SE-QUO-YAH. 

From Harper's New Monthly, V. 41, 1870

In the year 1768 a German peddler, named George Gist, left thesettlement of Ebenezer, on the lower Savannah, and entered the CherokeeNation by the northern mountains of Georgia. He had two pack-horsesladen with the petty merchandise known to the Indian trade. At thattime Captain Stewart was the British Superintendent of the Indians inthat region. Besides his other duties, he claimed the right to regulateand license such traffic. It was an old bone of contention. A few yearsbefore, the Governor and Council of the colony of Georgia claimed thesole power of such privilege and jurisdiction. Still earlier, thecolonial authorities of South Carolina assumed it. Traders fromVirginia, even, found it necessary to go round by Carolina and Georgia, and to procure licenses. Augusta was the great centre of this commerce, which in those days was more extensive than would be now believed. Flatboats, barges, and pirogues floated the bales of pelts totide-water. Above Augusta, trains of pack-horses, sometimes numberingone hundred, gathered in the furs, and carried goods to and from remoteregions. The trader immediately in connection with the Indian hunterexpected to make one thousand per cent. The wholesale dealer madeseveral hundred. The governors, councilors, and superintendents madeall they could. It could scarcely be called legitimate commerce. It wasa grab game. 

Our Dutch friend Gist was, correctly speaking, a contrabandist. He hadtoo little influence or money to procure a license, and too muchenterprise to refrain because he lacked it. He belonged to a class morenumerous than respectable, although it would be a good deal to say thatthere was any virtue in yielding to these petty exactions. It was amere question of confiscation, or robbery, without redress, by theIndians. He risked it. With traders, at that time, it was customary totake an Indian wife. She was expected to furnish the eatables, as wellas cook them. By the law of many Indian tribes property and the controlof the family go with the mother. The husband never belongs to the samefamily connection, rarely to the same community or town even, and oftennot even to the tribe. He is a sort of barnacle, taken in on his wife'saccount. To the adventurer, like a trader, this adoption gave a sort oflegal status or protection. Gist either understood this before hestarted on his enterprise, or learned it very speedily after. Of theCherokee tongue he knew positively nothing. He had a smattering of verybroken English. Somehow or other he managed to induce a Cherokee girlto become his wife. 

This woman belonged to a family long respectable in the CherokeeNation. It is customary for those ignorant of the Indian social polityto speak of all prominent Indians as "chiefs. " Her family had nopretension to chieftaincy, but was prominent and influential; some ofher brothers were afterward members of the Council. She could not speakEnglish; but, in common with many Cherokees of even that early date, had a small proportion of English blood in her veins. The Cherokeewoman, married or single, owns her property, consisting chiefly ofcattle, in her own right. A wealthy Cherokee or Creek, when a son ordaughter is born to him, marks so many young cattle in a new brand, andthese become, with their increase, the child's property. Whether hercattle constituted any portion of the temptation, I can not say. At anyrate, the girl, who had much of the beauty of her race, became the wifeof the German peddler. 

Of George Gist's married life we have little recorded. It was of veryshort duration. He converted his merchandise into furs, and did notmake more than one or two trips. With him it had merely been cheapprotection and board. We might denounce him as a low adventurer if wedid not remember that he was the father of one of the most remarkablemen who ever appeared on the continent. Long before that son was bornhe gathered together his effects, went the way of all peddlers, andnever was heard of more. 

He left behind him in the Cherokee Nation a woman of no common energy, who through a long life was true to him she still believed to be herhusband. The deserted mother called her babe "Se-quo-yah, " in thepoetical language of her race. His fellow-clansmen as he grew up gavehim, as an English one, the name of his father, or something soundinglike it. No truer mother ever lived and cared for her child. She rearedhim with the most watchful tenderness. With her own hands she cleared alittle field and cultivated it, and carried her babe while she drove upher cows and milked them. 

His early boyhood was laid in the troublous times of the war of theRevolution, yet its havoc cast no deeper shadows in the widow's cabin. 

As he grew older he showed a different temper from most Indianchildren. He lived alone with his mother, and had no old man to teachhim the use of the bow, or indoctrinate him in the religion and moralsof an ancient but perishing people. He would wander alone in theforest, and showed an early mechanical genius in carving with his knifemany objects from pieces of wood. He employed his boyish leisure inbuilding houses in the forest. As he grew older these mechanicalpursuits took a more useful shape. The average native American istaught as a question of self-respect to despise female pursuits. To bemade a "woman" is the greatest degradation of a warrior. 

