Cherokee Syllabary Typeset- Washington County, AR
“Typeset keys with physical stamp in upper right hand corner, from left to right – yu, we, and hi.” Photo by Jared Pebworth / Arkansas Archaeological Survey
Prior to the 1830 Indian Removal Act, Cherokee communities “voluntarily” relocated westward as early as 1817. A young man named Sequoyah was also part of this early group- traveling between Tennessee to Arkansas before the 1820s. The experience led him to developed a writing system in an effort to maintain relationships between these split communities.
The writing system, known as Cherokee Syllabary, was based on 86 distinct sounds and formatted similar to colonial letter writing, despite Sequoyah not being fluent in English. The system was later developed into print which continued to preserve Cherokee culture through newspapers, school books and bibles.
The typeset seen above is an example of the early printing process. A total of 14 type keys were found in a small boarding house located in Cane Hill, Arkansas. The space and its printing equipment were most likely abandoned by a local Cherokee community following the second Cherokee removal to Oklahoma (1838). Decades later, a Baptist missionary used the syllabary press to print his own set of bibles.
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