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Like many Native Americans of his era, Sequoya (1760-1843) wished to learn the secret of the white men's superior power. He became convinced that their secret was written language, which enabled them to accumulate and transmit more knowledge than was possible for a people dependent on memory and word of mouth. About 1809 Sequoya began working systematically to develop a written language for the Cherokees, experimenting first with pictographs and then with symbols representing the syllables of the spoken language. By 1821 he had perfected 86 letters, representing all the syllables of the Cherokee language.

In 1827, the first Indian newspaper was published in New Echota (Calhoun), using the alphabet and the rules of writing formulated by Sequoya. Messages in their own language were in such perfect phonetic symbols that anyone with average intelligence could read and begin to write. Local observers tell us that within a year the Cherokee were a literate nation. Their rapid advance in civilization may be attributed to this achievement. It has been acknowledged that "Sequoya was the only man in history to have developed an entire alphabet or syllabary."