is that peculiarity in the vocal and nasal termina-
tions of syllables, and that absence of double conso-
nants —
more discernible to the ear than to the eye
which we alluded to when speaking of some affin-
ity between the Cherokee and Iroquois languages.
*Harper's Magazine, Sept. 1870.

I04 THE INVENTION.
**A prophet is not without honor save
in his own countr}^" Having invented an
alphabet, he found that his people look-
ed suspiciously on his invention and ;
lame as he was, he went to the Arkansas

Territory' where many of the Chero-
,
kees had emigrated. While there he

taught a few people the way of using his
letters, and a man there wrote a letter in
the new alphabet to some friend whom
he knew in the old Cherokee Country,
which Se-quo-yah took back and it was
read to his people. They wondered
greatly, but were not convinced of the
reality of his invention. He showed
it to Col. Lowrey,* the Indian Agent,
who lived only three miles from his cab-
in, but he was skeptical and suggested
that the symbols bore no relations to the
language or its necessities. At last Se-
*This gentleman had learned from the voice of
rumor, the manner in which his ingenious neigh-
bor was employed and regretted his supposed mis-
application of his time, and participated in the
general sentiment of derision with which the whole
community regarded the labors of that once popu-
lar artisan, but this now despised alphabet maker.
SE-QUO-YAH TEACHING AH-YO-KEH THE ALPHABET.
- THE INVENTION. IO5
quo-yah summoned to his lodge the
most distinguished of his tribe. Minute-
ly he explained to them his invention.
His daughter, Ahyokeh, then six years
old, was She was only a pupil
called in.
but Se-quo-yah sent her away from the
company, and then he wrote down any
word or sentiment his friends named, and
when they called her in she easily read
"Well,'' said Col. Lowrey, "I suppose you have
been engaged in making marks?"
"Yes," said Se-quo-yah. "when a talk is made and
put down it is good to look at afterwards."
Col. Lowrey suggested that Se-quo-yah might
have deceived himself, and that, having a good
memory, he might recollect what he had intended
to write, and suppose he was reading it from paper.
"Not so," said Se-quo-yah, "I read it."
The next day Col. Lowrey rode over to Se-quo-
yah's cabin, and the latter requested his daughter
to repeat the alphabet. The child, without hesita-
tion recited the characters giving each the sound
which the inventor had assigned to it, and perform-
ed the task with an ease and rapidity that astonish-
ed the visitor, and at the conclusion, uttered the
—
common expression "Yoh !" with which the Cher-
okees expressed surprise. He made further inquiry
and began to doubt if Se-quo-âh was the deluded
schemer which others thought him.
I06 THE INVENTION.
them. The chiefs were astonished, but
they could not believe that this man,
whom they had thought to be crazy for
three years, had really invented anything
that would be of use to the Nation, and
for some time, Se-quo-yah found a cool-
ness among his people, not only for his
invention, but also for himself. And to
us, to-day, it seems remarkable, that
even after the value of the alphabet was
known, the missionaries in the Nation,
who were fast translating the New Tes-
tament into the Cherokee language, re-
ceived this invention with coolness, and
even one missionary then put himself on
record by saying, *'By the use of this al-
phabet, so unlike any other, the Chero-
kees cut themselves from the sympathies
and respect of the intelligent of other Na-
tions." And thus it was, that Se-quo-yah
went sadly, day by day, among his peo-
ple, knowing that he had at hand the
key to the progress of his people how to ;
induce his people to accept it was now

as great a problem as the invention, but
THE INVENTION. IO7
time always dispels darkness, and so light

came at last to the footsteps of Se-quo-
yah. The chiefs deliberated. Full well
they knew the value of such an invention
were
if it real, and at last they resolved
on a final test. From various parts of the
Nation, they selected their brightest
young men and sent them to Se-quo-yah
that they might be taught. Faithfully
Se-quo-yah instructed them and as faith-
fully did his pupils apply themselves to
their task which soon became a most
pleasurable pursuit. At the appointed
time the chiefs again assembled at the
Council Lodore and the Cherokee stu-
dents were subjected to the most rigid
tests, until to the mind of all, no doubt
remained concerning the reality and
value of his invention.*
Rev. A. N. Chamberlin, who has always lived
among the Cherokees, in a recent letter, gives this
account of one of the tests given to Se-quo-jah,
as related to Wm. Griffin, now deceased.
him by
"The leading men
assembling, placed Se-quo-jah
and one of his sons at some distance from each
other, and had them write sentences as dictated to
I08 THE INVENTION.
Now came the hour of Se-quo-yah's
triumph. Even missionaries began, like
the poet, to ask
"How could one treat in such a way a man,
On whom God's hand had plainly been revealed?'
Those, who used to visit Se-quo-yah's
cabin to scoff and sneer now came to
praise. Young braves flocked around him

to receive instruction and ftie chiefs or-
dered to be prepared for Se-quo-yah a
great feast, at which, in great pomp, they
proclaimed Se-quo-yah from the door of
the Council Lodge
be Professor, Phil-
to
osopher, Prophet and Chief and one
much favored of the Great Spirit*.
This grand recognition of Se-quo-yah
at once made it a popular thing to be able
them and having them carried by trusty messen-

gers, had the writing of each read by the other,
and in that manner tested the correctness of his
claims. There were many tests imposed, for the
people were very skeptical.
A person observed to Se-quo-yah, "You have

—
been taught by the Great Spirit." He replied "I :
taught myself. He did not arrogate to himself any

extraordinary merit in a discovery which he con-
sidered as a result of plain principles.
THE INVENTION. IO9
toread and write. Had the Cherokees

then naturally indolent, been obliged to
have spent long weeks and even ye ars in
school, as it would have been necessary
to read in English, they would not, as
a nation have attempted it; they would
doubtless have continued to prefer the
chase, rather than to make such an effort,
but the alphabet once learned, they could
read at once. So simple was this inven-
tion and so well adapted was it to the
needs of the Cherokee people, that often
only three days were required by the
bright youth of the race, to learn the
whole system, so that they could at once
commence letter writing and even teach
this system to others. Indeed it is a his-
torical fact, tha,t the enthusiasm of the
young men became so great, that they
even abandoned in a measure, the prac-
tice of archery, hunting and fishing so as
to devote more time to letter writing as
an amusement, and it is stated by mis-
sionaries as a fact, that Indian youth ac-
tually went long journies for the sole pur-
no THE INVENTION.
pose of writing and sending back letters
to their friends,and it was not long be-
fore a regular correspondence was open-
ed and kept up between the Cherokees
of Will's Valley and their
country-men
located five-hundred milesaway and it —
must be remembered that this corres-
pondence was carried on by those who a
few months before had no alphabet.
NOTE.— Rev. A. N. Chamberlin in a letter da-
ted Dec. 3d., 1S84, says :
—
"The language has un-
dergone few changes. One character was dropped
out when printing commenced in this alphabet.
There is one now not used. I find in counting
through three chapters, (one in the New and two
in the Old Testament,) where 3,673 letters are used
there are eight that do not occur at all, three only
once, one four times, while there is one used two-
hundred and fifty times, only eleven characters are
used over one hundred times. As to the amount of
good the Alphabet has done our people, it is be-
yond estimation. At least ten thousand people
read to-day, who could not, were it not for Se-quo-
yah's alphabet. Untold thousands have been led
through it to Jesus."
THE INVENT I ON. 1 1
Tj
^ f§
I .-. p
^ ^ H I g ^ :-So^^:?-S)S^^
—
W "S W b5 ^ "^
-O 3^ "*
* a H 2 S-
a: ^ ? A S B S-o f « =^c
®
^ |« I « .f^
3 - « f> - "3 g
-'
= r.!: «j
^ ^ I g g g f §^ 2;s = s|7i&«3
TRANSLATION.
Our Father ||
heaven dweller, |1
Hallowed be
|1 ||
thy name. l|Thy kingdom |1

let it make its appear-
ancCi II
Thy will, ||
the same in heaven
as [it] is
|1 ||
done. Daily [adj] our

II
food give to us this day.|| 1|
Forgive us|| our debts, ||

the same as we forgive|| ||
our debtors. And do not || ||

temptation being |1
lead us into [it]. Deliver us from evil existing. || |j
II
For thine the kingdomjl is, and the power
|| || || ||
is, and H the glory is, forever H amen.

11 1| ||
"^ .-^ tf^ Ovo ^»0
a; ^ pod
:S^H !^p^î^'^
IS ^ -§ ^ ^^ ^ '^ CO
go, ^ ^ tL
^ '^ ^ CN-g .5 r'^
5
1^ c\
^
•^
<u u
H
CO
^ IT) ô fcJO
<U O
3 '^cy-i-s
I I
"to
%3
5
o ?^ .
a;
5^^:!
vo^
« (it
5
^
•-'
(D
M
J 5 ^
'^
^ ^
LOi^)
t^ .
CHAPTER X.
THE MISSION OF JOHN ARCH.*
The Babe of Nun-ti-ya-lec —A Father's Care — In-
separable Companion —Expert with Bow and Gun
—A Hero at Home — Luck —
III Results — Life
Its
Empty and Void — Joins the Mission School — Ca-
reer as a Student — Teacher and Preacher — His
Journies — Translates Scripture into Se-quo-jah's
Alphabet— Death.
In 1797, in that part of the Old Chero-
kee Nation called Nun-ti-ya-lee, there was
born an Indian babe named At-see, that
really holds an important place in the story
of Cherokee civilization. His mother died
when he was yet an infant, and for some
reason the father loved the son with an
unusual affection, and from the time At-
see was deprived of a mother's care, he
hardly allowed his offspring to be out of
The story of John Arch is to be found in the
Missionary Herald, also in a Memoir published by
the Mass. S. S. Union in 1832.
114 JOHN ARCH S MISSION.
his sicrht. The father was one of the

mightiest hunters of his race and, indeed,
the Nimrod of his time. But now when
he hunted his babe was his inseparable
companion. Often was he seen rushing
through the forest in pursuit of wolf or
deer, bearing the boy safely strapped upon
his back, and it was not long before the
son was crazy with delight at the pros-
pect of a chase. Very soon his father
taught him the use of the bow and after-
ward how to fire a gun, and before he had
fairlyreached his teens, he was known as
one of the most expert marksmen and the
"dead shot" of his tribe. He was always
successful in hunting, always killing more
game than companion.* On his return
his
home he always received much praise.
How much he took pride in his reputation
will soon be seen. "The last year which
he spent as a hunter," says his biographer,
"he had a poor gun, and then his compan-
ion succeeded better than himself, which
*It was customary for two to hunt in company,
though each rel-aincd without division whatever
game he had liimself acquired.
JOHN arch's mission. II5
SO mortifiedhim that he was ashamed to

return home and so resolved to hunt no
more." In speaking of this period of his
Hfe, five years after, he said, the world
then appeared empty and void; life seem-
ed to him a burden. Adeep melancholy
seized upon and nothing could
his spirits
afford relief. This was in the year i8i8,
just as the Missionaries had opened the
school at Brainerd, which may properly
be called the birthplace of Cherokee civi-
lization. At-see, now called John Arch,
was then twenty-one years of age. We see
again how great a result can hinge on a
simple circumstance. How much are the
Cherokees indebted to that poor gun. He
became so disgusted at the unsuccessful
hunt that he cared not to return to his
home and he joined several of his com-
panions, who were on their way to Knox-
ville, in East Tennessee. He there met,
incidentally, one of the assistant mission-
aries among the Cherokees. The mission-
ary soon perceived that John Arch was
desirous of learning to read, and advised
him to apply for admission at the mission
ii6 JOHN arch's mission.
school at Brainerd. He was so much in-
terested in the prospect thusopened be-
fore him, that he traveled through the
woods nearly a hundred miles to find
the missionary school. "His dress and ap-
pearance, when he reached B rainerd,
showed at once that he belonged to the
most uncultivated portion of his tribe; and
he had s pent so many years in savage life
that the missionaries received his applica-
tion with reluctance: but having heard his
story and noticed the marks of intelli-
gence which his countenance exhibited,
they consented to take him on trial.
He told them it was the state of de-
spondency into which he had been cast
by his unprosperous pursuit of the chase
during one whole hunting season, which
was the principal cause of his looking
for enjoyment be yond the confines of his
native forests and it was his interview
;
with the missionary at Knoxville, which

had led him to determine on cultivating
his mind at school. He said, he had
never been in that part of the nation be-
fore, where the school was situated, nor
JOHN arch's mission. II
had he heard of the school, till informed

of it in the manner before stated but ;
he
had come with the intention of remain-
ing if possible. He was admitted, and
it
was not long before he was able to read

and write with considerable correctness,
and possessing naturally good judgement
he was employed with another young
Cherokee to assist one of the missionaries
in preparing an elementary school
book
in the Cherokee language, which was af-
terward printed. He was baptized into

full communion with the Church,
on the
20th of March, 1820. It was in this
was opened at Creek-

year, that a school
path, and John Arch became an assistant
for Mr. Butrick. The school opened

fairest prospects. The people of
all
with
ages seemed anxious to learn and a
deep
religious interestsprung up :—John Arch
devoted himself with energy to his work,
pursuing it with 'judgement, intelHgence
*
and delighted animation." He at length

returned to Brainerd, where he was
en-
gaged as an interpreter. About this

ii8 JOHN arch's mission.
time he took an extended tour among his
people. His fame as a hunter had made
him familiar to many in the nation, and
in this tour, his re-appearance was hailed
with delight, and the Cherokees and even
the chiefs listened to the words he spoke
with more than an ordinary attention.
The Boot and Path-killer insisted on go-
ing with him in this tour. At one place
they were invited to the Council House.
Says the Narrative: —
"We accompa-
nied Path-killer and the Boot to the
Council-house, about a mile distant.
This house, if it may be so called, is
simply three roofs, each about thirty feet
long, supported by crotches, and nearly
forming three sides of a square, with a
fire in the middle of the area, and one
nearly under the inner edge of each
roof. Here we found perhaps a hundred
sons and daughters of the forest. Perfect
order and decency were maintained, and
all the visible objects of nature seemed
to unite torender the scene and the sea-

son delightful. Above were the sparkling
JOHN arch's MISSION. II9
stars, almost continually stealing my
thoughts from lower scenes to
these
contemplate the amazing grandeur of
that Divine Original from whom they
borrow all their luster. Around was the
dark but pleasant forest, as a strong wall
to screen us from the sight of mortals
and to shut us out from the noise
and tumult of the world. The rustling
leaves bade us welcome to their silent re-
treat. At my right sat John, at my left,
the king, and next the Boot, and then, in

proper order, honorable of the
all the
town. At a king arose,
suitable time the
and addressed the people in a few words.
After this John explained the design of
the visit, and read our letters from Brain-
erd and from Chas. Hicks. He after-
ward spoke on the importance of educa-
tion, the evil of drinking, &c. After
we had finished our discourse, kingthe
desired us, in token of friendship, to
shake hands with all the 'people. They
accordingly passed before us, with the
Boot at their head. When the ceremony
I20 JOHN ARCH S MISSION.
was over, the Boot made a long speech,
exhorting all to attend to what they had
heard ; especially the young men to con-
sider the words their young brother John
had spoken, and urged the women who
had children to have them educated."
This was a fair sample of the recep-
tion of John Arch on his five hundred
miles tour. It was after his return, that
he spent quite a time near Willstown near
the western limits of the State of Georgia.
Here he met Se-quo-yah and became in-
terested in his invention. He readily
saw its value and determined to put it in-
to practical use. Before this he had as-
sisted one of the missionaries in transla-
ting an elementary school book for the
Cherokees, which wâs afterward printed.
He continued his good work as preacher
teacher and interpreter until late in the
season of 1824, when he was taken ill of
dropsy. Unable to travel, he at once sat
about translating the third chapter of St.
John into the Cherokee language. He
then wrote it in the syllabic character of
JOHN arch's mission. 121
Se-quo-yah. was received with won-

It
derful and was copied many

avidity,
hundred times and read by the multitudes
whom he had visited in his tour, thus
preparing the way forits quick reception
among his people. This was the first

portion of Scripture translated into the al-
phabet of Se-quo-yah, thoughit was rap-
by other portions. Thus,

idly followed
as Se-quo-yah had been raised up to
give to his people a written language,
so was John Arch directed by the same
mysterious providence, to accept the al-
phabet, means of at ônce circula-
as a
ting, while Cherokee curiosity was fully
aroused, those words, which were instru-
mental, as history proves, in numbering
the Cherokee people among the civ-
ilized and christianized races of the
world. And this work completed, John
—
Arch died died calmly on the i8th of
June 1825. As his friends gathered at
his bedside and told him that in a few
moments, he must pass beyond, a smile
lighted up his countenance, and raising
122 JOHN arch's MISSION.
his hand, pointing upward, he replied,
"Well, it is good," and his passed
spirit
beyond. We believe for such as he
"Some angel, watchful, kind,
Stoops for the moment from his kindred band,
Reaches through veil of sleep, a pitying hand.
And leads the dreamer forth into a fairer land."
CHAPTER XI.
THE KEY OF PROGRESS.
The Alphabet a National Institution — Suited for
All—The Medal— The "Phoenix"— Its effect on
the Nation — Circulation of Books and Tracts
The Rapid Growth of Civilized Ways — Laws on
Scandal.
"Oh kindred of the woods

Lift up your heads, for now the sunrise beams
Scatter the mist of darkness and of dreams;
The world is made anew, and itis good."
F, L. Mace.
Having accepted Se-quo-yah's alpha-
it at once became
bet at the Council, a
national institution. An early attempt
was made through missionaries to substi-
tute another for it, but the Cherokees
would listen no such proposal; their be-
to
lief in its superiority over the whiteman's
could not be eradicated. This the mis-
sionaries soon saw, for at that time Mr.
124 THE KEY TO PROGRESS.
Worcester wrote as follows "Speak to
:
—
them of writing in any other character,
and you throw cold water on the fire you
are wishing to kindle. To now persuade
them to learn another would be in gen-
eral a hopeless task. Print a book in Se-
quo-yah's alphabet and hundred's can
read the moment it is given to them*."
While Se-quo-3âh sat in his cabin,
dreaming out his alphabet, a Mr. Butrick
and David Brown had attempted to re-
*The life of Mr. Worcester as identified with the
Cherokees has recently been written by a Cherokee
girl, Miss Nevada Couch, a member of Worcester
Academy, of Vinita. Published for the Institution.