Se-quo-yah first exercised his genius in making an improved kind ofwooden milk-pans and skimmers for his mother. Then he built her amilk-house, with all suitable conveniences, on one of those grandsprings that gurgle from the mountains of the old Cherokee Nation. As aclimax, he even helped her to milk her cows; and he cleared additionsto her fields, and worked on them with her. She contrived to get apetty stock of goods, and traded with her countrymen. She taughtSe-quo-yah to be a good judge of furs. He would go on expeditions withthe hunters, and would select such skins as he wanted for his motherbefore they returned. In his boyish days the buffalo still lingered inthe valleys of the Ohio and Tennessee. On the one side the Frenchsought them. On the other were the English and Spaniards. These hevisited with small pack-horse trains for his mother. 

For the first hundred years the European colonies were of tradersrather than agriculturists. Besides the fur trade, rearing horses andcattle occupied their attention. The Indians east of the Mississippi, and lying between the Appallachian Mountains and the Gulf, had beenagriculturists and fishermen. Buccaneers, pirates, and even the regularnavies or merchant ships of Europe, drove the natives from the hauntedcoast. As they fell back, fur traders and merchants followed them withprofessions of regard and extortionate prices. Articles of Europeanmanufacture--knives, hatchets, needles, bright cloths, paints, guns, powder--could only be bought with furs. The Indian mother sighed in herhut for the beautiful things brought by the Europeans. The warrior ofthe Southwest saw with terror the conquering Iroquois, armed with thedreaded fire-arms of the stranger. When the bow was laid aside, orhanded to the boys of the tribe, the warriors became the abject slavesof traders. Guns meant gunpowder and lead. These could only come fromthe white man. His avarice guarded the steps alike to bear-meat andbeaver-skins. Thus the Indian became a wandering hunter, helpless anddependent. These hunters traveled great distances, sometimes with apack on their backs weighing from thirty to fifty pounds. Until themiddle of the eighteenth century horses had not become very commonamong them, and the old Indian used to laugh at the white man, so lazythat he could not walk. A consuming fire was preying on the vitals ofan ancient simple people. Unscrupulous traders, who boasted that theymade a thousand per cent, held them in the most abject thrall. It hasbeen carefully computed that these hunters worked, on an average, forten cents a day. The power of their old village chiefs grow weaker. Nolonger the old men taught the boys their traditions, morals, orreligion. They had ceased to be pagans, without becoming Christians. 

The wearied hunter had fire-water given him as an excitement to drownthe cares common to white and red. Slowly the polity, customs, industries, morals, religion, and character of the red race wereconsumed in this terrible furnace of avarice. The foundations of ourearly aristocracies were laid. Byrd, in his "History of the DividingLine, " tells us that a school of seventy-seven Indian children existedin 1720, and that they could all read and write English; but adds, thatthe jealousy of traders and land speculators, who feared it wouldinterfere with their business, caused it to be closed. Alas! thispeople had encountered the iron nerve of Christianity, without reapingthe fruit of its intelligence or mercy. 

Silver, although occasionally found among the North American Indians, was very rare previous to the European conquest. Afterward, among thecommodities offered, were the broad silver pieces of the Spaniards, andthe old French and English silver coins. With the most mobile spiritthe Indian at once took them. He used them as he used his shell-beads, for money and ornament. Native artificers were common in all thetribes. The silver was beaten into rings, and broad ornamented silverbands for the head. Handsome breast-plates were made of it; necklaces, bells for the ankles, and rings for the toes. 

It is not wonderful that Se-quo-yah's mechanical genius led him intothe highest branch of art known to his people, and that he became theirgreatest silversmith. His articles of silverware excelled all similarmanufactures among his countrymen. 

He next conceived the idea of becoming a blacksmith. He visited theshops of white men from time to time. He never asked to be taught thetrade. He had eyes in his head, and hands; and when he bought thenecessary material and went to work, it is characteristic that hisfirst performance was to make his bellows and his tools; and those whoafterward saw them told me they were very well made. 

Se-quo-yah was now in comparatively easy circumstances. Besides hiscattle, his store, and his farm, he was a blacksmith and a silversmith. In spite of all that has been alleged about Indian stupidity andbarbarity, his countrymen were proud of him. He was in danger ofshipwrecking on that fatal sunken reef to American character, popularity. Hospitality is the ornament, and has been the ruin, of theaborigine. His home, his store, or his shop, became the resort of hiscountrymen; there they smoked and talked, and learned to drinktogether. Among the Cherokees those who have are expected to be liberalto those who have not; and whatever weaknesses he might possess, niggardliness or meanness was not among them. 

