His name was George Gist. His mother was a Cherokee Indian and his father was an English fur trader, so he was born a half-breed. He was born in a Cherokee Indian village in Tennessee about the time of our Declaration of Independence. As a boy, he was injured in a hunting accident that left him crippled for life. The Cherokees gave him an unflattering nickname, that in their language meant “Pig’s Foot”. His life did not start out well since he was crippled and not fully accepted in the Indian culture and not accepted in the white culture. For most of his life, things would not go well for him, yet today, his nickname is well known to all Americans because he achieved something that no other human being has ever done. 

At an early age, his family moved along with some other Cherokees to Georgia . As a young man, he and some other Cherokees, enlisted to fight as allies with the United States , under the command of General Andrew Jackson, in the War of 1812 against the British and their Indian allies. During this war, he watched as couriers would arrive and hand the white officers something that to the Indians appeared to be leaves with marks on it. The Indians called these messages “talking leaves”. He began to grasp the concept that somehow the marks on the leaves told the officer something. He was intrigued with this thought and concept and became obsessed with it. 

One day, while riding on horses with a band of fellow Cherokees along a road, there were Mockingbirds singing in the nearby trees. As he listened to the Indians talking and to the Mockingbirds unique singing manner of repeating sounds, he suddenly understood that their words consisted of various sounds and that some of the same sounds were used in different words. Then he understood that the marks on the leaves that the officers were looking at represented sounds and that combinations of those sounds then made words in the officer’s mind. 

He became obsessed with this theory. He began to analyze Cherokee words to separate out the sounds. He would work on this for years. From a Bible, he borrowed the printed letters and numbers to use as a symbol for each sound. Eventually he identified eighty-six sounds in the Cherokee language. He taught his children and some of the other children in the tribe how to use the symbols to read and write the Cherokee language. The children thought it was fun, however the other adult members of the tribe and the tribal chiefs and elders thought that he was doing witchcraft. They were very concerned that he would anger their gods and the gods would cause great harm to their tribe. He had become a major problem for the tribe. His wife, terrified of their gods, burned his papers.  

In 1821, he was called before the tribal elders. I suppose it was something like a trial. He brought some children with him that he had taught to read and write the Cherokee language using his symbols. They demonstrated to the elders how it was done. An elder would give a child a statement, the child wrote it down and passed it to another child that had been waiting outside who would then read the statement to the elders. They were amazed and decided it was not witchcraft afterall. He was given permission to teach others his system. 

In the next few years, thousands of Cherokees learned to read and write their language. So Pig’s Foot’s status in the tribe changed from the crippled half-breed that did witchcraft to a respected member of the tribe. In 1824 their National Council honored him with a silver medal that he proudly wore for the rest of his life. Many books were translated into their language. By 1828, the Cherokee nation was publishing a newspaper using his symbols. His symbols were now called the Cherokee Syllabary. He would live to become their statesman and diplomat and receive many honors.