He was ordained Missionary in Boston in 1S25. He
arrived in the old Cherokee Nation on Oct. 21st of
that year. He died April 20, 1859. ^small, neat
shaft of Rutland marble marks the place at Park
Hill where the mortal part awaits the last trumpet's
call toimmortality. On the two sides of the shaft
are the names of his two wives. The face bears this
inscription: —
"Rev. S. a. WORCESTER, D. D.,
For 34 years a Missionary of the American Board
of Commissioners for Foreign Missions among the
Cherokees. To his work they owe their Bible and
Hvmn Book."
THE KEY OF PROGRESS. 1 25
duce the language to Roman form and a
book was issued, with which it
spelling
was hoped to teach the young Cherokees
to read their language. To teach the
old they supposed would be an impossi-
bility.But a short time after Se-quo-
yah had made known his alphabet, one
of the teachers among the Cherokees
wrote :
—
*'The children of the Chero-
kees only were thought to be within the
range of our efforts, but as far as the
heavens are above the earth so are God's
thoughts above our thoughts, for we now
see that the objects to which this blessing
is bestowed is not to the children only
but to the fathers and mothers and even

grand-fathers and grand-mothers of the
Cherokee Nation". Thus it was that both
Indians and whitemen paid tardy justice
to Se-quo-yah. In 1824, the Cherokees
in general council voted to Se-quo-yah a
*David Brown was a brother of Catharine, the

firstconvert under the work of the American Board
in the Cherokee Nation. A memoir of her life and
sketch of the family was published under the aus-
pices of the Board in 1825.
126 THE KEY OF PROGRESS.
large silver medal as a mark of distinc-
tion for his discovery. It was intended
that this medal should be formally pre-
sented at a council, but two of the chiefs
dying and John Ross, who was then
their principal chief, being desirous of
the honor and making
gratification of
the presentation, and not knowing when
Se-quo-yah would return to the Nation*
sent it to him accompanied with an elab-
orate address, and with due ceremony it
was placed around Se-quo-yah's neck
and he ever after very proudly wore it.
The medalf had this inscription en-
graved in English, also in the Se-quo-yan
alphabet ;
"PRESENTED TO SE-qUO-YAH BY THE GEN-

ERAL COURT OF THE CHEROKEE NATION,
FOR HIS INGENUITY IN THE INVENTION
OF THE CHEROKEE ALPHABET."
On one side were two pipes, the ancient
symbol of the Indian religion and laws
on the other was the head of a man.
*He went to the Arkansas Cherokee Nation in
Spring of 1823, and never returned again to the old
Cherokee Nation.
fThis medal was made in Washington.
THE KEY OF PROGRESS. 127
On February 2ist, 1828, not five years
after Se-quo-yah's alphabet had been ac-
cepted by his nation, an iron printing
press of improved construction and fonts
of Cherokee and English type, together
with the entire furniture of a printing of-
fice was put up at new Echota and the
firstcopy of the "Cherokee Phoenix" was
given to the world. It was the average
size of the newspapers of that day and
one fourth of it was printed in the Se-
quo-yan alphabet, and all this at the or-
der of the Cherokee Council. This print-
ing press was the first ever owned by any
aborigines of this continent. It was
owned by citizens, who of all the natives
of this continent were the first to invent
and use an alphabet of their own, and,
indeed, was the first aborigines alpha-
it
bet, that had been invented for over a

thousand years, and more than this, they
presented to the world the most per-
fect orthography that this world has ever
seen. The "Phoenix" was the first abo-
riginal paper on this continent, and Elias
Boudinot, the first aboriginal editor.* In
his editorial labors the young Cherokee
editor, was assisted often by missionaries.
Before the first issue was printed, a pros-
pectus was sent out. "The great object
of the <
'Phoenix" said the prospectus will
be to Cherokees and these
benefit the
subjects will occupy the columns ist. : —
the laws and public documents of the
Nation; 2d, Accounts of the manners and
customs of the Cherokees and their pro-
gress in education, religion and the arts
of civilized life, with such notices of other
Indians as our limited means will allow ;
3d, The principal interesting events of

the day ; 4th, Miscellaneous articles cal-
culated to promote literature, civiliza-
tion and religion among the Cherokees."
Such were the articles that were printed
and that Se-quo-3'ah read in letters of his
own invention. Up to about this time it
*He was educated Mission School at Corn-

at the
wall, Ct. Married Hattie Gould, a favorite young
lady of the village. Was assassinated about 1S39.
Col. E. C. Boudinot, now so well known at Wâsh-
ington is his son.
THE KEY OF PROGRESS. 1
29
had been almost impossible for the Cher-
okees to be induced to wear a whiteman's
dress. Some twenty years before a lead-
ing chief was induced to do so, but he
was soon laughed to shame and he threw
it aside in disgust. About this time,
Boudinot the Cherokee editor, who had
been induced to wear a civilized dress
was often heard to speak of the feeling of
shame that wearing this dress gave him,
but it was not long before the people be-
came accustomed to and adopted the
proper dress of civilization. On the Nov-
ember following the February on which
the first copy of the ''Phoenix" was pub-
lished, a missionary wrote, that it was
his opinion that at least three fourths of
the Cherokee people could both read and
write in their new alphabet, and so it
was that Se-quo-yah by his alphabet be-

came the great enlightener of the Chero-
kee people. One year after his death,
the Cherokee Nation appropriated ^2000
for paper
the establishment of another
called the "Chorokee Advocate," to be
devoted as the prospectus said, "to the
moral and intellectual improvement of the
Cherokee people." The paper continued
until 1854, when it was again suspended.
It revived again in 1870, and is now in a
prosperous condition, and the official pa-

per of the Nation.*
And the Cherokees were also the first
of the Aborigines of this country to pre-
sent a well organized system for the gen-
eral diffusion of knowledge. On the in-
troduction of the printing press their cra-
ving for knowledge took a rapid stride,
and the publications in the Cherokee al-
phabet were eagerly sought after. "The
enthusiasm of the Cherokees is kindled,"
wrote Mr. Worcester at this time "great ;
*W. P.Ross was the first editor of the Advocate;
D. H. Ross was his successor, who was followed by

David Carter and James Vann, under whom the pa-
per suspended. After the war VV. P. Boudinot took
charge. He was followed by Geo. Johnson, and after
two years E. C. Boudinot, Jr., was appointed editor.
He was succeeded by D. H. Ross, the present editoi
who with good editorial ability publishes a paper
creditable to the Nation.
D. H. ROSS, EDITOR OF "ADVOCATE,
THE KEY OF PROGRESS. I3I
numbers have learned to read and write.

They are circulating hymns and portions
of the Scripture : they are eagerly antic-
ipating the time when they can read the
white man's Bible in their own alphabet."
Within five years of Se-quo-yah's tri-
umphal recognition, the press at New

Echota had turned off 733,800 pages of
good reading, which was eagerly read
and re-read by Cherokees. Two years
after, the number of pages had increased
to 1,513,800 and before Se-quo-yah's
death about 4,000,000 pages of good
reading had been printed in Cherokee,
and this not including the circulation of
the "Phoenix". Such a general distribu-
tion ofgood literature among a people,
where it was so eagerly read could but
have a civilizing effect in all ways
upon the people. They began to aban-
don their superstitions they gradually
;
adopted the whiteman's dress they put

;
themselves in the way of religious teach-

ings they began to produce grain for
;
market, instead of raising only for their

own use they became more frugal they
; ;
favored law, order, morality and temper-

ance. Records show that nowhere in the
Cherokee Nation did the cause of temper-
ance spread so rapidly as in the immedi-
ate vicinity of Se-quo-yah's early home
and it was not long before a missionary
wrote from that vicinity that the traffic in
drink had almost ceased. In an incred-
ibly short time, they doubled the number
of their sheep, horses, cattle and swine;
agricultural implements were in greater
demand ; were put up
a few sawmills ;
public roads established and guide-boards

in Se-quo-yah's alphabet pointed out the
way. Schools were started ; Cherokee
women began to weave with looms ; the
wigwams gave place to rude huts. When
Se-quo-yah was born, the smoke from
their wigwams ascended through open-
ings at the top, but now, even a few
chimneys were put up with brick. The
Cherokees now tried to imitate the white
men in the management of their affairs ;
plows that they had hitherto been unac-

THE KEY OF PROGRESS. I33
customed to they adopted ; instead of ap-

pearing nearly, in the clothing that Na-
ture gave them, they appeared in proper
dress. The women began to cover their
heads, first with handkerchiefs, then
with men's hats, and for the first time, on
one bright Sunday in 1826, a Cherokee
woman put on a new Spring bonnet, and
made her first profound sensation. But
—
the funny part of it which goes to show
that history repeats itself —was the fact :
during the next month, a male mission-

ary forwarded a report to headquarters
he "regretted to
in Boston, saying that
growing extravagance in dress
notice a
among the women of the Cherokee Na-
tion." As the great wheel of human prog-
ress rolled over the Cherokee Nation, vil-
lage loafers grew less and less, and the
gossiping o'harrigans of the wigwams for-
got to lie about their neighbors. God gave
to these progressive Cherokees, an intui-
tion that they might be an example
of good to the pale-faced gossipers of all
134 "^^^ ^^Y ^^ PROGRESS.
time. Indeed it now seems, that a man
of ordinary running ability, in front of an
agile Indian, was much safer and more
he would his
likely to save his scalp, than
reputation from the wagging tongues of
white gossipers and scandal mongers. Civ-
ilized tongue-scalping it —
there can be
—
such a mixture is infinitely more cruel,
than that done by the Indian scalping
knife. Many are the reputations blasted
by the wagging tongues of gossipers; the
fair reputation of our daughters, who have
never allowed a blot on their pure page
in God's Record Book, have often been
blackened by the beastly insinuations of
from the mouth of
street corner loafers, or
female busybodies, those having a heath-
enish ardor to tell something new and
that something to the disadvantage of
somebody All hail the Cherokee law
else.
on slander in force tc-day! for the scan-
dal-monger of malicious intent will suffer
punishment by a fine in any sum not ex-
ceeding two thousand dollars for the
benefit of the person injured, or by in-
THE KEY OF PROGRESS. 1 35
prisonment for a term of not exceeding
two years, or both fine and imprisonment
at the discretion of the Court. Small, pu-
silanimous brats about the villages thought
itnot manly to curse and swear. Cher-
okee youth ceased to irreverently call
their fathers ^'the old man," even in Cher-
okee, nor did they disgrace their language
by calling their sainted mothers, *'the old
woman". Their thirst for knowledge soon
excelled their love for drink,lewdness
gave way to progress and through the
careful teachings of the missionaries, the
Cherokees learned of a better life.
"Thine inspiration comes!
In skill the blessing falls !
The field around him blooms.

The temple rears its walls,
And saints adore^
And music swells,
Where savage yells
Were heard before."
CHAPTER XII.
CHECKS TO PROGRESS.
The Rapacious Whites — Speech of Speckled Snake

—Troubles in —
Georgia Unjust Laws Driven —
—
out by the Guard The "Phoenix" Suppressed
— —
Emigration Trouble and Suffering Civil War
— Their Alphabet now a Key to Progress.
But the impression must not be convey-

ed, that this Nation became a perfect one.
There was, and ever will be much dark-
ness to dispel, much stupidity to be ban-
ished, much vice to be restrained. There
were many relapses, apostasies, various
disappointments for which may God for-
give the rapacious white man when we
;
consider many adverse circum stances,

we can only wonder at the result achiev-
CHECKS TO PROGRESS. 1 37
ed. Just as the Cherokees were beginning
to take a prominent stand in civilized
ways, the United States was scheming to
possess their land and to drive them by
fair means or foul from their native soil.
No better portrayal of the very shameful

condition of affairs, which were agi-
tating the Cherokees at this time, (1830),
can be produced than in the reply of
Speckled Snake to the speech of President
Jackson. It was as follows:
—
Brothers: We have heard the talk of
our great father; it is very kind. He says
he loves his red children. Brothers! When
the whiteman first came to these shores,
the Muscogees gave him land, and kin-
dled him a to make him comfortable;
fire
and when the palefaces of the South
made war on him, their young men drew
the tomahawk, and protected his head
from the scalping knife. But when the
white man had warmed himself before
Indian's fire, and filled himself with In-
dian's hominy, he became very large; he
stopped not for the mountain tops, and
his feet covered the plains and the valleys.
His hands grasped the eastern and even
the western sea. Then he became
138 CHECKS TO PROGRESS.
our great father. He loved his red child-
ren but said, 'You must move a little
;
farther lest I should by accident tread

on you.' With one foot he pushed the
red men over the Oconee, and with the
other he trampled down the graves of his
fathers. But our great father still loved
his red children, and he soon made them
another talk. He said much but meant
;
nothing but move a little farther, you are

too near me. I have heard a good many
talks from our great father and they all
began and ended the same. Brothers !
When he made us a talk on a former oc-

casion, he said: —
'Get a little farther;
go beyond the Oconee, and the Ockmul-
gee there is a pleasant country.' He
;
also said, "It shall be yours /orever.'

