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Show Celebrates Feb. 21. WASHINGTON, D.C.-- On 1974, the field ol Indian journalism will mark 146 years of publishing history against the date of the publication of the first Indian newspaper in the history of North America, the Cherokee Phoenix," published in New Echota, Ga., in February of 1828, when Indian journal- ism was born. On that day the imperilled Cherokee Nation, which within a (facade would undergo the prolonged anguish of the Trail of Tears and the removal to the American Midwest, began publishing the first Indian newspaper aimed at focusing the Cherokee cause for the Cherokee people themselves, and also aimed at bringing the Cherokee grievances before the American public at large. Its first issue was printed in both English and in Cherokee, through the invention of a Cherokee Alphabet unique invented by Sequoyah, a Cherokee genius in 1821. The first Indian editor in Cherokee North America, a mixed-bloo- d named Elias Boudinot, thereby brought before the Indian people and the ' n public the first rough draft of a critical point in Cherokee history while history was being made. The paper itself was eight years in the making, and that record went like this: Sequoyahs wrote of that process this way in 1828: Nmr TwfSrt fa Scfcttb I was informed in many parts of the (Cherokee) nation that almost all the men could read in young and middle-age- d with the alphabet, many of the old men, and of the women, and of the children... I frequently saw as I rode from place to place, Cherokee letters painted or cut mi the trees by the roadside, on fences, houses, and often on pieces of bark or board, lying about the houses. The alphabet of (Sequoyah) has never been taught in shcools. The people have learned it from one another; and that too without bocks, or paper, or any of the common facilities for writing or teaching. ...That the mass of a people, without schools or books, should by mutual assistance, without extraneous impulse or aid, acquire the art of reading, and that in a character wholly original, is, ! believe, a phenomenon unexampled in modern times. In 1824 the Cherokee Nation honored Sequoyah for his discovery by giving him a silver medal. Cherokee school teacher Elias Boudinot thus first leaned of Sequoyah. In 1824 and 1825 a Christianized Cherokee, David Brown, translated the whole of the Christian new Testament into Sequoyahs alphabet, but the manuscript needed a publisher with to handle the manuscript. the type-se- t And in Octorber of 1825, Samuel A. n miaaionary, Worcester, a ter non-India- - lpkhrtlwwti In 1821, after much contemplation, Natfaa wae THE CHEROKEE SEQUOYAH fa the year 1921 white the aeter ward tin rddh fa the native country of Georgia invented ea system far the Cherekee language, ead wfthfa only a few years the sujsritj ef tribal chnrs eeald read and write their ewa Uagaage. Sequoyah invented the first Native alphabet in the United States. By educating hj fallow tribesmen in the use of the alphabet, so that the tribe could srrite letters to fellow tribesmen who had ; non-India- brought Sequoyahs alphabet to the attention of the American Board of already been removed West and send messages across great distances, Sequoyah's invention turned the Cherokees into a literate nation. A contemporary of of Foreign Missions in Philadelphia, Pa., urging the establishment of Cherokee printing operations. Commissioners In 1826, Boudinot began that inevitable grueling task of all later Indian editors by undertaking a Head Counselor Alcoholism and Drugs Program Island, Wash, to attend a seminar of sponsored by The Brotherhood Prison. Federal American Indians at the Darrell Shavanaux invited us to attend the seminar after reading about our Group at Fort Duchesne, in the Ute Bulletin. Darrell knew we could information for pick us some valuable Group and the he. Date because Alcholism Program, had played Chico Wissiup Shavanaux and seminar. the in important rotes setting up Glenn and I came away from Mc Neil with the information Darrell knew we could have, but at this time I foel it is more important to relate the feelings we left there with. McNeil Island lies off Steilacoom Harbor in the southern end of island we had Puget Sound. To get to the to be cleared through a guarded dock before we could get onto the ferry! boat that took us across to the Island. On theI 20 minutes, ferry boat ride that took one must the feelings to tried imagine have who is making that ride, knowing he must spend the mart two or more years of his life behind the walls of that prison, we that kept getting bigger the nearer how got to it. I could not help wonderingnever many men made this journey, nutted remembering the crime he because he had been drunk or hopped up I mum on drugs when it happened. TJidl wmrfermg, men almost feel these I said didordidthey really do what they of me back home- just want to get rid mgwrtha There must be a lot of first tune. the for that trip person making of many The expressions on the faces and I jn Glenn around the people sitting ustobelieve that similar thoughts were minds also. The running through their both the ffr like for people impact of what it must be sentence is under same the trip miHBg very vivid (m that ferry boat. When we landed on the Island we