The Cherokee syllabary and the Trail of Tears

By 1821 Sequoyah had made a syllabary of 86 symbols for the Cherokee language, some shaped like letters of other alphabets but given new sound values; Cherokees learned it quickly, and from 1828 the Cherokee Phoenix, the first Native American newspaper, was printed with it. After gold was found on Cherokee land in Georgia in 1829, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act (1830), and in the removals of the 1830s about 100,000 people of the southeastern nations were forced west and some 15,000 died on the way.

The mechanism

CUSTODY OF THE WORD

How it was checked

• EvidenceT5 INDEPENDENT SECULAR; Status: ADDED 2026-09-19
• Letter eraTHE SEAT MOVES TO THE BENCH 1713 to 1945
• SourcesRECORD — Britannica, 'Sequoyah'; Britannica, 'Trail of Tears' · checked 19 September: Britannica (read in a browser; WebFetch is refused by the site), 'Sequoyah'; Wikipedia, 'Cherokee syllabary'; Britannica (read in a browser; WebFetch is refused by the site), 'Trail of Tears'