The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-02-23

1eans, Gueo1 said ne did It by writing that; I can write characters which the l Cherokees can read And he wrote them It is stated In book which I sssn ssssrs s:ross snd 1t tons wss hours after he got hold of the charac- ters of that alpha bet could write let ter to his friends. so simple was 1t. so nunciation of the Cherokee language. George Guess passed of in poverty. and his very place of burial Is lost: nobody knows 1t; and yet no greater Guess. tried by the tests with which we measure human capacity"
 seQuoyah was not the lazy. loafing Indian he has sometimes been repre- sented. Early in life he learned the art of working silver. and made many ornaments and charms for the Indians, who often brought him chunks of the native silver that they found in the Cherokee country. Though his father was white man his mother was a Cherokee and all his love and affection was for his mothers people. If he did not actually hate the whites he at least had no love for them, though he did not hesitate to benefit by them when he could.
 Sequoyah's invention of the Cherok ee alphabet was more of an inspiration than an accident. He knew that the whites possessed a written and printed language which was of great use to them but he refused to learn It. When he set out to form an alphabet in the tongue, of his own people he was for tunate in having a language peculiar ly fitted for it. The Cherokee lan- guage or dialect is peculiarly and won- derfully adapted to the formation of characters representing syllables rath- CT than distinct sounds, and thus his l work was made more easy. By form- ing some of the characters in his own way. and by taking others in a some- what arbitrary manner from an alma mac. he formed an alphabet of eighty five characters. instead of forty-eight. as Senator Morgan stated. Each of these characters represented a sylla- ble. or word, and the cherokees read fly acquired and used it.
 We do not know where Senator Nor gan got the idea that this alphabet was inspired by the victory of General Jackson at New Orleans, for it was not completed until 1926, according to the records. but that is not so mate- rial as Is the fact that he did invent 1t, and that it has been of great prac- tical benefit to at least three genera | tions of his people. It is hardly like however. As the Cherokees become absorbed into American citizenship and habits and as the old members of the tribe disappear. the use of this alpha bet will probably die out and it will became a dead language. Up to re- cent date there was a weekly paper lished in the Indian Territory before 1t became part of the State of Okla homa. One half the paper was printed in Cherokee and the other half in English, and 1t was said to be very popular among the Indians of that na- tion who still spoke their native lam guage. The publication has been dis continued, we believe. and we do not know now whether there is any other paper of the kind or not.
 Oklahoma does well in honoring the man who gave a written language to one of the Indian race. Honors are paid to white statesmen. soldiers and men of letters whose statues will per- manently adorn statuary Hall at the nations capital, and 1t is well that the Indian who gave a written lan- guage to his people should have a place among them.