Now, he says, 'The land you live on is
not 3ôurs ; go beyond the Mississippi
there land there is game there you
is ; ;
may remain while the grass grows or the

water runs'. Brothers Will not our father
!
come there also ? He loves his red child-

ren and his tongue is not forked."
For some time the state of Georgia

had tried in various ways to drive the
United States Government into her meas-
CHECKS TO PROGRESS. 139
ures for the forcible possessing of the
Cherokee country, and resolved to seize
upon the land of the Cherokees under
the color of law, but to make those laws
so oppressive that the Indians could not
liveunder them. The laws alluded to
were passed on the 20th of December,
1829, by the legislature of the State of
Georgia. The following is an extract :
"It is hereby ordained, that all the laws of Geor-

gia are extended over the Cherokee country. That
after the first day of June. 1830, all Indians then at
that time residing in said territory shall be liable
and subject to such laws and regulations as the leg-
islature may hereafter prescribe. That all laws,
usages and customs made and established and en-
by said Cherokee Indians,
forced in said territorj',
be, and the same are hereby, on a nd after the ist
day of June 1830, declared null and void; and no
Indian, or descendants of an Indian residing within
the Creek or Cherokee nations of Indians, shall be
deemed a competent witness or party to any suit in
any court, where a whiteman is a defendant."
*'Such," says Drake, "is a specimen

of the laws framed to throw the Indians
into entire confusion, that they might be
more easily overcome, destroyed, or
forced from the land of their nativity.
That the Cherokees could not live un-
der the laws of Georgia is most manifest,
as it is equally manifest that said laws
were never made in expectation that they
would be submitted to. Thus was the axe
not only laid at the root of the tree of
Cherokee libert}^ but it was also shortly
to be wielded by the strong arm of power
with deadly effect."
It was not long before the Cherokees
were thrown into a state of great confu-

sion, and their thoughts were drawn from
advancing in civilization and especially
directed toward the preservation of their
rights, in the land God Almighty had
deeded to Only two months after
them.
the unholy law just quoted came into ef-
fect, the persecutions commenced. In-
junctions were decreed b}^ law forbidding
the Cherokees to dig for gold on their
own land under a penalty of $20,000 ;
at the same time white men from all di-

rections were digging unmolested in
those very mines.
CHECKS TO PROGRESS. I4I
In 183 1, the *
'Phoenix," the great ed-
ucator of the Cherokees became the sub-
ject of attack. Up to this time it had done
its good work as an educator without di-
rect attack, but in its issue of Feb. 19th,
183 1, is the following :
"This week, we present to our readers but half a

sheet. The reason is, one of our printers has left
us; and we expect another, who is a white man to
quit us very soon, either to be dragged to the Geor-
gia Penitentiary for a term of not less than four
years, or for his personal safety to leave the Na-
tion, to let us shift for ourselves as well as v.'e can.
Thus is the liberty of the press guaranteed by the
constitution of Georgia."
At this were many noble

time there
men engaged Cherokees,
in teaching the
but even those who were freely giving
their lives in this noble work could not be
let alone. In March 183 1, the ''Phoenix"
said: —
*'The law of Georgia, making it a high misde-
meanor for a white man to reside in the Cherokee
N^t'on, without taking the oath of allegiance, and
obtaining a permit from the Governor of Georgia,
or his agents, is now in course of execution. On
last Sabbath, after the usual time of divine service,
the Georgia Guard arrived and arrested three of
our citizens, viz., Rev. Samuel A. Worcester, Mr.
J. F. Wheeler, one of our printers, and Thomas
Vann, the last two being citizens, with Cherokee
families. Mr. Isaac Proctor, assistant missionary
had the evening before been taken, and came with
a guard as a prisoner. On Monday they were ta-
ken to Etohwah, where were taken the Rev. John
Thompson, and Mr. William Thompson."
Such a state of affairs could have no
other than a checking influence in their
new zeal for civilization, but the desire of
many of the Cherokees still was that
their children might be educated, and
some were already preparing to find a
home farther west, to escape the unjust
persecutions. In June of the next year,
the *
'Phoenix" said :
'The gigantic silver pipe which George Washing-

ton placed in the hands of the Cherokees, as a me-
morial of his warm and abiding friendship, has
ceased to reciprocate it lies in the corner of the ex-
:
ecutive chambef, cold like its author to rise no

more."
In October 1835, Georgia took pos-
session of the ''Phoenix;" further issue
was stopped. The same year, a treaty
was made by a few not representing
the majority of the Cherokee people.
CHECKS TO PROGRESS. T43
whereby their territory was given to the

United States in exchange for lands be-
yond the Mississippi. In 1836, this treaty
was ratified at Washington, and orders
were given for the Cherokees to leave
their country within two years. *
'At this
time," says Bartlett, *'there was a singu-
lar state ofpromise all along the
line. It
seemed as though all things were now

ready for one wide ingathering into com-
plete civilization,and into the kingdom
of God. Everywhere were centers of
light. The traveler would have seen half
the Cherokees in Georgia able to read,
and leavened with eight churches while ;
the arts and methods of civilized life were

rapidly spreading. There were schools,
courts, a legislature, and stringent laws
against intemperance and strong drinks."
Such was the condition of affairs when
the order to leave the country came.
"The Book of Troubles and Miseries
of the Emigrating Indians has not been
written," says Drake. "Hundreds have
been swept off by sickness on their rug-
ged road ; old and infirm persons fell un-
der the fatigues and hardships of their
journey hundreds were buried beneath
;
the waves of the Mississippi in one aw-

ful catastrophe wives left husbands on
;
the way, never more to join them

mothers were hurried from the graves of
their children and Mrs. Ross, wife of
;
the great chief of that name, languished

and died before reaching the unkown
land to which she was bound."
Some of the Indians emigrated early,
but the majority clung tenderly to their
homes and graves of their fathers. In
October 1837, the 31st day, the ''Mon-
mouth", a rotten Steamer furnished by
the Government to transport some of the
Indians up the Mississippi, collided with
another and sunk and 311 out of 600
crowded into the old boat were drowned,
nor were any requiems chanted, or sor-
rowing words spoken except by the mis-
sionaries, and a few noble men, who
recognized in the Indians a god-given
soul. On their way across the country
CHECKS TO PROGRESS. I45
many Cherokees sickened, and from the
result of their removal over 4000 died
nearly one fourth of the nation. It is
not to be wondered at, under such cir-
cumstances, that the attention of the

Cherokees was turned from educational
pursuits. In 1845, the'Advocate" began
*
its good work and continued until 1854.
About that time new disturbances be-

gan to and then came the civil
arise
war, the result of which proved to them
a great disaster. About this time, 1861,
the A. B. C. F. M. unfortunately dis-
continued its work among the Cherokees,
and the publication of new religious liter-
ature entirely ceased. When the civil
war opened the South demanded the
Cherokees as soldiers and the North de-
manded them as soldiers. Both North
and South were in honor bound to let
them alone and keep their hands off
their lands and property. Both North
and South joined hands to make of their
houses, ashes and their farms grass and
;
weeds, and again thoughtless minds of

do n't care spirits finished the work left
undone by North and South, so that what
the Cherokees have to day is really the
work of about twenty years.
Many Cherokees were wounded in the
battleof Dec. 1861, and still greater was
the loss in the pursuit. The night after
the battle snow fell to the depth of one
foot or more and the weather became ter-
ribly cold. In the battle and the pursuit
that followed theCherokees lost most of
their beds,bedding and wearing apparel,
provisions and horses. In such weather
and snow, stripped of almost all they
had, they were forced to find their way
into Kansas horses and Indians froze to
;
death hundreds were frozen in their ex-

;
tremities, whom some recovered but

of
many died. During the conflict the Cher-
okees were robbed by their enemies of
one half of all they had and their reputed
friends did not scruple to take the rest,
and they became literally destitute, so
much so, that in three years after the war
their death rate exceeded their birth rate
by nearly 3,000, and it took nearly a

decade of years for this people to recu-
perate. The year 1870, will, in the fu-
ture, prove to have marked another im-
portant era in Cherokee progress. The
"Advocate" was re-established and an
effort was once more made to utilize the
Se-quo-yan alphabet. The writers in the
States, on Cherokee matters, have most-
ly pointed out the mastering of English
as the best way of educating the Chero-
kee, and in their struggles toward civil-
ization in later years, less attention was
paid to Se-quo-yah's alphabet. On this
point, Wm. P. Boudinot, the Executive
Secretary of the Cherokee Nation, in a
personal letter to the author, writes :
*
'In this, I think the Cherokees made a
great mistake. The theory among
certain leading ones was that the less
use made of the alphabet the better, be-
cause the English would then super-
cede the Cherokee language more
rapidly — their conclusions being that a
knowledge of English was the first ne-
cessity. So it is, but the theory was
wrong, because the cultivation of intelli-
gence in their own language would ma-
terially have directed their attention and
desire to acquiring English in order to
increase their knowledge." In 1869 the
National Council so realized the necessi-
ty of utilizing more the Se-quo-yan
still
alphabet, that a committee was appoint-

ed to select arithmetics, a geography and
history to be translated into the Se-quo-
yan alphabet for the use of schools. The
importance of such an act can be re-
alized in reading the preface of the
Cherokee-English arithmetic prepared in
1870 by the authority of the Cherokee
Council. An extract is as follows :
'•Ithas been deplored that that portion of the chil-

dren of this Nation who do not speak English have
been compelled to lose entirely the benefits of our
Public Schools, or else, while attending school to
pore, day after day, over lessons of which they
could learn only the sounds. They have had to en-
dure all the toil and drudgery of study, without
that encouragement which comes from the pleasure
of acquiring new ideas. Some have attended Eng-
lish schools enough to have acquired a good educa-
tion, had text books been written and schools taught
in their vernacular language. After years spent of
most irksome labor, when they had arrived at man-
hood and womanhood, many of them have found
that they had scarcely acquired sufficient knowledge
of the English language to begin successfully the
study of the elementary branches. It was too late;
the responsibilities and cares of life are upon them-
Baffled and they have given over the
despairing,
struggle for an education."
The restoration of the alphabet to pop-

ular favor, and printing text books in
their own language, has had once more
its civilizing effect upon the nation.
Still there are no public schools in the
nation to-day devoted exclusively to
teaching in their alphabet. The sim-
ple lessons necessary to enable the full
Cherokee to read and write are learned

by the fireside and the parents are the
teachers. The Nation, since 1880 has
furnished the "Advocate" free to all non
English speaking members of their race,
and in this way they keep well posted on
both national and secular affairs.
Se-quo-yah, though born in the dark-
est period of Cherokee history, lived
to see three printing presses running
within the nation ; he lived until fully
4,000,000 pages of good literature,
printed in the alphabet he made, had
been circulated among his people ; he
lived to see school houses and many
churches spring up within the nation he ;
lived to see hispeople governed by a

constitution, which divided the power of
government into legislative, executive
and judicial departments a government ;
allowing all free citizens having attained

the age of eighteen years to vote at all
public elections ; a government where the

Judges were supported by fixed salaries,
and were not allowed to receive fees or
perquisites of office, or hold any other
office of profit or trust whatever a gov- ;
ernment where the right of trial by jury

should remain inviolate where no per-
;
son, who denies the existence of a God

should hold any office in the civil depart-
ments of his Nation. Such were some
of the laws that Se-quo-yah lived to see
adopted by his Nation.
CHECKS TO PROGRESS. 151
As before intimated, like many of his

countrymen, he was early driven an exile
from the beautiful land he loved so well,
from his field, his workshop and the orch-
ards on that clear stream flowing down
from the mountains of Ge orgia. He joined
his countrymen, who had gone West of
the Mississippi, and when, in 1828, nine of
the principal men of that portion of the
Cherokee people proceeded to Washing-
ton, D. C, as a delegation from their Na-
tion, principally for the purpose of obtain-
ing a survey of their territory and a deffi-
nite establishment of its limits, Se-quo-
yah went with them. While there he was
the Center of attraction. A ^'savage," who
had developed an alphabet, was to them a
wonder. Many were the interviews that
politicians, students and learned men had
with him through the interpreters Boudi-
not and Brown. While there his portrait
was painted and it still is preserved with
portraits of other Indian celebrities of the
red race. He then wore his Indian cos-
tume and the medal that had been given
him by his people. Congress took due
recognition then of this now comparatively
forgotten genius and as a recognition of
his greatness, they declared that the sum
of $500 should be given him as a token
of appreciation of the benefit he had con-
ferred upon his people in inventing for
them an alphabet. So plainly did Congress
see the benefits that the Cherokee people
were deriving from the alphabet, that they
agreed to pay the Cherokees annually
for ten years the sum of $2,000 to be
expended under the direction of the Uni-
ted States for the education of their chil-
dren in their own country; also Congress
appropriated $1,000 toward the purchase
of a printing press and type to aid the
Cherokees in their progress in education
and to benefit and enlighten them as a
people. Such in part was the recognition
that the U. S. Congress took of Se-quo-
yah and his work in 1828.
CHAPTER XIII.
SE-QUO-YAH, THE MODERN MOSES.
Asa Teacher— Again a Dreamer— Would write a
Book— Queer Expedition in Search of Knowledge
Received in Honor—The Last Trip— Sickness-
Death— Vision of the Past and Result of his in-
vention —The Great Conception.
"'Tis like adream when one awakes,
This vision of the scenes of old;
'Tis like the moon when morning breaks;
'Tie like a tale round watchfires told."
Se-quo-yah now devoted much of his

time in teaching his invention to his peo-
ple. He traveled many hundred miles
stopping to teach wherever he could
find a pupil. To impart knowledge and
to spread the fame of his invention now
became his passionate delight. But at the
age of sixty, rheumatism troubled his
wounded knee, and again he sat by his
cabin door and dreamed. It was now
154 "T^^ MODERN MOSES.
that agrander inspiration seized him.
The voices he now heard in his dreams
were not the songs of Nature. In that
memorable trip to Washington, he had
closely listened to the sounds of the dif-
ferent languages, which he had heard
spoken, and now was da"v^ning on his
mind a theory of a connecting link be-
tween them, especially those of Indian
tribes, and strange to say Se-quo-yah
conceived an idea of writing a book. To
him there was no such thing as a studied
Philology. Books to him, with the excep-
tion of the ''Phoenix," the translated por-
Cherokee Alma-
tions of the Bible, the
nacs, songs and hymns were the only
printed leaves that even whispered to Se-
quo-yah. How without the aid of books
and records of the past was Se-quo-yah
to unravel the mysteries of Philology ?
Having at last recovered from his at-
tack of rheumatism, he at once put his
plan of collecting materials for his essay
on the "Linguistic Chain"into execution.
There were for him no libraries, with
THE MODERN MOSES. I55
alcoves of rich lore ; there were no musty

records or parchments of the past to aid
him —
the first thing he did toward the
accomplishment of his purpose was to
construct an ox cart.
One bright morning, in the year 1840,
there started out in the Arkansas Chero-
kee Nation, one of the most peculiar ex-
peditions in search of knowledge that
the world has ever known. First and
foremost in the company we recognize
our friend, Se-quo-yah. He had heard
the ancient tradition, that a part of his
people were in New Mexico, having
been separated from them, some time be-
fore the advent of the white race, and
somewhere there, he expected to find a
missing link in the linguistic chain. And
for this purpose, he started westward.
With him was a Cherokee boy as a com-
panion, who
drove the oxen attached to
the rude Indian cart, in which were vari-
ous articles of use, trade and the tools of
his profession —
and thus it was that Se-
quo-y ah started in pursuit of knowledge
156 THE MODERN MOSES.
for his book. For two years at least did
this queer knowledge crusade travel in
the and though tribes were hos-
wilds,
tile and war, Se-quo-yah and his trav-
at
eling school-house was permitted to pass
on in peace. His fame as a philosopher,
school master, prophet and chief had
gone before him, and as he visited tribe
he was received with honor
after tribe
and they aided him as best they could in
his quest for knowledge, and furnished
him means also, to prosecute his inquir-
ies in each tribe and clan. Several jour-
nies were made, but he wearied not in
prosecuting the researches he had com-
menced. Man}^ were the facts picked up ;
many were the proofs collected favorable
to his theory. Early in 1842, Se-quo-yah
started on long journey westward and
his
with his traveling school house and Col-
lege of Mechanic Arts reached a ridge of
the Rocky Mountains. He was directed
to a passthrough which he could drive
cart and oxen. He was worn out with
his long journies, researches and pro-
found meditations on matters for his book.

