The Power of Words
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn,
the more places you’ll go.”
Many of us can recall either the childhood fears when learning to read or the parental terror of teaching our children the alphabet, the sounds associated with each letter, and the strange nuances of how they worked together to convey what we are trying to say in lines on pieces of paper. Now, imagine flipping that. You have a nation who can speak, are eloquent, articulate, and intelligent, but without a written way to communicate that language. That is where the Cherokee nation found themselves in the early days of America.
Sequoyah is one of the historic personages’ students and families were introduced to in the “Wayne-O-Rama” exhibit hosted at the Chattanooga Public Library. Each week lessons were hosted downtown and at branches with opportunities to spotlight the history of different parts of our city, its libraries, parks, and community centers. Sequoyah is one of the people included in the national social studies standards students across the country are expected to learn about and he is a part of OUR history. That is big stuff and a real example of how this area has always been at the center of American history.
Born in Tennessee, Sequoyah was afflicted by a physical lameness that caused him to limp, and as a young man, he worked as a trader, silversmith, and blacksmith. As a warrior he served alongside Andrew Jackson, John Ross, and Major Ridge in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. After over a decade of unpaid work, he became the man who cracked the code, creating a written way for the Cherokee nation to translate their spoken language into a graphic depiction of symbols representing each syllable. An illiterate nation was able to devise a written way to communicate their spoken language for perhaps the first time in known history.
The Brainerd Mission was a beacon in a wilderness, Missionary Ridge earning its name from the missionaries seen carrying their supplies over it from Ross’s Landing. Established in 1817 as an outpost of learning by the American Board of Foreign Missions, the Brainerd Mission was supported by leaders like John Ross and Major Ridge, providing a way for Cherokee students to learn and becoming hubs of community. Following President George Washington’s assimilation advice, the Cherokee adopted a national government modeled after the United States, with executive, judicial, and legislative branches headquartered in New Echota. Its leaders included men who had studied at the Brainerd Mission as children, achieving maturity under the cloud of the atrocities of war and their people’s loss of land.
Armed with Sequoyah’s creation, the Cherokee Nation could communicate to the world through the pages of the Cherokee Phoenix, a newspaper printed in both English and Cherokee. It is said that the average Cherokee, child, and adult, could master the syllabary in a matter of a few weeks, literacy spreading like wildfire among people thirsty for information as change was clearly on the horizon.
Please tune in to the next blog to learn about more of these historic figures and their place in Chattanooga’s history.
Bio: Jennifer Crutchfield is an author, educator, and Talk Radio 102.3 guest host. Manager of the Open OutDoors for Kids National Park Foundation project with National Park Partners, she is leading weekly after-school lessons at City of Chattanooga Community Centers this Spring and Summer.