The naming of the Big Trees of California "Sequoia" is a fitting tribute
to that native American, a Cherokee Indian, who spelled his name
Se-quo-yah. An uneducated, non-English-speaking Indian, he perfected a
phonetic alphabet of 86 symbols with a character representing every
sound in the tongue of his tribe. It was said that with this alphabet,
sometimes characterized as one of the greatest ever invented, a Cherokee
child might learn to read and write the Cherokee language in a few days,
and that within a remarkably short time after the official acceptance of
the alphabet by the tribe every one of its members was able to read and
write.
The change brought about in the Cherokee Tribe by the introduction of
this means of expressing thought on paper was equally remarkable. A
printing press was established, type made of the various symbols, and
the news of the day printed in two newspapers. Their laws were printed
in Sequoyah's alphabet, and also the Gospels and many other books both
useful and interesting to the Cherokee people, who thus made rapid
advance in general knowledge and in civilization.