After he had grown to man's estate he learned to draw. His sketches, atfirst rude, at last acquired considerable merit. He had been taught norules of perspective; but while his perspective differed from that of aEuropean, he did not ignore it, like the Chinese. He had now a verycomfortable hewed-log residence, well furnished with such articles aswere common with the better class of white settlers at that time, manyof them, however, made by himself. 

Before he reached his thirty-fifth year he became addicted to convivialhabits to an extent that injured his business, and began to cripple hisresources. Unlike most of his race, however, he did not become wildlyexcited when under the influence of liquor. 

Se-quo-yah, who never saw his father, and never could utter a word ofthe German tongue, still carried, deep in his nature, an odd compoundof Indian and German transcendentalism; essentially Indian in opinionand prejudice, but German in instinct and thought. A little liquor onlymellowed him--it thawed away the last remnant of Indian reticence. Hetalked with his associates upon all the knotty questions of law, art, and religion. Indian Theism and Pantheism were measured against theGospel as taught by the land-seeking, fur-buying adventurers. A goodclass of missionaries had, indeed, entered the Cherokee Nation; but theshrewd Se-quo-yah, and the disciples this stoic taught among hismountains, had just sense enough to weigh the good and the badtogether, and strike an impartial balance as the footing up for thisnew proselyting race. 

It has been erroneously alleged that Se-quo-yah was a believer in, orpracticed, the old Indian religious rites. Christianity had, indeed, done little more for him than to unsettle the pagan idea, but it haddone that. 

It was some years after Se-quo-yah had learned to present the bottle tohis friends before he degenerated into a toper. His natural industryshielded him, and would have saved him altogether but for the vicioushospitality by which he was surrounded. With the acuteness that came ofhis foreign stock, he learned to buy his liquor by the keg. Thisspecies of economy is as dangerous to the red as to the white race. Theauditors who flocked to see and hear him were not likely to diminishwhile the philosopher furnished both the dogmas and the whisky. Longand deep debauches were often the consequence. Still it was not in thenature of George Gist to be a wild, shouting drunkard. His mild, philosophic face was kindled to deeper thought and warmer enthusiasm asthey talked about the problem of their race. All the great socialquestions were closely analyzed by men who were fast becominginsensible to them. When he was too far gone to play the mild, sedatephilosopher, he began that monotonous singing whose music carried himback to the days when the shadow of the white man never darkened theforests, and the Indian canoe alone rippled the tranquil waters. 

Should this man be thus lost? He was aroused to his danger by therelative to whom he owed so much. His temper was eminently philosophic. He was, as he proved, capable of great effort and great endurance. Byan effort which few red or white men can or do make, he shook off thehabit, and his old nerve and old prosperity came back to him. It wasduring the first few years of this century that he applied to CharlesHicks, a half-breed, afterward principal chief of the nation, to writehis English name. Hicks, although educated after a fashion, made amistake in a very natural way. The real name of Se-quo-yah's father wasGeorge Gist. It is now written by the family as it has long beenpronounced in the tribe when his English name is used--"Guest. " Hicks, remembering a word that sounded like it, wrote it--George Guess. It wasa "rough guess, " but answered the purpose. The silversmith was asignorant of English as he was of any written language. Being a fineworkman, he made a steel die, a facsimile of the name written by Hicks. With this he put his "trade mark" on his silver-ware, and it is borneto this day on many of these ancient pieces in the Cherokee nation. 

Between 1809 and 1821, which latter was his fifty-second year, thegreat work of his life was accomplished. The die, which was cut beforethe former date, probably turned his active mind in the properdirection. Schools and missions were being established. The power bywhich the white man could talk on paper had been carefully noted andwondered at by many savages, and was far too important a matter to havebeen overlooked by such a man as Se-quo-yah. The rude hieroglyphics orpictoriographs of the Indians were essentially different from allwritten language. These were rude representations of events, thesymbols being chiefly the totemic devices of the tribes. A few generalsigns for war, death, travel, or other common incidents, and strokesfor numerals, represented days or events as they were perpendicular orhorizontal. Even the wampum belts were little more than helps tomemory, for while they undoubtedly tied up the knots for years, likethe ancient inhabitants of China and Japan, still the meagre recordcould only be read by the initiated, for the Indians only intrustedtheir history and religion to their best and ablest men. The generaltheory with many Indians was, that the written speech of the white manwas one of the mysterious gifts of the Great Spirit. Se-quo-yah boldlyavowed it to be a mere ingenious contrivance that the red man couldmaster, if he would try. 