For a day, Se-quo-yah camped on a
spur of the mountains, and before him
lay what he supposed to be the prom-
ised land where he would find a missing
branch of his race. As in early days,
the Hebrew, Moses, went from the plains
of Moab unto the mountains of Nebo,
to the top of Pisgah and was shown the
land of Gilead unto Dan, so God permit-
ted the great school master of the Chero-
kees to leave the plains and to behold
the land of his dreams. The Scriptures
say, thatLord buried the Hebrew
the
Moses and no one know-
in the valley,
eth his sepulchre unto this day, and
there arose not another like him and —
so it seems to have been God's will in the
case of Se-quo-yah. Down the pass, he,
the boy, the cart and oxen journied, fol-
lowed by an admiring retinue. He vis-
ited the valleys of New Mexico, looked
at the adobe villages of the Pueblos, but
found not that for which he sought, and
one day, sick of fever, and worn and
158 THE MODERN MOSES.
weary, near San Bernardino, he halted
his ox cart. Up to this time he had sus-
tained his sufferings with so much forti-
tude, that his companions realized not
end was near, but they gently
that the
bore him to a cave, a fire was built, and
they tried to warm away the chill that
had seized upon his limbs. As the day
drew to a close, it was evident to all that
the last hour had come, and as the sun

passed behind the horizon, leaving its
rich halo behind it, the Cherokee School
Master, Philosopher and Chief quietly
fell asleep.
^
"And since the chieftain here has slept,
many a Winter's wind has
Full swept,
And many an age has softly crept
Over his humble sepulchre."
Oft they
tell us, who are suddenly
borne to the arms of death and are sud-
denly snatched back to life again, of a
vision of a single moment, containing,
as it were, the whole weal or woe of
life. Thus moment, a shade of
for a
sadness darkened the brow of our dying
hero, as there passed before his mental
eye, a vision of theincompleted possi-
bilities of what might have been —
grand panorama of his great concep-
tion and a vision of Cherokee wrongs.
He saw as it were a picture of that
wrong, which was inflicted on his race
by the before mentioned treaty of the
United States, in 1836. He saw then
his nation a happy people, dwelling in a
beautiful land which was to them a home,
the land of their ancestry, the birth-
place of their own and the
civilization,
burial place of their fathers. Those
little towns on the silvery Chattahooche
and the golden Etowah, were as precious

to them as the villages we love so well
those wigwams and cabins on the turbid
Ocklacony and the crystal Tugaloo were
as dear to the early Cherokees as are the
homes of any whitemen, it was the —
Cherokees 'Sweet, Sweet Home," and
*
''be it ever so humble, there is no place

like home." And these homes were to be
no more theirs after a few short years,
for it had been so decreed, by the Great
l6o THE MODERN MOSES.
Government of the paleface, that these
homes, and the burial places of their fa-
thers they must leave forever; that the
graves of their wives and little ones could
no longer be their sacred property, but
were hence-forth to be trampled upon and
desecrated by indifferent strangers. One
year passes and still another, but the
Cherokees make no effort for removal
sadly they see each sun rise and set, and
they know that the hour draws nigh ;
they know also that to resist is useless.

Yet they cling to their lands and homes
until the last moment, when on the out-
skirts of the Cherokee Nation on that
beautiful May morning in 1838, there
came on all sides of their Nation, except
the westward the tramp, tramp, tramp
of United States* troops, and the soldiers
began to drive the Cherokees from the
scattered wigwams and cabins on the out-
skirts toward the center of their Nation;
family after family were driven from their
homes before the glistening bayonets of
the white men; for weeks were these Cher-
THE MODERN MOSES. l6l
okees hunted in the woods like wild beasts,

and near the center of the Nation, into
three great herds, like so many cattle,
were 16,000 Cherokee men, women and
children gathered together. What a vis-
ion. Three great herds of human beings
called *'savages," driven from the land
that God Almighty deeded to them, by
the white barbarians of a so called chris-
tian The heat of the Sum-
civilization.
mer sun waxed hot; and springs dried up,
so that for some time the march toward
their home far west was delayed.
in the
Even they started many heart-
before
broken Cherokees fell sick and died and
happily were laid to rest in their native
land. Let, here, the curtain fall. We
cannot depict the sufferings of that long
march across the country; we will not re-
late its horrors; neither will we point out
—
the path they took it is marked by 4000
Cherokee graves made new in a short
four months' time, from sickness caused
by hardships and broken hearts. When
did any Indian race massacre in so short
a time so many white men? 16,000 Cher-
l62 THE MODERN MOSES.
okees herded together and driven from
the land God Almighty deeded to them,
and 4000 of these die before they could
reach the far off land deeded to them in
return by the United States.
And still another vision met the eye of
our dying hero, and he saw the grand re-
sults of the alphabet he had made. He
saw a race that in a few short years had
made greater progress than any other re-
—
corded on History's page, the result of
his achievment was revealed in a perfect
light —but that which faded from his
view was a completion of his grand concep-
tion— a conception so great, that no
human being ever conceived the like
before —that of forming a more wonderful
alphabet, one that would enable all the
Indian tribes of North America to read
and speak a common language, that
would enable them to unite in forming a
grand confederacy, for the purpose of de-
fense ; for their mutual preservation from
the encroachments of the white men, and
their lasting perpetuation in the land
deeded to the Indians by Almighty God.
CHAPTER XIV-
THE ABORIGINES ELYSIUM.
Trueto the Indian Faith —The Gates Ajar— Beyond
The Gates—The Lost Race at Last— From Dust-
Worn Ruts —Forgotten Benefactors —Among In-
dian Lore -The Little Book. — Result— Wonder-
Its
ful Progress.
"Such graves as his are Pilgrims' shrines,

Shrines to no code or creed confined,
The Delphian race, the Palistines,
The Meccas of the mind".
Se-quo-yah died nearly fifty years ago
having attained the age of three score
years and ten, just the alloted age of man.
He died believing fully in that faith his
mother taught him. He died as the good
Indian dies, with all that peace of mind
promised in God's holy word both to
Jew and Gentile. He died happy in the
Indian faith of a glorious hereafter. And
when the last hour came, and his eagle
164 THE ABORIGINES ELYSIUM.
eye dimmed to the hills, the forest of
strong oak and sombre pines, when
his ear no longer heard the river's mur-
mur and the song of the birds he loved
so well, there came a smile upon his face,
as if there opened to him a door to a sweet
land, even as to our own St. John, the
pearly gates opened to disclose the beau-
ties of a new Jerusalem — as if he beheld
before him the boundaries of an enchant-
ed nation, which, conscious that he had
to
lived true to thelaw that nature taught
him, he approached without fear, look-
ing for no punishment only for reward.
As he crossed the boundaries, another
smile rested on his face, as if grandly
there dawned to him the glories of the
Aborigines Elysium. —A
mighty forest
decked with foliage of softest shade, and
carpeted with velvet leaves and silken
needles from majestic pines verdant ;
groves wafting sweet perfume on gentle

airs ; a shady woods, where warbling
birds in golden plumage carrolled won-
derous melody, where for his silvered
THE ABORIGINES ELYSIUM. 165
arrow, herds of stately deer and buffalo
idly waited on a thousand ambushed
plains, and where monster fish sported
for him alone in silvery brooks, which
rippled over pebbly beds of gold. And
somewhere, in this happy hunting
ground, he thought to find the wigwams
of those who had gone before, and with
them to live on forever, never growing
old, but in this new world to develope
constantly new capacities. Within the
breast of every lover of justice, let the
fires of indignation burn, for in every
garbled account of Se-quo-yah's life, the
historians have made one point against
him, ''induced no doubt," says Phillipps,
*'by the narrow minded ecclesiastic, be-
cause he would not go through the rou-
tine of a christian profession, after the
fashion they prescribed. Hence they have
scrupled not to say he was a pagan."
Some have affirmed that he died regret-
ting that he had invented an alphabet to
carry the teachings of the white man's
Bible to his people, while one missionary
l66 THE ABORIGINES ELYSIUM.
even that it was only his spirit of rivalry,
because he would outstrip the white man,
that induced him to invent an alphabet
for his people. Be these charges true or
not, let their memories be buried with all
that is mortal of Se-quo-y ah. For what
right have we, having found a genius
that Providence gave, to raise in his own
way a people from their benightedness,
to select from the great alphabet of hu-
man characteristics a single defect, and
brand it as a '* Scarlet Letter" against
him. Many of these false charges arose
without doubt from not comprehending
him ; for, notwithstanding his genius,
the far too conceited whiteman consider-
ed him an ignorant savage, while in fact
he comprehended himself and measured
them. Says Rev. W. A. Duncan, Chair-
man of the Cherokee Board of Educa-
tion, in a personal letter to the author :
** Se-quo-y ah, though a ^'heathen," as

Christians would call him, put thekey
in the missionaries' hands, by which
they were enabled to unlock the door
THE ABORIGINES ELYSIUM. 167
and carry in to the Indian mind the rich
treasures of the gospel. Se-quo-yah gave
them letters, but strange to say, he rejec-
ted his religion. He
never became a
** convert," but I think has many
God
ways of reaching the minds of people
without having to travel along the narrow
path, which our partial knowledge of
the universe is wont to mark out for his
feet. Se-quo-yah sleeps on the banks of

the Colorado, and though the wild flower
has no tongue to tell of the spot doubtless
in the great day, it will be seen that God
found some way to get him to Heaven."
We judge our fellow man too much.
Indeed, what right has one unless a god,
to brand another as among the doomed,
because in his candid, honest search for
knowledge, he may have been haply lifted
from old ruts and had revealed to him
things to him or us unseen before and in
fields and pastures new, boldly starts the
plow of progress, that outside the dust-
worn ruts, in new but god-given fields,
he may reap larger harvests, and cull
l68 THE ABORIGINES ELYSIUM.
new and brighter flowers for God and for
humanity. Should some great record of
man's earthly usefulness be opened to-day
and should we hear proclaimed the result
of his life and ours, who would be able
to stand, even with uncovered head, in
the presence of Se-quo-yah.
"Who loves and lives with Nature tolerates
Baseness in nothing; high and solemn thought
—
Are his, clean deeds and honorable life.
If he be poet, as our Master was,
His song will be a mighty argument,
Heroic in its structure to support
The weight of the world forever! All great things
Are native to it, as the Sun to Heaven.
Such was thy song, O Master! and such fame
As only the kings of thought receive, is thine;
Be happy with it in thy larger life
—
Where Time is not, and the sad word Farewell !*
How soon are forgotten the true bene-
factors of mankind, and how few writers
on American History have thought to pay
even a passing tribute to Se-quo-yah. I
once visited the great bookstores of Bos-
ton to consult old books and new, hoping
to find deserved tributes to Se-quo-yah.
In one vast library I found shelves full of
THE ABORIGINES ELYSIUM. 69 1
volumes treating of Indian tribes. Ea-

gerly sought I, through the musty pages
of each to find some new record of this
benefactor of mankind. There were
scores of books, with long records of In-
dians brave in war and distinguished in
the chase, but nothing of Se-quo-yah.
Four solid hours had I turned the pages
of those musty volumes of forgotten lore,
and was turning away weary and disap-
pointed,when between two mouldy vol-
umes I spied a little book it was new and
;
elegantly bound in gold, the cover fold-

ing over and fastened at the side. I was
amazed to see such a beautiful little book
concealed there among those time-worn
volumes, and I pulled it from its hiding
place, and behold it was the word of
God, the New Testament, printed in the
Se-quo-yan Alphabet. Not the rough,
unsightly characters,* as were left on
the bark or paper, by the stick with
which Se-quo-yah wrote, but the same
rude letters, never-the-less, smoothed
See Indian Letter Book.
170 THE ABORIGINES ELYSIUM.
by contact with the revolving wheel
of time, just as civilization has reduced to
symmetry the coarse hieroglyphics from
which our English letters came. And
this little book had been the means of
carrying to the Cherokee people the di-
rections for a higher life. Do I need
write more, even a single word to con-
vince the reader that God raised up Se-
quo-yah for a purpose, and that through
him, the Cherokees became the most be-
nevolent, moral and intellectual of all In-
dian tribes ;
—
and more than this, God
with his wonderful finger of love, touched
the hearts of the whitemen and the mem-
bers of our Christian churches, and they
borrowed from the Cherokee people the
alphabet that Se-quo-yah made, with
which they formed the '*Word of God,"
and they gave it to the Cherokees again
in this new form, and this people, always
in pursuit of knowledge and of light, ac-
cepted this new and thus, the
revelation,
Cherokee people, in addition to their
morality and intelligence, became the
THE ABORIGINES ELYSIUM. I7I
most christian Indian tribe on the face of

the earth.
"And thou, O Church, betake
Thyself —
watching, labor help these
to men :
God will thee visit of a surety, when

Thou'rt faithful.
Give
"Light for the forest child !
An outcast though he be,

From the haunts where the sun of childhood
smiled,
And the country of the free.**
CHAPTER XV.
A GRATEFUL PEOPLE.
Public Services—The Treaty of 1816—Treaty of
— —
1828 The Literary Pension Still Perpetuating
His Name— Literary Societies — District — Bust,
—Pictures —Testimonials of his People.
Se-quo-yah was not without recogni-

tion by his people in the administ ration
of Cherokee In 1816, when a
affairs.
treaty was made to perpetuate pe ace and

friendship between the United States and
Cherokee tribe, or nation, and to remove
all further dissentions which might arise
from indefinite territorial bou ndaries, Se-
quo-yah was one of the fifteen delegates
sent by the Cherokees. The Commiss-
ioners plenipotentiary of the United States
uniting in signing this treaty with Se-
A GRATEFUL PEOPLE. 1 73
quo-yah and his companions were Ma-

jor General Andrew Jackson, General
David Meriwether, and Jesse Franklin.
This treaty was signed at the Chickasaw
Council house on the fourteenth of Sep-
tember, and was ratified at Turkey Town
by the whole Cherokee Nation, in coun-
cil assembled, on the fourth day of Octo-
ber. The and warriors, who sign-

chiefs
ed the ratification were Path Killer, The
Glass, Sour Mush, Chulioa, Dick Jus-
tice, Richard Brown, The Boot, Chicka-
sawlua. As has been mentioned in a

previous chapter, Se-quo-yah was one of
the delegates to the City of Washington,
in 1828, and was then a signer, as a
Chief of the Western Cherokees, to the
articles of Convention concluded on the
6th of May. Four of Se-
this delegation,
quo-yah, Thomas Maw, George Marvis,
and John Looney signed these articles in
the Se-quo-yan alphabet. On May 31st,
at the Room, Williamson's Ho-
Council
tel, in Washington, Thomas Graves,
George Marvis, Se-quo-yah, Thomas
1 74 A GRATEFUL PEOPLE.
Maw and John Byers ratified the articles
of Convention. We no other of-
find
ficial acts up to
of Se-quo-yah recorded
the year 1838. Then the two branches
of the ancient Cherokee family had by
force of circumstances been brought to-
gether again it seemed necessary
; for
the general welfare that a Union should
be formed and a system of govern-
ment matured, adapted to their new con-
dition, Se-quo-yah, as President of the
Eastern Cherokees, was a signer of the
act of Union. At this time he made his
*'mark," why he did not write his name
in his own alphabet is now a question.
Among the signers of this act of Union
was Jesse Bushy head, father of the pres-
ent Chief, and John Benge, whom A. N.
Chamberlin says, became so much inter-
ested in Se-quo-yah, while he was making
his alphabetical calculations, that for
some time, he furnished him with wri-

ting material to record his meditations.
In 1841, as Se-quo-yah was traveling
in the West, hunting for the lost branch
A GRATEFUL PEOPLE. 1 75
of his race, an act was passed at the Coun-
cil giving him a literary pension equal to
the salary of a Chief.It was subsequently
changed to read as follows:
AN ACT
FOR THE BENEFIT OF GEORGE GUESS.
Be itenacted by the National Council, That in
lieu of the sum allowed to George Guess, in consid-
eration of his invention of the Cherokee alphabet,
passed December loth, 1841, and which is hereby
repealed, the sum of three hundred dollars be paid
to said George Guess out of the National treasury,
annually, during his natural life.
Be it further enacted, That in case of the death

of George Guess, that the same be paid to his
wife, Mrs. Guess, annually, during her natural life.
TAHLEquAH, December, 29, 1843.

