Sequoyah's Early Life
In this letter of Commissioner
Sells, he also states that the native
or Indian name of Sequoyah was
Sikwayi, which accords with the
various articles I have read.
Gist soon wearied of this new life, and
deserted his faithful and
devoted wife, stealing away clandestinely
and was never heard of again,
sinking into oblivion which he so well
deserved. In due course,
about the year 1760, in the village of Taskigi
on the Little Tennessee River,
in what is now Monroe County,
Tennessee, a baby boy
was born to the deserted Indian mother, and
it is said the mother
named the babe Sequoyah (in the Indian tongue-Sikwayi),
because in the musical
Cherokee language that name meant, "He guessed it";
that is, the faithless
father guessed it would be a boy. It may be added,
however, that there is a
dispute as to the origin of the name, and that
Sequoyah generally was known
among the white people as George Guess,
which name he appears to
have assumed, and he used the name "Guess"
as a trade mark, by
stamping it on the silver ornaments he made as a silversmith.
The Cherokees to this day
cherish his Indian name, and proudly call him Sequoyah.
The mother of Sequoyah had
eight acres of land, some horses and cattle,
and maintained herself and
child by her own exertions, the boy soon joining
his mother in her labors,
making a new kind of wooden milk pan, building
a milk-house over a cool
gushing mountain spring; and when she contrived
to get a small stock of goods,
she taught him how to be a good judge of furs,
and he went on hunting
and trading excursions in the valleys of the Tennessee
and Ohio Rivers, and
came home laden with furs. Upon him the mother lavished
all the fond affections of a
mother's heart, and from her he evidently inherited
all the energy and
perseverance of his nature...
Excerpt from the
book: The Chickasaw Nation: A Short Sketch of a Noble People
By James Henry Malone
1922
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