made on that occasion contains a provision for the pay-
ment to him of five hundred dollars, "for the great benefits he has
conferred upon the Cherokee people, in the beneficial results which
they are now experiencing from the use of the alphabet discovered by
him. 1 ' 2 His subsequent history belongs to the West and will be treated
in another place (40). 3
The invention of the alphabet had an immediate and wonderful
effect on Cherokee development. On account of the remarkable adapta-
tion of the syllabary to the language, it was only necessary to learn
the characters to be able to read at once. No schoolhouses were built
and no teachers hired, but the whole Nation became an academy for the
study of the system, until, "in the course of a few months, without
school or expenseof time or money, the Cherokee were able to read
and write in their own language. 4 An active correspondence began
to be carried on between the eastern and western divisions, and plans
were made for a national press, with a national library and museum to
be established at the capital, New Echota. 5 The missionaries, who had
at first opposed the new alphabet on the ground of its Indian origin,
now saw the advisability of using it to further their own work. In
the fall of 1821 Atsi or John Arch, a young native convert, made a
manuscript translation of a portion of St. John's gospel, in the sylla-
bary, this being the first Bible translation ever given to the Cherokee.
It was copied hundreds of times and was widely disseminated through
1 AtcKenneyand Hall, Indian Tribes, i,