Sequoyah: Polymath who brought his people literacy

Modern society tends to equate mastery with specialized “expertise.” And yet we owe many of our advances to the brilliant, uncredentialed amateurs known as polymaths. Our own history is rich with versatile jacks-of-all-trades such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. To that list we can also add the more obscure name of Sequoyah.

Born to a Cherokee mother and a white father around 1760 in what is now Tennessee, Sequoyah possessed a restless intellect. As a boy, he invented and built devices to help his mother milk cows; he was also a talented artist, creating pigments from crushed berries and bark.

As a teen, he trained as a warrior, learning to use the bow and arrow, the tomahawk, and the spear. From his mother, he picked

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