Approved. JOHN ROSS.
Though Se-quo-yah never realized any
actual benefit himself from this pension, it
was paid to his wifeand children for many

years. And when it was learned that he
was really dead, Congress as well as the
Cherokee Council thought to bring back
his remains and erect over them a suitable
monument; but the matter was too long
delayed, and when the messengers were
176 A GRATEFUL PEOPLE.
sent out from his Nation to hunt for his
grave, they failed to discover his resting
place. not impossible, that in some
It is
future day, some
traveler, student or ex-
plorer, in searching in some of the rocky
caverns along the Colorado, for traces of
silver or gold, shall find there a heap of
human bones, the skull of which will indi-
cate, that he who died there, was a man
of more than common Should
intellect.
the finder be a phrenologist, he might

stoop to study the skull and to wonder at
the revealed capacities, and then, perhaps,
as beholds his lamp nearer to this funeral
pile, he may see something like a silver
coin just where there was once a human
—
heart and it may prove to be the silver
medal given to Se-quo-yah by his race
unless this happen, the last resting place
of Se-quo-yah will never be known.
Literary Societies, for such gatherings
are not now unusual in the Nation, still
take the name of their benefactor, and
parents still perpetuate his name by be-
stowing it upon their children. One of
the nine districts into which the Nation is
A GRATEFUL PEOPLE. T77
divided for government is called after him.

A traveller in the Cherokee Nation to-
day, stopping at Tahlequah, their Na-
tional Capital, would see a large brick
structure of excellent architecture and
finish. Less than a century ago, this
people held their National deliberations
in the woods with the tree-branches for
shelter, but now they point with a just
pride to this imposing structure and say,
"This is OUR Nation's Council House!''
And in this Council House is a room
set apart for the deliberations of the
Board of Education, and in this apart-
ment, the visitor, unacquainted with
Cherokee history, points to a marble
bust, and asks "What white man is this
that the Cherokees thus honor in mar-
ble?" And then some Cherokee, with
face glowing with enthusiasm and Na-
tional pride will say, "This is no white
man this is Se-quo-yah, the Cherokee
; ;
the pale face can preserve in marble, the

memory of the 'Father of his Country'; a
Cherokee in the same way honors the
178 A GRATEFUL PEOPLE.
'Father of Learning,' to his people, and
this bust, a token of gratitude, was carved
at the order of the Cherokee Council.'*
From all parts of the Nation to-day
up a voice of gratitude and
there rises
praise. Many
Nations have warriors,
but Cadmuses are few. '^Fathers of a
Country" are usually made through war,
blood and conquest, but the "Fathers of
Learning," receive their inspiration from
God and such seems to have been
;
the case with the great School Master

of the Cherokees,
"Long live the good School giving out !
yedir by year
manhood and woman-
Recruits to true
hood dear
Brave boys, modest maidens, in beauty
sent forth,
The living epistles and proof of its worth."
CHIEF BUSHYHEAD.
CHAPTER XVI.
A LAW ABIDING PEOPLE.
The Cherokee Constitution and Government-
Chief—Judiciary System— Courts—Jurors and
—
Jury Trials Laws on Treason and Conspiracy
— — —
Murder Immorality— Intemperance Recogni-
tion of the Sabbath, etc.
By the Cherokee Constitution, the su-

preme executive power of this Nation is
vested in the Principal Chief, who holds

his office for four years. The present
Chief, D. W. Bushyhead, is a son of
Jesse Bushyhead, who was one of the
first native Baptist Cherokee preachers
in the old Cherokee country. Of the

father of the Chief, the History of Baptist
Missions says :
— *'He was a convert of
superior intelligence and worth. He had
learned Christianity from the teachings
of the Bible alone, and apart from all
other instructors had embraced the sal-
l8o A LAW-ABIDING PEOPLE.
vation which it offers with an intelligent
conviction and earnest faith, which com-
bined with his own superior understand-
incr rendered him a christian of no ordi-
nary stamp. He was baptized by a min-
ister from Tennessee in 1830, and three
years after was ordained to the ministry."
From the time of his conversion up to
the time of his death in 1845, he devo-
ted himself to the welfare of his people..
He translated the Genesis, and it was
printed in the alphabet of Se-quo-yah. He
was accounted one of the most energetic
men of the Nation to which he belonged
^'Hewas one of the early pioneers of civili-
zation andoneof the noblest exemplifica-
tions of christian character ever produced."
He was appointed Chief Justice of the
Cherokees after their arrival in their new
territory, and in this station, which he
still held at the time of his death, through
many trying periods of National affairs,
he was always distinguished for his wise
administration of even-handed justice.
It is not the purpose of this work to
A LAW-ABIDING PEOPLE. l8l
discuss in detail, the acts of the present

Principal Chief, that belonging proper-
ly to another volume.* it to say
Suffice
that, as his father lived, in a measure,
aheadof his race, so to the eye of a his-
torian. Chief Bushyhead has not confined
his administration solely to present needs.
His administration in coming years will
be seen to have held an important bear-
ing on the future of the Cherokee race.
There may be those in the Nation, who,
taking a narrow and contracted view of
the present, and with no discerning eye
for the future, may fail to catch the bear-
ing of some of the Chief's most import-
ant acts. What better school system can
be shown than that organized under his
administration? — a system equal to that
in vogue in the States and one that well
,
followed will command for the Cherokees

both the attention and respect of the
most cultured white man. What might
have been the future of the Cherokee
race, had not the present Chief caused to
be filed an authentic register of all Cher-
*"A Nation Within a Nation."
l82 A LAW-ABIDING PEOPLE.
okee citizens, thus striking as
it were a
death blow to the hope of any who would
by cunning art and sly device blot out
this ''Nation within a Nation." Chiei
Bushyhead, would long ere this have
collected the scattered historical records
of the past, and had them put in proper
shape had not unwonted
for preservation,
obstacles been thrown in the way, by
those who should have sustained him in
his laudable endeavors for the welfare of
his people. Every true hearted Chero-
kee, should demand that the history
of their race should be fully written.
There is nothing in it of which to be
ashamed. What matters it if early cus-
toms were crude, uncouth, and to us to-
day unseemly? It is the story of these
rude customs of old contrasted with the
attainments of the present, that makes
their history grand, inspiring almost un-
precedented. Were we a Cherokee,
we would insist that some loving heart
should search the musty records of the
past, and then, with artist pen,. trace the
A LAW-ABIDING PEOPLE. 183
picture of the race as it was in the days
of primitive simplicity. Then would we
bid that same artist depict on another can-
vas, at its side, a picture of the attain-
ments of their race to-day. We would
then command him to paint still another
picture — the picture wrongs inflicted
of
on the Cherokees by the white man, and
all the checking influence. Then would
we command him to trace a historical
painting of the progress in the States.
First there must be a picture of rude log
huts supplanting Indian wigwams; then
a view of e arly and crude life of the ear-
ly whites in the forest. Then were it
possible, we would have him paint the
good fortune that has fallen to the white
race, that has given to him the blessings
and the comforts of civilization and then,
beside all, would we bid him trace on
the canvas, the result ol the whiteman's
**Century of Dishonor", toward the red
race ; —
and then we would ask *'Why, :
O Cherokee, do you hesitate to have

184 A LAW-ABIDING PEOPLE.
your history written, and your annals
preserved?"
The Principal Chief is to the Chero-
kees what the President is to the United
States. By their Constitution, no man
is Chief
eligible to the office of Principal
unless he is a native born citizen and he
must be at least thirty- five years of age.
He each district twice each year to
visits
acquaint himself with the needs of the
people which was a commendatory de-
mand of the Constitution. The acquaint-
ance thus made with the necessities of
the Nation aids him in governing wisely
and well. He signs and vetoes bills, and
sees to it that the laws are faithfully exe-
cuted. He has around him a Cabinet or
council composed of five persons, which
he has power to assemble at his discretion
and with the Assistant Principal Chief,
and councillors, may from time to time
hold and keep a Council for ordering and
directing the affairs of the Nation, accor-
ding to law.
On September, the 6th day, 1839, ^^^
A LAW-ABIDING PEOPLE. l8$
Constitution of the Cherokee Nation, with
exception of a amendments, was
few
adopted, as it now To this George
stands.
Guess, or Se-quo-yah, was a signer. His
signature upon that document refutes the
only serious charge ever brought against
that wonderful man —that he was a pagan.
Every recorded act of Se-quo-yah proves
that he was not a searcher for fame or
glory for himself. would have been
It
inconsistent with his whole career to have
affixed his name to a document that he
did not fully understand and in which he
did not fully believe. He may have re-
jected some dogmas of the whiteman, but
there is no proof but what he was true to
the laws of right that the god of Nature
taught him. By thus affixing his name to
this document, the Cherokee Constitution
is a living refutation of the charges made
against him. he signed no
'Tis true that
church creed. Yet the Constitution he
signed understandingly and in good faith
was a creed broad enough to refute the
stigmas the narrow minded would bring
against him. By signing the Cherokee
1 86 A LAW-ABIDING PEOPLE.
Constitution he professed a belief in God
and a future state of reward and punish-
ment; for, says their Constitution
Sec. I. No person whodenies the being of
a God, or future state of reward and punishment,
shall hold any office in the civil departments in this
Nation.
By signing the Constitut ion, he placed

himself before the world as an endorser of
religious worship ; for, says
Sec. 2. The free exercise of religious worship,
and serving God without distinction, shall forever
be enjoyed within the limits of this Nation provi- :
ded, that this liberty of conscience shall not be con-

strued as to excuse acts of licentiousness, or justify
practices inconsistent with the peace and safety of
this Nation.
By signing the Constitution, he pro-

claimed himself a lover of Justice:
Sec. 7. The right of trial by jury shall remain
inviolate, and every person, for injury sustained in
person, property or reputation, shall have remedy
by due course of law.
And by his signature to Section 9, Ar-

ticle VI, he stands on record as a cham-
pion for the three great factors of Civiliza-
tion — Religion, Morality and Knowledge.
A LAW-ABIDING PEOPLE. l8*J
Sec. 9. Religion, morality and knowledge, being

necessary to good government, the preservation of
liberty, and the happiness of mankind, schools and
the means of education shall forever be encouraged
in this Nation.
Section 7 was a clause in the red man's

National Constitution adopted in 1839.
In 1830, nine years before, the whitemen
of Georgia passed a law that *'no Indian
or descendant of an Indian, residing in the
Creek or Cherokee Nations of Indians,
shall be deemed a competent witness
where a white man is a defendant".
Again, we ask, '-Why, O Cherokee, do
you not demand that your history be
written?" And what think you, O white
man? Were not the words of the Immor-
tal Wirt prophetic? when he said over
a half century ago:
**The faith of our nation is fatally linked
with the existence of the Cherokees, and
the blow which destroys them quenches
forever our glory: for what glory can there
be of which a patriot can be proud, after
the good name of his country shall have
departed? We may gather laurels on
the field of battle, and trophies on the
l88 A LAW-ABIDING PEOPLE.
ocean, but they will never hide this foul
blot on our escutcheon. 'Remember the
Cherokee Nation,' will be answer enough
for the proudest boasts that we can ever
make. I cannot believe that this honora-
ble court, possessing the power of preser-
vation, will stand by and see these people
stripped of their property and extirpated
from the earth while they are holding up
to us their treaties and claiming fulfillment
of our engagements. If truth and faith
and honor and justice have fled from
every part of the country, we shall find
them here. If not, our sun has gone down
in treachery, blood and crime in the face
of the world; and instead of being proud
of our country, we may well call upon the
rocks and mountains to hide our shame
from earth and heaven."
When we mention that Wirt lived long
enough to see that deep stain fall upon
the escutcheon of his country's honor,
which he so much feared, we see why all
American History is so silent concerning
the Cherokees.
Their elections are conducted in as de-
89
corous manner as in the States, actually
putting toshame some gatherings for a
similar nature in the States. For the
purpose of government the Cherokee Na-
tion is dividedinto nine districts called
Se-quo-yah, Illinois, Canadian, Flint,
Saline, Going-snake, Tahlequah, Coo-
vêe-scoo-weeand Delaware, and in these
districts there are forty-seven voting
places authorized by law and these dis-
tricts are allowed to elect in all forty men
as Representatives to the Council, who
are entitled to $3,00 per day for their
services. Eighteen Representatives to
the General Council of the Indian Terri-
tory,by the people, and one other is elec-
tedby joint vote of the National Council,
and commissioned by the Principal Chief.
The term of membership of the General
Council is two years. The Upper House
of the National Council is styled the
Senate of the Cherokee Nation. The
election of Principal Chief, Assistant
Principal Chief, members of the Nation-
al Council and minor officers takes place
on the first Monday in Aug. The Coun-
cilconvenes on the first Monday in No-
vember. Before election, the clerk of
each district has already promulgated a
writ or proclamation of the Principal
Chief for the information of the qualified
electors of his district. At days
least ten
before election he has caused to be pub-
lished by pasting up in some conspicuous
place at each and every precinct in his
district the names of all persons put in
nomination for office, and candidates
frequently mention their candidacy in
the 'Advocate," their National paper. If
*
a male has reached the age of eighteen

years, and has been a resident of the Na-
tion for six months immediately preced-
ing the election, if he has not been con-
victed of felony, if he is not insane, or
*'non compos mentis" he is considered
qualified as a voter. On election morning
there is a general assembling at the vari-
ous voting places. The polls are open
before eight o'clock in the forenoon and
are kept open until sunset of the same
A LAW-ABIDING PEOPLE. I9I
day, an intermission of an hour being

taken at noon. Before the opening of the
polls a space of fifty feet is marked off
encircling the polls, within which no
person except the officers of election are
allowed to come, except for the purpose
of voting, and then but one voter is al-
lowed to enter at a time and he must
promptly retire beyond the prescribed
limit.
Before the day of election two clerks
and two superintendents of election for
each precinct areappointed, one of
whom must be able to speak both Cher-
okee and English, and they are selected
equally as may be from the opposing
candidates. When the superintendents
are qualified, with as much fairness as
possible to the opposing candidates, they
choose three suitable perscJns to act as
supervisors. The polls being open, one
of the superintendents proclaims the fact
in a loud voice to the voters present, and
states what offices are to be filled. He
then exposes for inspection of the legal
voters who are present, the rolls then
to be used to show that no names of the
voters are recorded thereon. The rolls
are headed "Returns of election held on
the day of at precinct, in
district in the Cherokee Nation." These
rolls are ruled with the necessary space
to record the names of the voters and the
names of the candidates, and the votes
each candidate may receive. The voter
then enters the enclosure, and states in
audible voice, the name of the candidate
for whom he desires to vote. The clerk
then records the name of the voter and
places his name to the candidate desig-
nated by him, while the second clerk
watches carefully to see that no mistakes
are made. No superintendent, supervisor
or clerk of election are allowed to influ-
ence or bias the voting of any voter by
word, deed or other manner, except by
challenge of the legality of a vote. If
there is evidence of a person being an un-
qualified voter, the clerk or superinten-
dent at once swears the suspected voter,
A LAW-ABIDING PEOPLE. 1 93
and a rigid examination of his eligibility

is made. The election is carried on with
the greatest decorum. To the supervi-

sors are given full authority to preserve
the peace during the election, and attend
tocounting of the votes, and making up
the returns. They suppress the sale or
indulgence in intoxicating drinks by de-
stroying such liquors, and cause arrest
and removal from the precinct, of any
drunken or disorderly persons. They
make the greatest effort to preserve the
purity of the ballot. Should one unqual-
ified cast a vote, or should one vote more
than once for the same candidate, not on-
ly would he be subject to a fine of not less
than $100, and at least a six months' im-
prisonment, but would be forever dis-
qualified from voting. Bribery is subject
to a fine of not less than $100 or over
$500, or the offender can be both fined
and imprisoned ; and if a person by vio-
lence, threats or riotous conduct attempts
break up any election, or
to disturb or
unlawfuly prevent the free use of the
elective franchise, or attempt to intimi-
date any candidate for office, he is liable
to a fine of $ioo and an imprisonment
of twelve months, and if the offense is
committed by three or more persons

armed with any deadly or dangerous
weapons they are deemed guilty of trea-
son, and upon conviction are made to
suffer death by hanging. The utmost
care is taken of the rolls at the noon re-
;
cess, the superintendents and clerks re-