had to walk about a half mile to the main gate of the prison. As they let us in, one of the prison guards stamped our hand with an invisible ink. I remember thinking, "I hope this stuff doesnt rub off, and you can be sure we didn't wash our hands while we were there. After we were all : inside (there were around 50 people we walked through one locked door and into the yard, then thru a fence gate that had an electric lock on it and then several feet to the door of another building where the winir was being held on the 2nd floor. There must have been a gym in the building we were in, because the hollow sound of a basketball bouncing and men ' yelling1 at each other was mixed with the metallic sound of steel doors closing onto steel jams. There was a rushofold feelings that came flooding in on me from if could my past, that made me wonder I Steilacoom catch the ferry back across to so right then. But I got control of myself had he know Glenn wouldnt have to the trip with a chicken white guy. We met some very nice, concerned of people that day, people who give these to places, themselves by going where society hides the people they have faiud and try to be of service to them. They were people who know that you cant lock a man up in a cage and expect him to like you or himself very much when you open it up to let him out. They were people who are mature enough to realize they are capable of making mistakes or they had at one time been sentenced to a place similar to this one and understood the futility of it all. We learned one important fact that 100 of must be related and that all Indian men who are sent to McNeil or were drunk when Island crime that caused the committed they them to be sent there. Ask yourself the next time you pass a grocery store that sells beer, if maybe that Coors, or Bud, mt Oly sign might be telling your children that boose is just as necessary as food. Wonder as we did, why society will make the drug alcohol available almost everywhere and then sentence a man who gets aick on it and cant stop drinking it once he starts, to a prison such as McNeil. Sure, a lot of people will say a man doesnt get sent to prison for getting . drunk, he is sent there far committing a grime- - But I reply, which came first the chicken or the eggT Would he commit a crime if he wasnt drunk or did he commit a crime to stay drunk. No matter how you look at it, the people who make booze, the people who sell boose, and tip county commissioners who let everyone who asks have a beer license, share in the responsibility for what a drunk person does, even if they dont share any of the blame with him. If one man drives a car white his buddy robs a bank, both men go to prison far bank robbery. However, if a store owner sells beer to a person who is drunk, he can help the guy carry a fresh supply of boose out to the waiting car, that will kill someone five minutes later, and never be sentenced or considered for sentencing in the crime he helped committ. As Glenn and I left McNeil Island we were both glad that one day waa all we had to stay there. It is one hell of a lot better to have prison, either in your past or not at all. Our thoughta reached back to the men we left behind, who couldnt leave with us. Our hope was, that no more of our friends would be sent there. fund-raisin- g monied people. That campaign among the year he addressed Church groups up aad down the Eastern Seaboard, describing an Indian newspaper as a vehicle of Indian intelligence and claiming that if whites believed in the enlightenment of the primitive Indians, they damned well better ante up some coins to get that enterprise underway. By John Warden On the 19th of January, Glenn Loney and I (John Warden) went to McNeil two-ye- ar ia-t- hat - were-drinkin- g HrstPvws . In 1827, a Boston firm forged a printing press with Sequoyah's Cherokee alphabet in its type fonts, Boudinot was selected by the Cherokee Council in New Echota, Ga., as the Indian editor for a newspaper; textbooks and the like, at a salary of $800 a year. A printer was also retained at $350 a year (something Boudinot would eventually resent). An Eastern church paid for the building of the group printing prose, and the Cherokee Nation reimbursed the church later.' At New Echota in 1827 the Cherokees built a printing office in New Echota, capital of the Cherokee Nation. In January of 1828, the press and type fonts were shipped by water from Boston to Augusta, Ga.. then by wagon over the next 200 miles. And on Feb. 21, 1828, the e Indian newsfirst of the forefront onto the paper moved Cherokee struggle. Sequoyah himself, who had uahered in the age of Indian journalism, in the meantime had moved to Arkansas and became a regular reader of the Phoenix. Wrote one Schobr.of Sequoyah: Every week or two he would saddle hia pony and ride up the military road to Dwight (Mission in Arkansas) to get the latest issue of the Cherokee Phoenix that was regularly sent him from Georgia. The miracle of reading in this paper the news of his people in the East, and happenings among the white people, in characters of his own invention, never grew state. And to see other uneducated Indians enjoying the same privilege as a result of his own industry and genius was a source of never-endin- g gratification to him. four-pag- bi-ling- |