![]() Before long, he realized this task would be overwhelming. His first approach was to draw a visual symbol for every word in the language-a logographic or pictographic approach. Despite this, he had an intuitive grasp of the function and significance written communication could assume among people who had mastered the skill. Sequoyah was monolingual-he spoke only his mother tongue, Cherokee-and thus did not know how to read or write in any language. Afterward, he settled in Willstown (now Fort Payne) and devoted himself to the task of converting the Cherokee language into written form. Sequoyah volunteered to fight against the Red Stick Creeks during the war and saw action at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in the present-day U.S. Unfortunately, the War of 1812 forced him to put his plans to develop a written Cherokee language on hold. ![]() Despite this disapproval, Sequoyah was determined to give the Cherokee language a written form. Many of his fellow Cherokees disapproved of the idea of fixing words to paper, and some thought the practice was too close to witchcraft. He began considering how the Cherokee might devise a system of writing tailored to the sounds of their own language. By the year 1809, he had spent considerable time thinking about the written forms of communication used by European Americans and the power of written language. He later became a silversmith and a blacksmith. ![]() He was afflicted by physical lameness that caused him to limp, and as a young man, he worked as a trader, an industry he learned from his mother. state of Tennessee in the years preceding the American Revolution. Cherokee became one of the earliest indigenous American languages to have a functional written analogue. This made it possible for the Cherokee to achieve mass literacy in a short period of time. ![]() Working on his own over a 12-year span, Sequoyah created a syllabary-a set of written symbols to represent each syllable in the spoken Cherokee language. John Smith accompanied Southern Cheyenne leaders to the White House three times, interpreting before Presidents Millard Fillmore, Abraham Lincoln, and Ulysses Grant.In the early years of the 19th century, the remarkable inventiveness of a Cherokee man, named Sequoyah, helped his people preserve their language and cultural traditions, and remain united amid the encroachment of Euro-American society into their territory. At the urging of Congress and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, interpreters travelled with Chiefs to places like St. Years spent among the tribes had provided these white traders an opportunity to learn both spoken words and signs, though their interpretation was sometimes considered poor by Native Americans. Lieutentant Abert noted Guerrier as the Cheyenne translator at Bent's Fort in 1845 and said, "a long residence amongst them had enabled him to repeat all their graceful and expressive gestures." Smith was described by Lewis Garrard in 1846 as ".adept in the knowledge of Cheyenne tongue." Lieutentant Abert noted that Smith ".speaks the Cheyenne language better, perhaps than any other white person in the country." These men bridged the gap between Indian and English speakers. Among the people employed at Bent's Fort were interpreters William Gurrier and John Smith.
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