Sequoyah was also a skilled laborer..............a silversmith and a blacksmith............a warrior during the war of 1812............and the creater of the Cherokee alphabet...................

Sequoyah and Cherokee literacy[edit]

As a silversmith, Sequoyah dealt regularly with whites who had settled in the area. He was impressed by their writing, referring to their correspondence as "talking leaves." He knew that they represented a way to transmit information to other people in distant places. However, a majority of the Cherokees believed that writing was either sorcery, a special gift, or a pretense. Sequoyah accepted none of these explanations. He said that he could invent a way for Cherokees to talk on paper, even though his friends and family thought the idea ridiculous.^[6]