Volume 9 , Issue 19

1905 - A State Named Sequoyah

[This article appeared in The Oklahoman, dated Aug. 27, 1905, page 2, headlines read: "Sequoyah Great Cherokee Chief - Proposed That His Name Be Adopted For That of the New State."]

Special to The Oklahoman, Muskogee, I. T., Aug. 24 (1905), -- "Unless something occurs to rapidly change the present sentiment of the members of the constitutional convention, the name of the new state will be 'Sequoyah.' To the uninformed this name may seem rather remarkable. It is that of the greatest Cherokee that ever lived. The following is a brief sketch of this remarkable character.

Sequoyah, a half-blood Cherokee, inventor of the Indian alphabet and justly styled the "American Cadmus,' was born in the old Cherokee nation in Georgia in 1763 and died in New Mexico in 1844, while in search of a lost band of Cherokees, his grave being unknown. In 1821 he invented the Cherokee alphabet, and since 1829 books and newspapers have been published in the Cherokee language, using the Cherokee characters.

In 1832 he moved to what is now the Cherokee nation and lived at Muldrow, where he ran a trading post for years. The Cherokee alphabet contains eighty-six characters and is one of the most wonderful inventions of the world, considering the fact that its inventor was an illiterate Indian.

The Cherokee Advocate was established at Tahlequah shortly after this alphabet was invented and has been published there since that time, using the Cherokee characters. This is the only newspaper many of the full-blood Cherokees can read. The translation of the Bible into Cherokee and the printed copies where the Cherokee characters are used has helped largely in the conversion of the Indians within the past half century to the Christian faith. It is in memory of this great Indian that it is proposed to name the new state. J. S. Holden has written the following, which is being freely circulated among the members of the convention:

Sequoyah
The cadmus of his race --
A man without a peer;
He stood alone -- his genius shone
Throughout a hemisphere.
Untutored, yet so great;
Grand and alone his fame --
Yes, grand and great the future state
Should bear Sequoyah's name.
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