This land is still haunted by the first people ... by the native Americans who first lived here and who — against all odds — still stand tall and cast their shadows over portions of the entire continent. Here in the Smokies region of Western North Carolina and out in the rolling foothills of northeastern Oklahoma, it is the Cherokees whose presence still exerts itself wherever you may wander.

If one had to pick an individual figure as the most significant in regard to both eastern and western Cherokee history, there aren’t but two candidates: Chief John Ross, the principal chief of the Cherokees in the east before the forced removal in 1838 and their principal chief in Oklahoma for many years; and Sequoyah, the non-lettered “ordinary” citizen, who — after 10 long years of effort and ridicule — provided his people with their own written language and thereby their own newspaper, written laws, constitution, and much more.

If this hypothetical question of significance were put to a vote among Cherokees east and west, there’s not much doubt as to which man would prevail. After all, throughout the Cherokee lands east and west there are innumerable statues, museums, historic sites, gift shops, motels, restaurants, books and pamphlets, trinkets, coffee cups, coloring books, etc., that commemorate Sequoyah’s name. Chief Ross is not forgotten by any means, but he is not celebrated in the same manner.

In part, this is because there is no mystery associated with Chief Ross . There is debate about his politics and motives, but there’s no real mystery. With Sequoyah there is the mystery of how in the world did he do what he did? After all, exactly how does one go about inventing a syllabary that enables a people to have a written language almost overnight? That feat boggles the imagination. And there is also the mystery concerning his last days and his final resting place. We’ll return to that aspect in a moment.

Last week my wife, Elizabeth, and I traveled from Swain County here in Western North Carolina to Tahlequah, the capitol of the Cherokee Nation in northeast Oklahoma. In doing so, we left behind Cherokee (the cultural and governmental center of the present-day Eastern Band of Cherokees), Katuwha (the ancient mother town of the Cherokees), Bryson City (site of Big Bear’s 640-acre allotment in 1819 and of the martyr Tsali’s execution in the fall of 1838), the Nantahala Gorge (residence of one of the mighty Uktenas, the giant serpents with horns that haunted the ancient Cherokees lands and imaginations), and Murphy (site of the ancient Valley Towns and the Peachtree ceremonial mound as well as of Ft. Butler, the removal command post and stockade built in the spring of 1838).

After entering Oklahoma from Fort Smith, Ark., we thankfully abandoned I-40 and headed northward along backcountry state roads that traverse the eastern flank of Tenkiller Lake, the physical and cultural equivalent of Lake Fontana in the Smokies. The Illinois River, which feeds into Tenkiller Lake from the north, is a designated Scenic River in Oklahoma and as lovely as any of the waterways in the Smokies region, which is saying something.

This was our first visit to the Cherokee Nation lands. We had, I suppose, anticipated grasslands that would have been a far cry from the Cherokee homeland in the Smokies. In reality, the rippling waterways and rolling, densely forested hills and bluffs are not so very different from the terrain the Oklahoma refugees had left behind in North Carolina and east Tennessee and quite similar, in places, to their former lands in north Georgia and northeast Alabama.

The Cherokee Nation is not a reservation. It is a people with land allotments and communities throughout northeast Oklahoma. Their administrative nerve center is the Cherokee Nation Tribal Complex at Tahlequah. Their current principal chief is Chad Smith, a descendent of Redbird Smith, a great traditionalist among the western Cherokee whose equivalent back in the east was Will West Long. The deputy chief is Hastings Shade, who plays a role — as we shall see — in the ongoing Sequoyah saga.

But if you’e visiting Tahlequah, don’t bother the chief or the deputy chief (they’re busy fellows), go see Diana Mouse, director of Cherokee FIRST (Friendly Information Referral Service Team), which also has its headquarters in the Tribal Complex.

Diana Mouse is friendly and she knows her way around Cherokee history and culture. She can tell you where to go and how to get there. (If you’re planning a visit to the Cherokee Nation, you can call her ahead of time at 1.800.256.0671.) She gave us some general information and literature on the Cherokee Nation and provided us with directions to places of interest. Foremost among these for any visitor would be the Cherokee Heritage Center, which is comprised of the Cherokee National Museum, the Cherokee National Archives, a genealogical library, the Adams Corner Rural Village (a reconstruction of a late 19th century Cherokee community with a schoolhouse, church, general store, and other buildings), a simulated Ancient Village (our favorite site because of the tour guide Rex Smith, who knows as much about the nitty-gritty of everyday traditional life as anyone we’ve encountered), and a 1,500-seat Tsa-La-Gi outdoor amphitheater. Along the road to Heritage Center we noticed several small green-lettered directional signs that read “Ross Cemetery.” These were discreet and obviously not intended for the general tourist traffic. But we followed them anyway and arrived at a cemetery on a high knoll overlooking the Cherokee country. There were hundreds of burial sites, but it didn’t take long to locate the marker for John Ross, former principal chief of the eastern and western Cherokees.