Repeated discussion on this point at length fully turned his thoughtsin this new channel. He seems to have disdained the acquirement of theEnglish language. Perhaps he suspected first what he was bound to knowbefore he completed his task, that the Cherokee language has certainnecessities and peculiarities of its own. It is almost impossible towrite Indian words and names correctly in English. The English alphabethas not capacity for its expression. If ten white men sat down to writethe word an Indian uttered, the probabilities are that one half of themwould write them differently from the other half. It is this which hasled to such endless confusion in Indian dictionaries. For instance, wewrite the word for the tribe Cherokee, and the letter R, or its sound, is scarcely used in their language. Today a Cherokee always pronouncesit Chalaque, the pronunciation being between that and Shalakke. Onthese peculiarities it is not the purpose of this article to enter, buthasten to George Gist, brooding over a written language for his people. 

His first essay was natural enough. He tried to invent symbols torepresent words. These he sometimes cut out of bark with his knife, butgenerally wrote, or rather drew. With these symbols he would carry on aconversation with a person in another apartment. As may be supposed, his symbols multiplied fearfully and wonderfully. The Indian languagesare rich in their creative power. By using pieces of well-known wordsthat contain the prominent idea, double or compound words are freelymade. This has been called by writers treating this subject, thepolysynthetic. It is, in fact, a jumbling of sentences into words, byabbreviation, the omitted parts of words being implied or understood. There is one important fact which I will merely note here that isgenerally overlooked. These compounded words, to a large extent, represent the intrusive or European idea. The names the Indians gavemany of the European things were mere DEFINITIONS. Such as "BigKnives, " etc. Occasionally they made a dash at the French or Englishsounds, as in the word "Yengees" for English, which has finally beencorrupted in our language to Yankees. 

Of course an attempt at fixed symbols for words was an unhappyexperiment in a language one prominent element of which is, thefacility of making words out of pieces of words, or compounded words. Besides this difficulty, no language can be taught successfully bymeans of a dictionary, until the human memory acquires more power. Three years of hopeless struggle with the mighty debris of his symbolsleft him, although in the main reticent, a mighty man of words. But hislabors were not lost. Through that heroic, unaided struggle he gainedthe first true glimpses into the elements of language. It is astartling fact, that an uneducated man, of a race we are pleased tocall barbarians, attained in a few years, without books or tutors, whatwas developed through several ages of Phoenician, Egyptian, and Greekwisdom. 

Se-quo-yah discovered that the language possessed certain musicalsounds, such as we call vowels, and dividing sounds, styled by usconsonants. In determining his vowels he varied during the progress ofhis discoveries, but finally settled on the six--A, E, I, O, U, and aguttural vowel sounding like U in UNG. 

These had long and short sounds, with the exception of the guttural. Henext considered his consonant, or dividing sounds, and estimated thenumber of combinations of these that would give all the sounds requiredto make words in their language. He first adopted fifteen for thedividing sounds, but settled on twelve primary, the G and K being one, and sounding more like K than G, and D like T. These may be representedin English as G, H, L, M, N, QU, T, DL or TL, TS, W, Y, Z. 

It will be seen that if these twelve be multiplied by the six vowels, the number of possible combinations or syllables would be seventy-two, and by adding the vowel sounds, which maybe syllables, the number wouldbe seventy-eight. However, the guttural V, or sound of U in UNG, doesnot appear as among the combinations, which make seventy-seven. 

Still his work was not complete. The hissing sound of S entered intothe ramifications of so many sounds, as in STA, STU, SPA, SPE, that itwould have required a large addition to his alphabet to meet thisdemand. This he simplified by using a distinct character for the S(OO), to be used in such combinations. To provide for the varying soundG, K, he added a symbol which has been written in English KA. As thesyllable NA is liable to be aspirated, he added symbols written NAH, and KNA. To have distinct representatives for the combinations risingout of the different sounds of D and T, he added symbols for TA, TE, TI, and another for DLA, thus TLA. These completed the eighty-fivecharacters of his alphabet, which was thus an alphabet of syllables, and not of letters. 

It was a subject of astonishment to scientific men that a language socopious only embraced eighty-five syllables. This is chiefly accountedfor by the fact that every Cherokee syllable ends in a vocal or nasalsound, and that there are no double consonants but those provided forthe TL or DL, and TS, and combinations of the hissing S, with a fewconsonants. 

