Fifth Generation

70. George (Sikwa’yi Sequoyah) GUESS¹ was born about 1760 near Tuskeegee, Monroe, Tennessee. He was 1/2 Cherokee. He was a member of the Clan Paint (Wurteh). He lived in Willstown, Alabama in 1821. He brought the Cherokee Syllabary to Arkansas in 1822. He lived in Arkansas in 1823. He died in Aug 1843 near the village of San Fernando, Mexico.

Sikwa’yi :
a masculine name, commonly written Sequoya, made famous as that of the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet. The name, which cannot be translated, is still in use upon the East Cherokee reservation. [-Danielle Schijvijnck, RootsWeb]

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From: http://www.familytreemaker.com/users/m/o/o/Donna-C-Moore/GENE18-0001.html

Oct 17, 1855, Date of Application for Pension.

"Sequoyah, whose English name was George Guess, was a soldier in the War of 1812 against the hostile Creek Indians. He served as a private in the company of Mounted and Foot Cherokees commanded by the Cherokee, Captain John McLamore, and forming part of Col. Gideon Morgan Jr.'s Regiment of Cherokee Indians. He served from October 7, 1813 to January 6, 1814. He reinlisted three weeks later, and his regiment took part in the famous Battle of the Horseshoe Bend that inflicted a decisive defeat on the Creeks, March 27th.

These facts are known by the records in the US War Department and in the Pension Office. Sequoyah's widow Sally Guess, age 66, applied for bounty land on October 17, 1855. Her claim was based on her deceased husband's service. She stated that she had married George Guess in the Cherokee Nation in 1815, and that he died in Mexico in 1843." [1812 War Records, BL WT 92949-160-55, National Archives, Washington, DC.

Tennessee the Volunteer State 1769-1923: Volume 2
DEWITT CLINTON SENTER.

Sequoia, also called George Guess of Gist, was born, probably in 1760, at Tuskegee Town near the site of Fort Loudon. It is supposed that his father was one of the soldiers in Fort Loudon. He was a cripple and never learned to speak or write English. He invented an alphabet for the Cherokee Indians in recognition of which service the Cherokee National Council presented him, in 1823, with a silver medal. The Cherokees, naturally the most intellectual of all the Indian tribes, with the aid of this alphabet made surprising progress. In the treaty of 1828 the United States government consented for a provision to be inserted giving him $500.00 for the great benefit he has conferred upon the Cherokee people in the beneficial results which they are now experiencing from the use of the alphabet discovered by him. In 1823 he took up his permanent residence with the Cherokees west of the Mississippi River. He died in 1843, near Fernando, Mexico, where he had gone to make investigations relative to the origin of the Cherokees.

Ref: p. 1286-1287, Vol. III, (P-Z), ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FRONTIER BIOGRAPHY,
compiled by Dan L. Thrapp.

SEQUOYAH, Indian intellectual (c. 1760-Aug. 1843). Born in the CHEROKEE town of Taskigi, Tennessee, he was the son of NATHANIEL GIST (whose father was the famed CHRISTOPHER GIST) and a mixed-blood Cherokee woman, WURTEH, daughter of a chief of Echota. His native name was SIKWAYI, corrupted by the white usage to SEQUOYAH, and he also was known as GEORGE GIST. Sequoyah grew up among his mother's people, unlettered but adept at hunting, trapping and fur-trading. In early youth he became involved with alcohol, but soon discovered that it did him no good and abstained thereafter.

On a hunting trip he injured a leg and arthritis set in, making him a permanent cripple so he turned to metal craftsmanship, becoming an outstanding silver worker.

Sequoyah also was "an ingenious natural mechanic" with pronounced inventive powers.

He became intrigued with writing systems, initially so he could engrave his name on his silver artifacts, and became aware of the system's usefulness to whites.