main in company and in possession of the
rolls. At sunset as the polls are finally
closed, and before leaving the room in
which the election has been held, the su-
perintendents and clerks sum up the
votes cast at the precinct, and the num-
ber for each candidate, and continue
without adjournment until the work is
complete. After the result is obtained
the rolls are signed, sealed and properly
marked as election returns from pre-
cinct. On the following day, the super-
intendents of election of the several pre-
cincts assemble at the regular place of
A LAW-ABIDING PEOPLE. 1 95
holding court in each district and deliver

the returns to the clerk of the district,
who in the presence of superintendents,
opens and counts the vote and issues a
written certificate of election to the fortu-
nate candidate. The returns are then
carefully sealed and re-marked election
returns from district. They are then
placed in the hands of a sheriff or his
deputy, who delivers them in person to
the Principal Chief at the seat of Govern-
ment. We have been thus minute in re-
gard to the management of their elect-
tions for in no better way can we show
how just is their claim of being a law-
abiding people.
The Judiciary system is divided into
supreme, circuit and district courts. The
supreme court consists of three Judges,
one of whom is selected by a joint vote of
the National Council as Chief Justice.
The power of the supreme court is about
the same as the power of a similar body
in the States ; the decision made has the
force of law. The Judges have and ex-
ercise exclusive criminal jurisdiction of
all cases of manslaughter, and in all
cases involving punishment of death ; this
court has exclusive jurisdiction of all
cases instituted to contest an election
held by the people, and brought before
the court as provided by law they also ;
have power to award judgements, order

decrees, and to issue such writs and pro-
cesses as they may find necessary to carry
into full effect the them
powers vested in
by law. There are three judicial circuits
known as the Northern, Middle and
Southern, and one Judge is elected for
each circuit. The circuit courts have ju-
risdiction of all criminal cases, except
those of manslaughter, involving direct-
ly or indirectly a sum exceeding one hun-
dred dollars, and all civil suits, in which
the title to real estate or the right to the
occupancy of any portion of the common
domain shall be in issue, exceeding one
hundred dollars. There is also a district
court for each district, for the trying of
all criminal cases, whether felonies or
A LAW-ABIDING PEOPLE. I97
misdemeanors, involving the sum of one

hundred dollars or less.
No man is allowed as juror, who is un-
der 21 years of age, nor any person, who
may be under punishment for misde-
meanor, and no member of the legisla-
tive or executive departments, or any
commissioned officer of the Nation, offici-
ating minister of the gospel, physician,

lawyer, public ferryman, school teacher
or one older than 65 years is compelled
to serve on jury or as guard. Five per-
sons constitute a jury in the trial of all
civil suits, any three of whom may ren-

der a verdict. In case of manslaughter,
twelve jurymen are requir ed, but in all
other cases the jury consists of nine per-

sons, and no verdictis rendered in any
criminal without consent of the

case
whole jury. The grand jurors are se-
lected with especial care from the best
and most intellectual men of the nation.
Their term of service is for one year un-
less discharged. Five men are summon-
ed from each district for this purpose.
1 98 A LAw-AB I D I NG PEOPLE.
Having thus briefly referred to their ex-
cellent Judiciary system, for the benefit of
those, who on calling all Indians
insist
"lawless," seems best to call attention
it
to a few Cherokee laws which are continu-

ally enforced in their nation. It is a la-
mentable fact, that so large a proportion
of the people, in the New England States
at least, are so ignorant of the state of
have reached. Stu-
civilization this people
dents in our Universities have expressed
surprise to know that there are such
institutions as Cherokee Seminaries of
Learning, and the writer has been warned
more than once, to never visit this people,
as the scalping knife might do its deadly
work. Yet, how can we blame these stu-
dents and these men so intelligent in other
things, when we call to mind the fact that
no author has taken pains to write the
progress of this people. Indeed, how can
we expect honest, fair or intelligent legis-
lation concerning Indians, when all the
literature we receive, except that provided
by Indian Associations, goes to prejudice
the people. As an unprejudiced historian
A LAW-ABIDING PEOPLE 1 99
beholds the Cherokee people to-day, he

sees no longer the tomahawk cr the scalp-
ing knife; that they were used is only re-
vealed in archives and fading memories of
the past. On the other hand, he reads the
Cherokee law, that every killing of a hu-
man being, without authority of law, by
stabbing, shooting, poisoning, or other
means, or in any other manner, is either
murder, or man slaughter in the first sec-
ond, or third degree, according to the in-
tention of the person perpetrating the act,
and the facts and circumstances connected
with each case. If such killing is done in-
tentionally or by premeditated design, the
person convicted of doing the same suffers
death by hanging; if done without design
to effect death, procuremênt or culpable
negligence of a person the imprisonment
is not less than two years. Abortionists
are imprisoned for not than two or
less
more than ten years; seconds and medical
advisors, in prize fights, where death oc-
curs are deemed guilty of manslaughter.
The careless or avaricious ferryman, who
overloads his boat so that it sinks or en-
dangers the lives of passengers, and every
captain, engineer or other person, in charge
of any steamboat, or other steam power,
where neglect or carelessness results in the
explosion of a boiler and death results,
is deemed guilty of manslaughter. These
laws are rigidly enforced, and there are not

so many cases of assault, murder or man-
slaughter by the Cherokee people to-day
according to population as in many of the
States. Rape is punished by imprison-
ment from ten to twenty-five years, and
the ravishment of female children is pun-
ished by hanging, a law that might well be

on the statute book of, and enforced in,
every state in the Union. From five to
fifteen years' imprisonment is the punish-
ment for arson, and if death results from
the death is the prospective punish-
fire,
ment. Executions take place within the

enclosure of the National prison at Tah-
lequah, by the high sheriff or someone ap-
pointed by him for the purpose.
The Cherokee Execution by hanging was
first
Cherokee country in 1S28. The unfortu-

in the old
nate was a Creek residing in that nation He was
A LAW-ABIDING PEOPLE. 20I
triedfor murder one Friday, condemned about

noon and executed on Saturday between the hours
of 12 M. and I p. M. The story goes that "the Jury
were all in tears when they brought in their verdict
and the Judge was very much affected when he pro-
nounced the sentence. yVll men, women and chil-
dren fasted from the time he was condemned till af-
ter the execution, and most of them were engaged
in praying, singing and exhortation. The prisoner
took an active pa»t in the devotional exercises. lie
stood in the cart under the gallows and delivered
an affecting address, after which he joined with
the people in singing a hymn, which they sung at
his request he then kneeled down over his cofSn
;
and prayed. He died like a warrior. 'My friends,'

he said, 'I want you to look at me and take warn-
ing. My bad conduct and wickedness have brought
me to this afflictive situation. * * Now I leave you
and die. Our Saviour died for poor sinners. I am
not afraid to die.'"
Marriage and divorce are now subject

to law with as much strictness as in the
States. It was in 1826, that the first mar-
riage took place according to christian
usage, in the old Cherokee nation, and
the ceremony was performed by a mis-
sionary of the American Board and hun-
dreds of Indians flocked together to see
what was to them a wonderful ceremony.
While Indian Agents, in their reports
have sought to make prominent the cus-
toms of some in lower grades of Chero-
kees, — tor there are all grades of Chero-
kees just as there are all grades of white
—
men we find but little said in regard
to the better condition of aff'airs. If a
Cherokee youth has reached the age of
eighteen years, and the maiden of his
choice has passed sixteen Summers, they
are deemed capable of contracting mar-
riage, for now, instead of marriage be-
ing a matter of trade or barter, on the
part of the parent, as in the days of Se-
quo-yah's par ents ; or being a matter of
gift-bestowing, as when Se-quo-yah
took his first wife, marriage is now con-
sidered as a civil contract, in which the
consent of parties is essential. These mar-
riages aresolemnized by any of the
Judges of the Courts of the Nation, by
the clerks of the several districts, by
the ordained ministers of the Gospel in
regular communion with any religious
society, or, any marriage contracted in
writing in the presence of two witnesses,
who shall sign themarriage contract, is
considered lawful. Reports of all mar-
riages must be filed with the clerk of the
district. No marriacje can be contracted
while either of the parties has a husband
or wife living, nor between persons of
kin nearer than first cousins, and a heavy
penalty is inflicted on any who join mi-
nors in marriage, without the consent of
parents. Divorces are regulated by law
and are adjudged for adultery, imprison-
ment for three years, for wilful desertion
or neglect for a term of one year, for ex-
treme cruelty, or habitual drunkenness for
one year. The Cherokee people have
always as a nation favored temperance,
and have an effective prohibitory law up-
on the statutes. There is also an act of
Congress forbidding the introduction of
liquor into the Indian Territory. The
United States law, lays a penalty against
any white-man or Indian who brings the
liquor across the line into the Territory,
for any purpose whatever. The Chero-
kee laws lay a penalty upon the sale of
any liquor after it is brought into the
Nation. A person may be guilty of one
of these offences without being guilty of
the other. There is a live organization
of the Woman's Christian Temperance
Union, which is not backward in reform
work. A
copy of the compiled laws of
1883 before the writer has the following :
*'Be it enacted by the National Council, That lot

No. 4 in block 20, in the Town of Tahlequah, be and
the same hereby granted to W. A Duncan, John
is
W. John Ross J»., and William Johnston,

Stapler,
they constituting the business committee of 'Tahle-
quah Christian Temperance Union,' and to their
successors in office, for the purpose of building
theron a public reading room and library."
Well might some of the States follow

the example of the Cherokees in aiding
the Temperance Unions in erecting these
shrines of virtue.
The violation of the Sunday law, which
declares Sunday shall be a day of rest
within the limits of the Cherokee Nation,
ispunished by a fine in any sum not ex-
ceeding $50., for each offense, and no
merchant, mechanic, artist or other per-
son shall open his store, warehouse or
other place of business, or shallengage
in any manner of work except by neces-
sity or for charity, without being deemed
guilty of misdemeanor. To the reader,
it must now be evident, that the Chero-
kees are indeed a law-abiding people,
and these laws must certainly be looked
upon with interest and respect by all civ-
ilized nations of the world.
CHAPTER XVIL
PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS.
—
Schools Seminaries — Revenues Asjlums —Pris-
—
on Churches, etc.
*'Isaid to cold Neglect and Scorn,
—
Pass on I heed you not;
Ye may pursue me till mj form
And being are forgot;
Yet still the spirit which, you see
Undaunted by your wiles,
Draws from its own nobility
Its high-born smiles."
The Cherokees being the first of the

Aborigines tribes on this continent to es-
tablish a free system of schools, it is well
for a moment to examine into their school
system, and note the wonderful progress
thispeople have made. At present they
have one hundred public schools and two
higher seminaries of learning, and this
not including mission schools of which
PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 207
there are several. The management of
their public schools is vested in a Board
of Education, consisting of three persons
of liberal literary attainments, who
are free from immoral habits, who are
nominated by the Principal Chief and
confirmed by the Senate. The appoint-
ment covers three years of service, one
dropping out and one being appointed
each year. The Nation is divided into
three school districts, and a member of
the Board is appointed for each. The
Board have complete supervision and
control of the orphan asylum, seminaries
and primary schools, examine teachers,
prescribe courses of study, and to visit
the schools. The full term of study in
the primary department covers three
years, and that in the seminaries four
years. The Board of Education furnish
tuition, clothing,board and lodging to
the children of the primary department
gratuitously, and have full control of
the children while attending school
and until they have completed their term
208 PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS.
of study. They furnish gratuitously, tu-
ition only, to other persons attending the
seminaries, but provide board at ac-
tual cost, the pupils being required to fur-
nish their own bedding and clothing. A
Board of Directors are appointed for the
primary schools, who control the school
property, take care of school books, libra-
ries, look after erection of buildings, re-
pairs, etc., suspend or expel pupils, and
also visit the schools twice each term
and make necessary reports. The school
year consists of two terms, one of twenty
and one of sixteen weeks. Preference
is given always, qualifications being
equal, to teachers who are citizens of the
Nation hence nearly all of the teachers
;
are Cherokees. The pay of teachers in

the primary schools is $35 per month.
The pay of teachers in the Male and Fe-
male Seminaries is as follow^s :
Principal teacher, $800

Assistant teachers each, 500
Primary teachers, 300
All schools in the Nation are supported
by money invested in United States reg-
istered stock from the sale of lands to
the United States Government. The in-
terest alone of this investment is drawn
and used for educational purposes. The
United State Government renders no as-
sistance to the Seminaries, Asylum and
common schools of the Nation, outside of
paying interest on money borrowed from
the Nation. The Cherokee National
Male and Female Seminaries were both
founded by act of the Cherokee National
Council, Nov. 26, 1846, which reads .as
follows :
'^'Be enactedhy the National Council, That two

it
Seminaries or High Schools be established, one for

males and the other for females, in which all those
branches of learning shall be taught, which may be
required to carry the culture of the youth of our
country to its highest practical point."
The buildings were erected and the

Seminaries opened the 7th of May, 1850.
Were we writing of the white race, it
would not seem necessary to publish any
part of their school course, but as it is,
as a kind of an astonisher to those who

persist that the civilization of an Indian

tribe is an impossibility, we give below
a partial li st of studies in the upper classes
in the Female Seminary.
SENIOR CLASS.
First Term. Second Term.
Virgil. Evidences ot Christianity.
Mental Philosophy. Mental Philosophy.
Geometry. Geometry.
Gen. History and f Geology.
Reading. \ Astronomy.
Composition. Composition.
JUNIOR CLASS.
Nat. Philosophy. Moral Philosophy.
r Botany.
Literature. \ Chemistry.
Caesar. Virgil.
Algebra. Algebra.
SOPHOMORE CLASS.
Rhetoric. Rhetoric.
Latin Grammar, etc. Latin Reader.
Arith. Problems. Algebra.
Ancient History. Physical Geography.
FRESHMAN CLASS.
Pract. Arithmetic Pract. Arithmetic.
Mental Arithmetic. Zoology.
Grammar. Analysis.
U. S. History. Physiology.
In the last report of their efficient Board

of Education we read: — *'It will re-
quire time — may be years, to perfect the
school system so as to accomplish the
highest results, nor is the Cherokee Na-
tion singular in this respect. In the most
favored States, the question as to the best
methods of school work is still an open
one. It is receiving the attention, not on-
ly of the educator, but also the philoso-
pher and statesman. * * There are
many obstructions in the way of the
schools of the Nation. The public insti-
tutions of a country are but the outgrowth
or product ol the sentiments of the peo-
ple. Even the pyramids are to be taken
as an index to the spirit and purposes of
the Egyptians, and as the sentiment of
the Cherokee people is the soil out of
which the school must grow, it is impos-
sible for them to accomplish the highest
good, until that soil has been so cultivated
as to transmit to them the elements essen-
tial to their growth and prosperity. Not
that our people do not appreciate educa-

tion ; they do appreciate education. The
only fault is such as is common to man-
kind. They do not bestow upon educa-
tion the attention which its real merit de-
mands. When we reflect that the age
in which we live is a time when Nations
shall rise against Nation for the mightiest
achievements the world ever saw and
that such achievements are to be won not
by the sword, but by the agencies of un-
trained intellect, we could most sincerely
wish that the whole Cherokee people
be inspired with a love for education that
would at once remove all obstructions,
and fill the school houses all over the
land with the young people of the coun-
try. To say that "the pen is mightier
than the sword," is simply saying that
reason triumphs when physical force is
wanting. Why then should the schools
of the country not be considered too sa-
cred to be touched by any deleterious in-
fluence? Why not bring to their aid ev-
ery facilitywhich money can buy?
Why not employ for them every device
which genius can invent? All depends
on them, as far as the future is concern-
ed."
Says W. T. Adair, M. D., the Nation-
al Medical Superintendent :
—
"Our insti-
tutions of learning are destined to repre-
sent a most potent factor in the struggle
for future recognition *
among the powers
that be.' In a word they are the "safety-
valves of our National existence ; for it is
here that we mustraise up, and train our