The fact is, that many of our combinations of consonants in the Englishwritten language are artificial, and worse than worthless. To indicateby a familiar illustration the syllabic character of the alphabet ofSe-quo-yah, I will take the name of William H. Seward, which wasappended to the Emancipation Proclamation of Mr. Lincoln, printed inCherokee. It was written thus: "O [wi] P[li] 4 [se] G [wa] 6 [te], " andmight be anglicized Will Sewate. As has been observed, there is no R inthe Cherokee language, written or spoken, and as for the middle initialof Mr. Seward's name, H. , there being, of course, no initial in asyllabic alphabet, the translator, who probably did not know what itstood for, was compelled to omit it. It was in the year 1821 that theAmerican Cadmus completed his alphabet. 

As will be observed by examining the alphabet, which is on the table inthe engraving, he used many of the letters of the English alphabet, also numerals. The fact was, that he came across an old Englishspelling-book during his labors, and borrowed a great many of thesymbols. Some he reversed, or placed upside down; others he modified, or added to. He had no idea of either their meaning or sound, inEnglish, which is abundantly evident from the use he made of them. Aswas eminently fitting, the first scholar taught in the language was thedaughter of Se-quo-yah. She, like all the other Cherokees who tried it, learned it immediately. Having completed it without the white man'shints or aid, he visited the agent, Colonel Lowry, a gentleman of someintelligence, who only lived three miles from him, and informed thatgentleman of his invention. It is not wonderful that the agent wasskeptical, and suggested that the whole was a mere act of memory, andthat the symbols bore no relation to the language, or its necessities. Like all other benefactors of the race, he had to encounter a little ofthe ridicule of those who, being too ignorant to comprehend, maintaintheir credit by sneering. The rapid progress of the language among thepeople settled the matter, however. The astonishing rapidity with whichit is acquired has always been a wonder, and was the first thing aboutit that struck the writer of this article. In my own observation, Indian children will take one or two, at times several, years to masterthe English printed and written language, but in a few days can readand write in Cherokee. They do the latter, in fact, as soon as theylearn to shape letters. As soon as they master the alphabet they havegot rid of all the perplexing questions in orthography that puzzle thebrains of our children. Is it not too much to say that a child willlearn in a month, by the same effort, as thoroughly, in the language ofSe-quo-yah, that which in ours consumes the time of our children for atleast two years. 

There has been a great clamor for a universal language. We once had it, in our learned world, in the Latin, in which books were locked up forthe scholars and dead to the world. Language is the handmaiden ofthought, and to be useful must be obedient to its changes as well asits elemental characteristics. For the English of three hundred yearsago we need a glossary, and to carry down his immortal thoughts intheir pristine vigor, must have, every two hundred years, a Johnson tomodernize a Shakspeare. To probe the causes of the change of language, to ascertain why even a WRITTEN language is mutable, to pick up thisgarment of thought and run its threads back through all their vagariesto their origin and points of divergence, is one of the grand tasks forthe intellectual historian. He, indeed, must give us the history ofideas, of which all art, including language, is but the fructification. To say, therefore, that the alphabet of Se-quo-yah is better adaptedfor his language than our alphabet is for the English, would be to payit a very wretched compliment. 

George Gist received all honor from his countrymen. A short time afterhis invention written communication was opened up by means of it withthat portion of the Cherokee Nation then in their new home west of theArkansas. Zealous in his work, he traveled many hundred miles to teachit to them; and it is no reproach to their intellect to say that theyreceived it readily. 

It has been said the Indians are besotted against all improvements. Thecordiality with which this was received is worthy of attention. 

In 1823 the General Council of the Cherokee Nation voted a large silvermedal to George Gist as a mark of distinction for his discovery. On oneside were two pipes, the ancient symbol of Indian religion and law; onthe other a man's head. The medal had the following inscription inEnglish, also in, Cherokee in his own alphabet:

"Presented to George Gist, by the General Council of the CherokeeNation, for his ingenuity in the invention of the Cherokee alphabet. "

John Ross, acting as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, sent itWest to Se-quo-yah, together with an elaborate address, the latterbeing at that time in the new nation. 