Around 1809 he commenced to experiment with picture symbols for use among his people, but soon gave that up as impractical. Undismayed by the discouragement and ridicule of his peers, he continued to experiment, drawing symbols from English, Greek and Hebrew until he had devised an alphabet of 86 characters to express the various sounds of the Cherokee language. Despite his physical handicap Sequoyah and other Cherokees fought with Jackson against the Creeks in 1813-14. In 1821 he submitted his syllabary to the chief men of his nation.

To demonstrate its practicallity he composed a message with his alphabet which was turned over to his 6-year-old daughter. She read and understood it and replied in kind. The Tribal Council forthwith adopted the system. Cherokees of all ages immediately set about to learn and use this novel alphabet; within months thousands were able to read and write their own language.

In 1822 Sequoyah visited Arkansas to introduce his system to the Western division of the Cherokees, and he settled among them permanently in 1823.

By 1824 parts of the Bible were translated into Cherokee, and by doing this Sequoyah won over missionaries who previously had been cool to his new system. In 1828 the 'Cherokee Phoenix,' a weekly newspaper appeared and flourished for seven years until it began to advocate Cherokee rights to their lands when it was shut down by Georgia authorities. In 1828 Sequoyah was sent to Washington to represent the Arkansas band, and when the Eastern Cherokees joined the Western, Sequoyah's influence and counsel became important in the organization of the newly united nation in Indian Territory.

In his declining years he withdrew from political affairs and turned to more theoretical pursuits. He sought among many tribes elements of a universal speech and grammar, but found few. He had heard the one band of Cherokees had crossed the Mississippi long before and disappeared in the southwest, and he tried to seek out descendants of those people. Accompanied by his son TESSEE and seven devoted followers he reached the Mexican Border where he heard that farther south there was a mysterious band of Indians who had migrated from the north and spoke a tongue unintelligible to others. After Chief Bowles had been killed in Texas many of his people had indeed fled into Mexico and settled in a village near San Fernando, southwest of Matamoros in Tamaulipas State.

Sequoyah and his little band contacted these folk (one of Chief Bowle's daughters had married a son of Sequoyah). In this village Sequoyah became ill with dysentery; his followers went to find food for him.

When they returned they found him in his final extremities and he died near San Fernando, to be buried in a hidden grave along with his treasured papers.

Sequoyah was the only American Indian north of Mexico to invent a system of writing fully adequate for the needs and understandings of his people, and which could be universally learned and used by them.

His bust has been placed in the nation's Capitol Statuary Hall by the state of Oklahoma, but his most memorable monument no doubt are the great California trees named in his honor: 'Sequoia sempervirens' and 'Sequoia Washingtoniana' or 'gigantea' are named for him, the tallest and among the oldest living things on earth and the grandest forest trees of the continent.

(Hodge, HAI; Dockstader; Grace Steel Woodward, "The Cherokees." Norman, Univ. of Okla. Press, 1963; Grant Foreman, "The Story of Sequoyah's Last Days." "Chronicles of Okla." Vol. XII (Mar.-Dec. 1934), 25-41; Mary Whatley Clarke, "Chief Bowles and the Texas Cherokees." Norman, 1971.)

More About George 'Sequoyah' Gist:
Nicknames: Sequoyah. [-Kenneth Lemmon, RootsWeb]

Sallie WATERS was born about 1765. George (Sikwa’yi Sequoyah) GUESS and Sallie WATERS had the following children:

+143

i.

Teesey GUESS.

George (Sikwa’yi Sequoyah) GUESS and Uck-Tee-Yah (Wok-tee-yah) LANGLEY were married before 1830. Uck-Tee-Yah (Wok-tee-yah) LANGLEY¹ was born about 1810. She was a Full-blood Cherokee. She appeared in the census in 1851 in Drennan roll Skin Bayou, 320. George (Sikwa’yi Sequoyah) GUESS and Uck-Tee-Yah (Wok-tee-yah) LANGLEY had the following children:

144	i.	E-ya-gu GUESS was born about 1830. She was 3/4 Cherokee.
+145	ii.	Gu-u-ne-ki GUESS.