future patriots and statesmen. It is here
the hands must be strengthened, and the
intellects stored with the knowledge nec-
essary, at no distant day, to take hold of
and conduct the affairs of state as said —
before, the question of our dissolution or
onward course must rest for settlement
with the coming men and women of our
race, and if matters so pregnant must be
determined by our children, how impor-
tant it at once becomes, and how solemn
the duty devolving on the present gener-
ation, to properly educate and train them."
The foregoing extracts go to show
something of the spirit with which the
educational matters are carried on and
discussed in the Nation to-day, and near-
ly one fifth of the whole population are
enrolled in the public schools.
As before intimated, the *' Advocate"
is a national institution ; one fourth of the
paper is printed in Se-quo-yah's alpha-
bet as required by law. It is furnished
free.to allnon- English speaking Chero-
kees. As prints the laws in both Eng-
it
lish and Cherokee the whole Nation is

well informed in respect to law. Rev.
A. N. Chamberlin, the interpreter writes :
'*I presume there is no people anywhere
better informed than the non-English

speaking Cherokee in regard to their
laws and their treaties with the United
States." About $4000 is appropriated by
the Council annually for the 'Advocate" *
and national printing. The matrix for

the Se-quo-yan type is kept in custody
of the Nation, and the full Cherokee is
in no danger of being corrupted by vi-
cious literature
PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 2l5
The Cherokee National Prison at Tah-
lequah under the Superintendence of
is
the "High Sheriff of the Cherokee Na-

tion." Here prisoners are confined, em-
ployed or kept in solitary confinement.
The prisoners are given wholesome diet
but no luxuries, not even sugar or tea.
Religious service is frequently held in the
prison, and all due means taken to fully
reform the prisoner. The Nation have
an Asylum for the insane and indigent,
blind, deaf, dumb and decrepit, which is
under direct control of their government.
It is a handsome building and admirably
superintended. A well organized Or-
phan Asylum, for many years, has been
an important humane institution. Its ob-
ject is to constitute a home for the
Nation's homeless, where they may re-
ceive parental care and affection, and at
the same time be placed within the facili-
ties necessary for an academic education.
The funds for carrying on these works
are derived from the interest on the re-
sources of their Nation, which in 1884
2l6 PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS,
was reported by the Chief as follows:
Total National Fund $1,822,935.55
" School Fund 1,402,584.57
" Orphan Fund 994i855-65
.
'*
Asylum Fund 196,969.61
In 1877 the figures were given as:
Total National Fund 1,008,285.07
" School Fund 532,407.01
Orphan Fund i75j935-3I
Among the more recent institutions for
Cherokee civilization is the Teachers' Ins-
titute, that meets annually at Tahlequah.
This doing a good work for the higher
is
culture of the Nation. It is under the

supervision of the Board of Education,
and all the teachers in the Nation are not
only obliged to be present, but are ex-
pected to take some part in the proceed-
ings. The Superintendent, Rev. W. A.
Duncan, is the prime mover in all these
gatherings, and a most valuable program
of subjects to be discussed is prepared.
In the the Institute of 1885, Mr.

call for
—
Duncan says: There is an august future
awaiting our country, and to act with wis-
dom we should prepare ourselves for its
largest enjoyment."
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE FAIR LAND.
Location The— Surface — Productions — Statistics
Recuperative — —
Powers Missionaries Never-the-
less a —
Cherokee Civilization Oconnostota's
Prophesy.
The Nation of which we have written

is located in the North Eastern part of
the Indian Territory, the area covered
being 7861 square miles or 5,031,351
square acres. The surface of the coun-
try north of Tahlequah, the capital, is
mostly a rolling, grassy prairie, with a
light sandy soil and timbered only along
the streams, and devoted mostly to stock
raising. On the east of Tahlequah, along
the Arkansas line, the country becomes
2l8 THE FAIR LAND.
hilly, broken and rocky. Southeast of
the Illinois is the highest and most moun-
tainous parts, well timbered, the surface

growing less mountainous toward the
Arkansas line, and there are large areas
of good and tillable lands. Westward of
the Illinois the country is hilly and bro-
ken. Southward of the Arkansas, in
the angle formed by it and the Canadian,
the country is mostly open and hilly.
The Cherokees occupy and own perhaps
the best reservation among the five civil-
ized tribes. The lower lands, or those
adjacent to the water courses, being sus-
ceptible of raising all kinds of grain,
while on most of the prairie land small
grains can be raised with profit. The
grounds surrounding the hewed log cab-
ins, frame or birch or stone houses, are
many of them adorned by ornamental
trees, shrubbery and flowers. There are
many orchards of choice Iruit, some of
which have existed for twenty years and
are today in fruitful condition. As we
have before mentioned the Cherokees
THE FAIR LAND. 219
came out of the civil war with absolutely
nothing. At that time less than two hun-
dred cattle could be found within the na-
tion. '*When the war closed," says Ross,
**there was not a hog or a foot-print of
one to be found But the
in the country."
recuperative powers of the Cherokees
have always been wonderful indeed.
More than 14,000 horses, 1,300 mules,
750,000 cattle, 160,000 swine and 15,000
sheep are owned by the Cherokees to-
day. Of the 2,500,000 acres of tillable
land, 90,000 is cultivated by Cherokees,
whose yearly productions approximate
to 65 ,000 bushels of wheat, 750,000 bush-
els of corn, 55,000 bushels of barley,
44,500 bushels of vegetables and 750,000
pounds of cotton. Examining the Statis-
tical Reports for 1882, the enumeration
of the people is given at 20,336, ofwhich
over 19,000 adopt citizen's dress, 16,000

speak English, 3,800 Cherokees are en-
gaged in Agriculture and 400 in other
civilized pursuits, and none engage in
hunting for a livelihood 4,500 Cherokee
;
220 THE FAIR LAND.
houses dot the beautiful and fertile lands ;
62 churches are lending their ameliora-

ting influence, Baptist, Methodist and
Presbyterian leading the way 33 mis-
;
sionaries are devoting their time to doing

good among the people. Some of these
missionaries have been there for many
years, and their influence for good is
great. Their means of support are small,

they wôrk hard, and only those remain
in the field who possess the true mission-
ary spirit. The Cherokees contribute
about $2,000 annually for benevolence.
In 1878 the Nation had 60 schools ; today
these important factors of civilization
number 100. Says Armstrong *'The :
Five Nations, as a whole, are an illustra-

tion of missionary work, which commenc-
ing seventy years ago, with savages,
has in two generations produced as high
a stage of Christian civilization as could
be expected. It is far weaker than that of
the Anglo Saxon, which had its growth
of a thousand years. There is not a
blanket or a wild Indian among them
THE FAIR LAND. 221
they have been humanized they are ;
clothed, right minded, intelligent, live in

good, decently furnished houses, and
are self supporting." Says Walker :
''TheCherokees are of all Indian tribes,

great and small, first in general intelli-
gence, in acquisition of wealth, in the
knowledge of useful arts, and in social
and moral progress. The evidence of a
real and substancial advancement in
these things are too clear to be ques-
tioned."It is no argument against the
Cherokee Nation that the white men

there may be the greatest crop produc-
ers, and that some white men there en-
gage in mechanical pursuits or that a ;
Cherokee can engage a white man to

till the soil, and himself live on the rent-
al ; if it is, then the Southerner, who

himself doing nothing, and renting his
lands to, or hiring the negro, must be
looked upon in the same light ; the Cali-
fornian must even be accused of barbar-
ous tendencies when he hires the China-
men to do the labor that he might do
222 THE FAIR LAND.
himself, or the New Englander, who
hires the honest Irishman, or rents his
lands to him, could with equal propriety
be accused ofbecoming barbaric. Indeed
it is not to the discredit of the Cherokee
that circumstances have made him, thus

in a measure, an aristocrat, though that
these things are so may be a cause of
jealousy to the avaricious white man. If
things were otherwise it is true that the
people would be more industrious and ; —
indeed true that lasting greatness is
it is
the outgrowth of constant industry. But

like most any white man the Indian loves
such ease in life as circumstances will
allow. The Chero-
state of affairs in the
kee Nation so severely handled in 1878
by Otis should be looked at not with the
eye of prejudice, but by the light of rea-
son. The Cherokees, naturally indolent,
have become in point of fact, an industri-
ous people, while the descendents of the
old stock white race in the States, natu-
rally industrious, seem to be growing
more indolent. It has taken thousands
THE FAIR LAND. 223
of years for the whites to attain their
present state of civilization, while the
first germs of Cherokee civilization reach
back hardly a century. It is no discredit

to the Greeks that they owe their letters
to Cadmus, a Phoenician. By accept-
ing and making good use of them, the
Greek civilization was no less Grecian.
It isno discredit to America, that she ac-
cepted the services of a Frenchman, Laf-
ayette to help fight the battles of the Rev-
olution. By it America's victory was no
less American. English, Scotch, Ger-
man and Irish intermarry in the States,
and their offspring go to make up the
American people, who compose our
civilization, yet we do not hear it cited
that our civilization is any less American
that it is so ; neither should the prejudiced
or jealous say that the Cherokee Nation
is less a Cherokee civilization because
whitemen and white women have inter-

married with the race.
In closing the first volume of ''Chero-
kee History Series," the eye of the Au-
2 24 'T^^ FAIR LAND.
thor rests on a letter written him by a
well educated Cherokee lady within the
Natiorn, who traces a clear line of descent
from Oconnostota, a celebrated Chief of
early days. She says:
— ''This fair land of
ours is a beautiful and fertile flower gar-
den, fresh from God's hand attractive be-
yond description. Its beauty brings us in-
numerable dangers." And this remark
is true; for the whiteman has always look-
ed with avaricious eye on the ''fair land"
of the Cherokees, and intruders are always
creeping in to possess the land. Methinks,
O Cherokee, that thy Ancient Chief, Oc-
onnostota was, indeed, inspired by the
Great Spirit, when in 1775, he made that
famous talk before thy people; when with
earnest words and strong appeal, he spoke
those words of warning. Of the insatiable
desire of the paleface for more land he
said:
"Whole nations have melted away in

the presence of the paleface, like balls of
snow before the sun, and have scarcely
left their names behind, except as imper-
fectly recorded by their enemies and de-
THE FAIR LAND. 225
stroyers. Itwas once thought, that they
would not be willing to travel beyond the
mountains, so far from the ocean on which
their commerce was carried on. But now
that hope has vanished; they have passed
the mountains and settled on the Cherokee
lands, and wish to have it sanctioned by a
treaty. When that is obtained, the same
encroaching spirit will lead them upon
other lands of the Cherokees; new cessions
will be applied for, and, finally, the coun-
try which the Cherokees and their fore-
fathers have so long occupied will be
called for, and the small remnant, which
may then exist of this nation once so great
and formidable, will be compelled to seek
a retreat in some far distant wilderness,
there to dwell but a short space of time,
before they will again behold the advanc-
ing banners of the same greedy host, who,
not being able to point out any further re-
treat for the then miserable Cherokees,
would then proclaim the extinction of the
whole race."
The first part of the warning prophesy
was long since fulfilled; the latter comes
not yet to pass.
Guard well, O Cherokee, thy lands. Let
not that worse fate befall thy people the —
extinction of thy race.
226 THE FAIR LAND.
Remember the warning of Oconnostota
in 1775!
Remember the words of thine other
countryman, Capt. John Benge, who some
thirty years ago said in his broken Eng-
lish, alluding to the sale of ''neutral land,"
— ''Yes, sell this piece's of a tract's of a
land's and away by'm by sell another
piece's of a tract's of a land's and after a
while have no lands."
Remember the words of Duncan, thy
educator of to-day, who says: "Selling of
land in any way, and to any extent is ab-
solutely incompatible with the continu-
ance of Cherokee existence as a people.
To sell land is to destroy our nationality."
Let every whiteman remember the ad-
monition of the gifted Frelinghuysen, who
said:
— "Let us beware
how by oppressive
encroachments upon the sacred priviliges
of our Indian neighbors, we minister to
the agonies of future remorse."
Kind reader speak more kindly of our
Indian Brothers now that you know them
better.
ADDENDA.
[Page 34.]
The custom of the Eastern Cherokees

of burying then* dead and heaping upon
them piles of stones and other articles,
and the fact that the early Cherokee wo-
man used tu hang fresh food above the
totem of her husband's grave-post is
beautifully expressed by Longfellow,
where the Ghosts come back from Pone-
mah, the Land of the Hereafter, and
sing this song to the miraculous Hiewa-
tha:—
*'Do not lay such heavy burdens
On the graves you come to bury,
Not such vvêight of furs and wâmpum,
Not such weight of pots and kettles;
For the Spirits faint beneath them.
Only give them food to carry,
Only give them fire to light them.
228 ADDENDA.
Four days is the Spirit's journey,
To the land of ghosts and shadows;
Four its lonely night encampments.
Therefore, when the dead are buried,
Let a fire at night be kindled,
That the soul upon its journey
May not grope about in darkness."
[Page 35.]
The early Cherokees ascribed to the

Great Spirit the intention of making men
immortal on earth ; but, they said, the
sun, when he passed over, told them
there was not room enough, and that
people had better die They also said
!
that the Creator attempted to make the

first man and woman out of two stones,
but failed, and afterwards fashioned
them of clay ; and therefore it is that
they are perishable. Squier, Serpent-
Symbol, p. 67, note c.
[Page 50.]
The popularity of the game of ball was
very great. The numbers attending them
were very large. Intoxicating liquor
became so frequently vended at them,
ADDENDA. 229
that in 1825 the Cherokee Council, as-
sembled at New Town, passed a law
prohibiting the sale of liquors at all ball
plays, and night dances.
[Page 53.]
Cherokee conjurers still exist in the
Eastern Cherokee Nation. Mrs. Davis in
Harper's Magazine says :
"Crossing one of the heights the Doc-

tor's party came upon old Osoweh, the
conjurer, lying flat upon his stomach.
He had marked out lines on the muddy
ground, and was driving in bits of ash
roots here and there. He did not lookup
as they halted.
'There he has the countries of the
all
world,' said the a nimble
interpreter,
young man. 'Where he drives in a peg
it rains: where he takes it out the sun
shines.'
Mr. Morley laughed. *Who would
expect to find humbuggery on
the top of
these mountains?' he said throwing a
quarter to the wizard. The old man with
reddish eye glared vindictively at him a
moment, then he turned back to his pegs,
but hs did not look at the money.
' Now he will send you a storm,' said
the interpreter.
230 ADDENDA.
'Nonsense, this drouth is going to last
for aweek.'
The writer humorously adds :
''But before they had reached the bot-

tom of the next chasm the clouds did ac-
tually gather, and a heavy rain began to
fall. The shadows of the mountains lay
like night over the valley, and the steep,
clayey trail became so slippery that even
the sure footed mules slid and staggered
on the edge of the precipice."
Superstition still exists in the Western
Cherokee Nation, though perhaps to not
much greater extent than among some
classes in the States. An instance is re-
corded in their national paper in 1885,
of a woman who insisted that the ceiling
of the house would turn black directly
after her decease. This was lully be-
lieved by some, and reported to be the
fact directly after her death. The Na-
tional paper m.entioning the rumors, fa-
cetiously promised to give full particu-
lars in the next issue if the matter did
not prove a canard. As no further men-
tion was made of the fact it is to be con-
cluded that this woman was not as suc-
cessful in her witchery as the Eastern
Cherokee conjurer was in the narrative
ADDENDA. 23
before mentioned.
[Page 68.]
The buffalo hide was a symbol of pro-
tection to the early Cherokee. Hence it
was often given as a pledge. Worn by
the ardent lover of the tribe, it was the
mute offer of protection to the maid,
whom he would invite to preside over his
wigwam, in the same way that the eagle
feather was symbolical of his love.
[Page 96.]
**The names of animals given by the

early Cherokees, were imitations of the
sounds they produced the names of the
;
trees signified the sound they appeared to

make, thus making the name a descrip-
—
according to what is
tion of the thing,
believed to be the primitive origin of
names. Thus *'see" indicates the sound
of waters upon the rocks, and *'sahse,"
the combination of waters. It was found
on making up the alphabet for the Cher-
okee dialect that f, 1, r, v and x were ex-
cluded. These gentle savages at the end
of a word made a liquid note resembling
232 ADDENDA.
our vowel a this produced a flowing
;
sound compared best perhaps to the flow

of water. Man}^ Cherokee names of
rivers are very beautiful."
"Ye say that all have passed away,

The Noble race and brave
That their light canoes have vanished
From off the crested wave
That 'mid the forests where they roamed,
There rings no hunter's shout
But their name is on your waters.
Ye may not wash it out."
Ye say their cane-like cabins
That clustered o'er the vale,
Have disappeared as withered leaves,
Before the autumnal gaiC :
But their memory liveth on your hills,

Their baptism on your shore ;
Your ever rolling rivers speak.

