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Mixed Hispanic and Native American Historical Figures
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His father was Nathaniel Gist, a Virginia fur trader. His mother was Wut-teh, daughter of a Cherokee Chief. Sequoyah enlisted on the side of the United States under General Andrew Jackson to fight the British troops and the Creek Indians in the war of 1812. Unlike the white soldiers, he and the other Cherokees were not able to write letters home, read military orders, or record events as they occurred. After the war, he began in earnest to create a writing system for the Cherokees. When he returned home after the war, he began to make the symbols that could make words. He finally reduced the thousands of Cherokee thoughts to 85 symbols representing sounds. He made a game of this new writing systems and taught his little girl Ayoka how to make the symbols. In 1821, after 12 years working on the new language, he and his daughter introduced his syllabary to the cherokee people. within a few months thousands of Cherokees became literate. |