In 1828 Gist went to Washington city as a delegate from the WesternCherokees. He was then in his fifty-ninth year. At that time theportrait was taken, an engraving from which we present to our readers. He is represented with a table containing his alphabet. Themissionaries were not slow to employ it. It was arranged with theCherokee, and English sounds and definitions. Rev. S. A. Worcesterendeavored to get the outlines of its grammar, and both he and Mr. Boudinot prepared vocabularies of it, as did many others. In this way, by having more and better observers, we know more of this language thanmany others, and affinities have been traced between it and someothers, supposed to be radically different, which would have appearedin the case of some others, had they been as fully or correctly written. 

Besides the Scriptures, a very considerable number of books wereprinted in it, and parts of several different newspapers existing fromtime to time; also almanacs, songs, and psalms. 

During the closing portion of his life, the home of Se-quo-yah was nearBrainerd, a mission station in the new nation. Like his countrymen, hewas driven an exile from his old home, from his fields, work-shops, andorchards by the clear streams flowing from the mountains of Georgia. Isit wonderful if such treatment should throw a sadder tinge on adisposition otherwise mild, hopeful, and philosophic?

One of his sons is a very fair artist, using promiscuously pencil, pen, chalk, or charcoal. He served, as a private soldier, in the Union armyin the late war, and there, in his quarters, made many sketches. Hispower of caricaturing was very considerable. If a humorous picture ofsome officer who had rendered himself obnoxious was found, chalked inunmistakable but grotesque lineaments, on the commissary door, it wassaid, "It must have been by the son of Se-quo-yah. "

In his mature years, at Brainerd, although approaching seventy, thenerve or fire of the old man was not dead. Some narrow-mindedecclesiastics, because Gist would not go through the routine of aChristian profession after the fashion they prescribed, have notscrupled to intimate that he was a pagan, and grieved that the Biblewas printed in the language he gave. This arose simply from notcomprehending him. They persisted in considering him an ignorantsavage, while he comprehended himself and measured them. 

In his old days a new and deeper ambition seized him. He was not in thehabit of asking advice or assistance in his projects. In his journey tothe West, as well as to Washington, he had an opportunity of examiningdifferent languages, of which, as far as lay in his power, he carefullyavailed himself. His health had been somewhat affected by rheumatism, one of the few inheritances he got from the old fur peddler ofEbenezer; but the strong spirit was slow to break. 

He formed a theory of certain relations in the language of the Indiantribes, and conceived the idea of writing a book on the points ofsimilarity and divergence. Books were, to a great extent, closed tohim; but as of old, when he began his career as a blacksmith by makinghis bellows, so he now fell back on his own resources. This braveIndian philosopher of ours was not the man to be stopped by obstacles. He procured some articles for the Indian trade he had learned in hisboyhood, and putting these and his provisions and camping equipage inan ox-cart, he took a Cherokee boy with him as driver and companion, and started out among the wild Indians of the plain and mountain, on aphilological crusade such as the world never saw. 

One of the most remarkable features of his experience was the uniformpeace and kindness with which his brethren of the prairie received him. They furnished him means, too, to prosecute his inquiries in each tribeor clan. That they should be more sullen and reticent to white men isnot wonderful when we reflect that they have a suspicion that all thesepretended inquirers in science or religion have a lurking eye to realestate. Several journeys were made. The task was so vast it might havediscouraged him. He started on his longest and his last journey. Therewas among the Cherokees a tradition that part of their nation wassomewhere in New Mexico, separated from them before the advent of thewhites. Se-quo-yah knew this, and expected in his rambles to meet them. He had camped on the spurs of the Rocky Mountains; he had threaded thevalleys of New Mexico; looked at the adobe villages of the Pueblos, andamong the race, neither Indian nor Spaniard, with swarthy face andunkempt hair. He had occasion to moralize over those who hadvoluntarily become the slaves of others even meaner than themselves, who spoke a jargon neither Indian nor Spanish. Catholics in name, whoate red pepper pies, gambled like the fashionable frequenters of Baden, and swore like troopers. 

It was late in the year 1842 that the wanderer, sick of a fever, wornand weary, halted his ox-cart near San Fernandino, in Northern Mexico. Fate had willed that his work should die with him. But little of hislabor was saved, and that not enough to aid any one to develop hisidea. Bad nursing, exposure, and lack of proper medical attendancefinished the work. He sleeps, not far from the Rio Grande, the greatestof his race. 

At one time Congress contemplated having his remains removed and amonument erected over them; it was postponed, however. 

The Legislature of the Little Cherokee Nation every year includes inits general appropriations a pension of three hundred dollars to hiswidow--the only literary pension paid in the United States.