Their dialect of yore."
*'The Names of these rivers" says a

a well known writer, "stands the land-
marks of our broken vows and unattoned
oppression they not only stare us in the
;
face from every hill and every stream that

bear those expressive names, but they
hold up before all nations and before God,
the memories of our injustice."
ADDENDA. 233
GEORGIA'S RIVERS.
From her mountains on the Northward,
How do Georgia's Rivers go ?
How to Southern Gulf and ocean.
By her islands do they flow?
From the silvery Chat-ta-hoo-chee,
And the golden Et-o-wah ;
To majestic, broad Sa-van-nah

By the grim Al-la-pa-ha;
From the turbid Oc-lo-co-na;
To the crystal Tu-ga-loo
From Ches-ta-tee to Cha-too-ga
Georgia's rivers come and go.
Northward, Tennesse, Hia-was-see,
Not-ley and Tuc-co-a pour;
Here's U-laf-fie's liquid laughter;
Here's Tu-ro-ree's toss and roar;
Here's Tu-lu-lah's leaping terror;
So-que, and the Ap-pa-lach-ie
Little, Broad, Al-co-fau-hatch-ee:
San-te, and the Au-chee-hatch-ee;
Coo-sa-wat-tee with its clatter,
Sal-la-coa and El-li-jay;

Oos-ta-nau-ia, Can-na-san-ga,
Five in Coo-sa roll away
Here O-gee-chee and the Med-way,
And the dark San-til-los creep
Through the barren and the cypress
And morasses wide and deep,
Thro-na-dee-sca scampers Southward,
And Can-nou-che's murky tide ;
234 ADDENDA.
Here's Oc-mul-gee, Tal-la-poo-sa,
And Al-tam-a-ha the wide
Oc-o-pil-co and O-co-nee
And O-coee, bright and small
With-la-coo-chee and We-law-nee
Chick-a-saw, and all
From the Chattering Chat-ta-hoo-chee,
To Sav-an-nah's splendid flow
Where is heard the Oo-hoop-ee
Georgia's Rivers come and go."
R. V. Moore in Hay-bey's Magazine (^Reayyang-ed).
[Page no.]
It is somewhat remarkable that in all

the alphabets of the world, there is
no authentic information concerning the
inventor of any alphabet except that of
Se-quo-yah. In this volume, he has been
called the American Cadmus, but he was
greater than Cadmus. The Greeks as-
cribed the invention of their alphabet to
Cadmus, the Phoenician, who planted a
colony at Thebes. By this, however, we
are only to understand, that Cadmus was
the first who made alphabetic characters
known in Greece. That in early days
he was not regarded as the actual inven-
tor is clear for Plato, the most learned
;
of the Greeks expressly said that Thaut,

the Egyptian, was the first that divided
letters into consonants, mutes and liquids
ADDENDA. 235
and the Phoenician historian, Sanchoni-
anth further says that Thaut was the in-
ventor of letters.
[Page 145.]
In 1861, the A. B. C. F.M. discontin-

ued its work among the Cherokees, for
reasons stated by the Prudential Commit-
tee as follows :
—
"The Committee regard
the appropriate work of the Board among
that people as having been so far accom-
plished, and the future prosecution of its
labors as at the same time so far impeded
by the intervention of other denomina-
tions better suited for operating there than
ourselves, as to render it expedient for
the Board to withdraw and to expend the
funds hitherto devoted to this field in
other more needy portions ot the unevan-
gelized world." At the close of their la-
bors they still had stations at Dwight,
Lee's Creek, Fairfield and Park Hill.
[Page 161.]
Even the traveller from foreign lands

while enthusiastic regarding the beauties
of that home of the Cherokees becomes
haunted there by the ghost of former
wrongs there inflicted. Robert Somers
the English traveller and author says: — ,
"The country presents all phases, from

236 ADDENDA.
Nature in her sternest and proudest to
Nature in her softest and mildest moods.
It seems philosophically to have only two
draw-backs, inasmuch as it was founded
by the dispossesion of one race, and the
subjugation of another." And he might
—
have added, it was the men of the South
that drove the Cherokees from their moun-
tain homes, by force of arms in 1838, and
by a retributive justice, the men of
Southern Blood were themselves driven
before the bayonet of Northern troops in
1863.
[Page 164.]
It wasthe general belief among the In-

dian tribes, and among the early Chero-
kees, that the future life and its avoca-
tions are similar to those of the earthly
life. In the '^Legends of the Dead," we
find this attributed to the Cherokees. It
was the *' Lover's Vision of the Happy
Island." The lover had reached the cab-
in on the shore of the unknow^n lake,
and freed of his body by the gate keeper,
*'He bounded forward as if his feet were
winged. He found, as he thus sped for-
ADDENDA. 237
ward, that all things retained their natu-
ral colors and shapes, except that they
appeared more beautiful the colors be-
;
ing richer and shapes more comely and ;
he would have thought that everything

was the same as heretofore, had he not
seen that the animals bounded across his
path with utmost freedom and confidence
and birds of beautiful plumage inhabited
the groves and sported in the waters in
fearless and undisturbed enjoyment.
As he passed on however, he noticed that
his passage was not impeded by trees
and other objects he appeared to walk
;
directly through them. They were in

fact the souls of trees. He then became
sensible that he was in the 'Land of
Shadows."
[Page 2IO.]
Among the very earliest records con-
cerning the Cherokees is to be found a
formal expression of a desire to become
educated. Dodsley's Annual Register,
published in London, England in 1765,
had the following under date of Feb. 17.
— "The Right Honourable, the Earl of
Hillsborough, touched by the very mean
238 ADDENDA.
and deplorable condition in which he
found three Cherokee Indians, lately-
arrived in London, immediately took
them from the hands ol a tavern-keeper
and a Jew, who had advertised them to
be seen for money at the tavern-keep-
er's house, sent his trade's-men and there
equipped them genteelly in the English
fashion at his own expense. And this
day they were introduced, by Mr. Mon-
tague, the agent for Virginia, to the lords
of trades and plantations and with their
;
usual solemnity had four talks with their

lordships ; the first complimentary ; the
second to tender obedience to the great
king their father, and to produce samples
of gold, silver and iron ore, found in
their country ;the third to complain of
the encroachments of some of his majes-
ty's subjects on the hunting grounds re-
served by treaty for the sole use of the
native Indians ; and the fourth to express
their surprise that having often heard of
learned persons being sent to instruct
them in the knowledge of things, none
had ever appeared and to entreat that
;
some such men might soon be sent among

them to teach them writing, reading and
other things. Their lordships dismissed
them well pleased, with assurances of
ADDENDA. 239
representing to the king the subjects of
their talk. His majesty was soon after
graciously pleased to order them a varie-
ty of presents, and to direct that particu-
lar care should be taken for their safe re-
turn to their own country. The tavern-
keeper and the Jew, who had made a
show of them, were brought before a
great assembly, and severely reprimand-
ed. On the third of March the chiefs em-
barked on board a ship in the Thames on
their return home."
[Page 212.]
The desire for education has followed
all branches of the Cherokee Tribe. Re-
becca Harding Davis found the same de-
sire among the Eastern Cherokees, as is
seen in her article "By-paths in the
Mountains"* in which she writes :
*' Our friends found the Nation hidden
in isolated huts in the thickets among the

ravines of the Saco and Ownolafta hills.
These Cherokees number about fifteen
hundred souls and were said to have ten
thousand acres under cultivation. But
there was no sign of a village, no school,
no gathering place of any kind the ;
grass was knee-deep before the door of

Harper's Magazine, 1S80.
240 ADDENDA.
the little church, which they had built
years ago. Not far irom it is the grave
of six hundred warriors buried centuries
ago. They still bury their dead
under great heaps of stones. The
universal lethargy of these drowsing
mountains has probably fallen too heavi-
ly on these savages for them to be civil-
ized yet oddly enough they are the only
;
mountaineers who want to be awakened

out of their sleep. They crowded out of
every hut about the mules of the travel-
lers, begging not for money, but for
teachers. These strangers were the
*'North"tothem, and the North to the
Indians, as to the blacks in the South, is
a great magician, who can give money,
—
life what it will. "My people," said
Enola, the preacher, *'have lived in these
hills since before the whiteman came to
this country, and have asked for nothing
but schools ; but they have never got
them." The tribe are wretchedly poor ;
swindlers found the red man as easy a
prey in North Carolina as in the West,
and it is only since 1875 that they have
obtained possession of the land on which
they have lived for more than five hun-
dred years."
ADDENDA. 24I
[Selected from Indian Mjths.]
The Cherokee Indian relates that a

number of beings were employed in con-
structing the sun, which planet was made
first. It was the intention of the Creators
that men should live always; but the sun
having surveyed the land, and finding an
insufficiency for their support, changed
the design, and arranged that they should
die. The daughter of the sun was first to
suffer under the law. She was bitten by
a serpent and died. Thereupon the sun
decreed that man should live always. At
the same time he commissioned a few per-
sons to take a box and seek the spirit of
his daughter, and return with it encased
therein. In no wise must the box be
opened. Immortality fled, men must die.
It is affirmed by the Cherokee Indians
that fire was believed an intermediate
spirit, nearest the sun. A
child was
waved over the fire immediately after its
birth; its guardianship was entreated for
children. Hunters waved their moccasins
over it for protection against the bite
of serpents. They speak of it as an active
and intelligent being. Some people of
this tribe of Indians represent fire as hav-
ing been born or brought with them. 0th-
242 ADDENDA.
it to the man of fire
ers that they sent for
across immense
waters, and a spider was
commissioned to answer their prayers.
On its web was brought the mystic fire;
but enemies captured it, and it was
alas!
lost;yet a certain portion remains inside
the earth, from which the new fire at the
sacred feast of First Fruits is made.
INDEX,
Adair, 33. Bushyhead, Jesse 179.

Adair, Dr. W. T., 213. Butrick, i'i7, 124.
Advocate, xiv, 129, 130, Chamberlin, A. N.
107,
145' i49» 193. 214. no, 214.
Ah-yo-keh, 101. Civil War, 145 146. —
Alphabet, no, 112, 148. Chungke 58.
Algier cited, 33, 34, 163. Corn Dance 57.
A. B.C. F. M., 33,35, 124 Cornwall, 128.
^45. 235. Council House, 177.
Annual Register, (Dods- Colton's Indians, cited, 38
lev.) 14, 237. 47.54» 71-
Arch, John 113. Collections of Georgia,
Armstrong, 220. 52 86.
At-see, 113. Couch, Nevada 124.
Bailey, L. D., xir. Crawling Snake, 42
Bartlett S. C, 143. Davis, R. H. quoted, 229,
Benge, John 226. 239-
Bibles,3, no, 169. Dodge, R. I., cited, 31. 32.
Big Half Breed, 43, Dodge, J. R. quoted, 21,
Boudinot, Elias 129, 151. 63-
Boudinot, E. C. 128. Drake, cited, 139.
Boudinot, W. P. xvi, 71, Duncan, W. A., xiii, 166,
130, 147- 204, 226.
Boot, The 118, 119. Ebenezer, 8, 10, 13, 14.
Brainerd, 126. Father of Life, 40.
Brown, Catherine 125. Gallatin, quoted 104, 105.
Brown, David. 124, 125, Gist, George, 13 16, 20,
22, 25.
Bushyhead, D. W. 179— Geo. II. 4, 14.
182. Georgia Laws, 139 — 142.
244 INDEX.
Goldsmith, quoted, ii. Phcenix, 94, 127, 128, 128
Gould, Hattie 128. 131, 141,142.
Griffin, 107, Printing established, 127
Harpers Magazine quoted Ramsey, quoted, 15, 19,58
26, 3035, 42, 103 229, Refuge, city of, 16.
234. See Phillips. Ridge, Major 66,
Hicks, Chas. 42, 43, 119. Riley, ^lajor, 42.
Hill, Rev. T., xvii. Rising Fawn, 42.
Hjmns, 3, 154, Ross, Chief, 126, 144, 175,
Indian Letter Book, 112. Ross. W. P., 130.
169. Ross, D. H., 130.
Irving, quoted, 19, 31. Scandal, laws on, 135.
Jews, 16, 53. Sign Boards, 130.
Johnson, Geo. 130. Societies, 2, 6, 176, 207.
Jones, C. C. xiv, cited, 5, Spotted Snake, Speech of,
8, 10, 41, 55. 135.
Ke-a-ha-ta-kee, 16. St. Clair, 91.
Longfellow quoted, 41, Stewart, D. 89.
44. 73. 217. Stone, B. H., xvi.
Lord's Prajer, iii. Torrey, C. C. 26.
Lowrey, 46, 104. Tobacco and pipes, 33, 49.
Luther, Martin, 3, 4. Trademark, 43.
Marriage, 16. 68, 203. Traditions, 52, 56.
Medal, 126, 176. Walker quoted, 221.
McKinnej,T. L. 60, 69. Washington, Gen. 91, 42.
Missionary Herald, 53. Washington, trip to, 150
108, 114. War Song, 61.
Monmouth, wreck of, 144 Whittier, xiv. quoted, 5,
Morehouse, Rev. H. xvi. 18, 36.
Moravians. 42, 43 93. Willstown, 120.
Nuntayalee,ii3. Worcester, S. A ic6, 130.
Occonnostota, 224, 226. Worcester, Academy 124.
Pathkiller, 42, 118. Vann, James 130.
Phillips, 26, 30, 35, 36, Visions, 33, 159, 162.
37» 42, 43i loi.
the
university of
Connecticut
libraries
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s'Siy

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3 T1S3 QDSM7fll7 T C/3

AMERICAN CADMUS AND MODERN MOSES.

A COMPLETE BIOGRAPHY OF THE GREATEST OF RBDMEN,

Ilbistrated by Miss C. S. Robbins.

Office of the Indian Rights Association, 13 i6 Filbert St.

Milford, N. H. : By the Author.

BY GEO. E. FOSTER, Milford, N. H.

than the greatest fiction. In the prepara-

to the writings of the Dodges, Drake,

his red brothers and sisters in the Chero-

SALZBURGERS AND EBENEZERITES.

GIST, THE DUTCH PEDLER.

THE GREAT INVENTION.

The Rapacious Whites — Speech of Speckled Snake

His Name— Literary — District — Bust,

During the researches of the author,

FROM humanity's POET.

your country see us as we are. I wish

L. D. Bailey, Editor of the "Cultiva-

THE SALZBURGERS AND EBENEZERITES.

About one hundred and fifty years ago,

worshippers, joyfully left the scenes of their

The Hymns of Luther were indeed the battle cry

had long been the favorite psalm with the peo-

ple. It had been one of the watchwords of the

"A mighty fortress is our God,

And how prophetic have proved the words of

"And though the world with Devils filled,

tion. They passed Savannah on Reminis-

17th of March, 1734, that Mr. Van Reck

*History of Georgia. C. C.Jones.

The Salzbiirgers at once began to clear

en them sufficient to sow the land that they

structed were poor protection from the

Its life of sorrows, of ill-founded hope and

"broad, smooth surface and its every va-

''from the town, was to be seen their old

A large church was built there, and quite

a monument of holy memories, but

"The sports are fled, and all the charms withdrawn

But choak'd with sedges, works its winding way;

And tires their echoes with imvary'd cries.

Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all,

And the long grass o'er tops the mould'ring wall.

Why is it, in all nations, that so many

GIST, THE DUTCH PEDLER.

These devout Salzburgers left in Bava-

in the old country to come over and set-

excellency^ the governor finding these things liked

One bright spring morning in 1768, this

neither could she speak a word of Dutch

was the business of the man to hunt and

the male sex, and from that time, this so

Says Irving: "The Indian women were far from

one virago could cast upon another in a moment of

returned, nor is there any record that he

was warm and comfortable,* circular in