After 12 years of work, Cherokee scholar Sequoyah develops a system of 85 symbols that can be used to write the Cherokee language. He is the first person ever to create a written language entirely by himself.
Initially, Sequoyah attempted to assign a unique symbol to represent each Cherokee word, but this system proved too complicated. In his final syllabary, each symbol stands for a discrete sound. The writing system’s simplicity allows a Cherokee speaker to learn to read and write in only a few days.
Seeking the endorsement of the Cherokee tribal government, Sequoyah and his daughter Ahyokeh give a public demonstration, during which they take turns deciphering messages written using Sequoyah’s symbols. Soon after the government sanctions the use of syllabary, the Cherokee become a literate people. The writing system becomes invaluable for recording laws, business transactions, and healing techniques and for staying in contact with relatives who have left their traditional homeland (see entry for 1817). In part because of the Cherokee’s use of a written language, they earn the reputation among non-Indians as the most “civilized” of eastern Indian tribes. (See also entry for FEBRUARY 21, 1828.)
The Hudson’s Bay Company and North West Company merge.
After nearly 40 years of rivalry and conflict, the two most powerful North American trading companies— the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North West Company (see entry for 1784)—merge to create one large firm, which retains the Hudson’s Bay name. The merger will take away much of the bargaining power of Indian fur trappers, who in the past had been able to play off the competing companies against one another to make deals more advantageous to them.
Charles Bird King is commissioned to paint Indian portraits.
The superintendent of Indian trade under President James Monroe, Thomas McKenney, hires artist Charles Bird King to paint portraits of Indian leaders who come to Washington to meet with the president. King will make more than one hundred paintings. Hung in the superintendent’s office, they will become known as McKenney’s “Indian Gallery.”
Mexico grants Indians citizenship.
After declaring its independence from Spain, Mexico confers full citizenship on Indians living within the new country’s borders. In the Plan of Iguala, the government states, “All the inhabitants of New Spain, without any distinction of Europeans, Africans or Indians are citizens of this monarchy with choice of all employment according to merit and disposition.” Indians’ citizenship rights will be upheld in the Mexican constitution adopted in 1824.
World History
