From James Madison to Thomas L. McKenney, 27 March 1826
To Thomas L. McKenney
Mar: 27. 1826
Dr. Sir
I have recd. your favor of the 18th., with a supplemental document relating to the Civilization of the Indians; a subject highly interesting under all its aspects. The literary “characters” devised by the Indian “Guess” are the offspring of an ingenious mind.1 But if I understand them, they are rather stenographic, than “Alphabetic,” a species of writing, facilitated doubtless by the scantiness of the language.
I had noticed the Report of the Secy. published in the Newspapers; much commended as it deserved for its moral as well as intellectual merit. With friendly respects
FC (DLC).
1. In the report of William Clark (see McKenney to JM, 18 Mar. 1826, n. 1), there is a letter from McKenney to the secretary of war, James Barbour, dated 2 September 1825 (printed in , Indian Affairs, 2:651–53), that describes the changes that had been made by the Cherokee Indians to adopt a settled, agrarian, and Christian way of life. One of those changes was the development of a written alphabet by “a native and unlettered Cherokee” named Guess. George Guess (Gist) (ca. 1770–1843), or Sequoyah, as he was better known, was a prominent tribal leader and the inventor of the Cherokee syllabary.