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GEOEGIA AND GEORGIANS 601
"But in a system of sound characters the ideas are wholly wanting,
and unrelated to the sounds. Sequoya went in his old age in quest of a
lost Cherokee tribe which, according to tradition, had settled some
where in the west. In August, 1843, he died, near San Fernando,
Tamaulipas, Mexico, the most extraordinary literary genius of perhaps
all the ages.
"It is curious to speculate upon the possible and the probable out
come of Sequoya's remarkable invention, could it have had fair play,
for two or three centuries among the Cherokees. What could it have
accomplished alone and unhampered among these .tribesmen 1 To what
degree of civilization might they have attained with their syllabary
alone to help them in science and arts? Of course we must allow as
preliminary its author's first acquaintance with the whites and the
suggestion and the spur thus afforded to him, without which he would
never have undertaken the creation of a literary system. But this much
given, and then the permanent segregation of the Cherokees from the
whites—what of the result?
"Is it too much to suppose that the Cherokees would by themselves
have reached a high stage of civilization? What has been the effect of
a general knowledge of letters among the nations of the earth? Such
peoples have uniformly attained to a high stage of advancement on
every line. Nor need we suppose that the Cherokees would have fur
nished an exception to this universal ethnic rule. But Sequoya's sys
tem never had opportunity for full development. The English lan
guage, the English school, the English book and periodical—held the
Cherokee in their clasp. The pressure was too powerful to be resisted.
But suppose the Cherokees with their syllabary left alone with the other
tribes of the forest—they would undoubtedly have become the Athenians
of this Western world, while the other red men would have been the
'Barbarians,' despised by these American Hellenes." *
Sequoya's wonderful invention produced an immediate effect upon
Cherokee development. In the fall of 1824, John Arch, a young con
vert, made a manuscript translation of a part of St. John's gospel, which
was the first Bible literature in which the characters of the new alphabet
were used. Hundreds of copies were made, and the work was widely dis
seminated. Later David Brown completed a translation of the entire
New Testament. Some two years after the new alphabet was com
pleted, the Cherokee council, having decided to establish a newspaper,
type was cast in Boston, under the superintendence of the noted mis
sionary, Worcester, who, during the winter of 1827, contributed to the
Missionary, Herald five verses of Genesis in the new syllabary, this
being the first appearance in print. Early in 1828, the newspaper out
fit arrived at New Echota, and the first number of the Cherokee Phoenix
appeared on February 21, 1828. Elias Boudinot, an educated Cher
okee, was the editor. The first printers were two white men, Isaac N.
Harris and John F. Wheeler.
* "The Library of Southern Literature," Vol. XVI, Atlanta, 1913.