How about Sequoyah, I wondered? What happened to him and where is he buried? I recalled that he and his wife, Sally, had come west with a group of Old Settlers, those Cherokees who migrated well before the forced removal. I recalled that he had lived in Arkansas first and then moved into the Sallisaw, Okla., area southeast of Tahlequah, where he built a home (now preserved by the Oklahoma Historical Society), went into the salt-making business, and became one of the Cherokee Nation’s and Oklahoma’s most revered citizens. I vaguely recalled that he had migrated into Texas (or was it Mexico or both?) and had died down there. But as to why he had gone there or what had happened and where he was buried, I couldn’t recall.

Later that evening in our rental cabin overlooking the Illinois River, I was thumbing through the Summer 2001 issue of the “Cherokee Phoenix and Indian Advocate” that Diana Mouse had made a special effort to find for us. I opened the paper to page 30 and there was a reprint of an Associated Press article titled “Lost and then Found?” with the sub-heading “After two years of search, Texas doctor may have found Sequoyah’s grave.”

In brief, Dr. Charles Rogers of Brownsville, Texas, a physician who practices in Matamoros, Texas, had been combing the Mexican countryside for two and a half years searching for Sequoyah’s final resting place. He was joined at times by his mother, an 86-year-old Cherokee woman, and his 13-year-old son.

“During his search for the gravesite, Rogers said he often used a Mexican scout team which would collect stories of Cherokees being in south Texas and Mexico, and write them down,” the AP article reads. “In 1843, Rogers said, the 73-year-old Sequoyah and two other Cherokees, including a son of Sequoyah, were in route to Mexico when their horses were stolen outside of San Antonio.”

The younger men led the frail Sequoyah on foot to the “lost village” of Sara Rose in Mexico where he died and was buried in a nearby cave, Rogers believes, in the early 1840s. He was directed by a 96-year-old woman “to the suspected grave by describing a water spring, a creek, and the cave.”

“Rogers said he was told a stone in the cave, which could bear the written name of Sequoyah, was removed from the cave by a family two generations ago in fear the grave would be vandalized.

“‘It is a good and honorable family, which has protected the stone for generations,’ Rogers said. ‘They are part Cherokee.’

“Rogers said he hasn’t seen the stone, but those who say they know of its existence have described it through a drawing in the dirt. The characters depicted on the stone ... resembled the name Sequoyah written in the apphabet that Sequoyah invented.” The article also notes that Hastings Shade (the present deputy chief of the Cherokee Nation mentioned above), himself a Cherokee historian and fifth generation descendent of Sequoyah, is considering a visit to the cave.

“‘I would like to see what is down there. There have been two or three groups in Mexico over the last 40 years or so, but no one has any real proof of where he is buried,’ Shade said.

“However, he also said he would not want the gravesite disturbed ... that Cherokees believe a body should be buried forever ... ‘We don’t go back and dig them up.’”

Well, that was interesting, I thought to myself upon finishing the article. But, low and behold, as I thumbed through the paper and came to page 46, there was yet another piece on Sequoyah — in the editorial “Our Views” section — written by Will Chavez , a staff writer and photographer for the “Cherokee Phoenix and Indian Advocate.”

After summarizing the Santa Rosa cave article and deputy chief Shade’s feelings, Chavez takes an alternative view:

“What was Sequoyah doing in Oklahoma? A supporter of unification of all Cherokees in Indian Territory, Sequoyah led a party into a part of Mexico, which is now Texas, in the spring of 1842 in search of those Cherokees who migrated there in the early 1800s ... Dr. Rogers said a family has protected the grave for generations and removed a stone with Sequoyah’s name because they fear vandals would loot the grave ... This is the reason why I believe Sequoyah should be brought home. Ancient sites in Mexico have been looted for decades ... What a valuable prize Sequoyah would be for some unscrupulous treasure hunter who would take his remains and sell them to the highest bidder perhaps in some faraway country where they would become a part of someone’s Indian collection? ... Sequoyah isn’t forgotten. The syllabary he created not only made the people literate, it was used in the first Indian newspaper. For this accomplishment and for all the other times he served his people, he should be brought home to rest among his people.” Whatever the outcome of the disputed grave and remains in that faraway cave in Mexico, it is plain enough that Sequoyah lives on in the hearts and minds of his people as a significant part of the presence they continue to exert to this day.

(George Ellison is a writer who lives in Bryson City. He wrote the biographical introductions for the reissues of two Appalachian classics: Horace Kephart’s Our Southern Highlanders and James Mooney’s History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees. Readers can contact him at P.O. Box 1262, Bryson City, N.C. 28713, or at ellisongeorge@cs.com

 

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