girl of mixed blood, who thus became the mother of
the future teacher. A writer in the Cherokee Phnni.r, in lsi's. says
that only his paternal grandfather was a white man." McKenney and
Hall say that his father was a white man named Gist. 3 Phillips
asserts that his father was George Gist, an unlicensed German trader
from Georgia, who came into the Cherokee Nation in 1708. 4 By a
Kentucky family it is claimed that Sequoya's father was Nathaniel Gist,
son of the scout who accompanied Washington on his memorable
excursion to the Ohio. As the story goes, Nathaniel Gist was cap-
tured by the Cherokee at Braddock's defeat (1755) and remained a
prisoner with them for six years, during which time he became the
father of Sequoya. On his return to civilization he married a white
woman inthe family as his son. 1
Aside from the fact thai the Cherokee acted as allies of the English
during the war in whim Braddock's defeat occurred, and that Sequoya,
so far from being a preacher, was not even a Christian, the story con-
tains other elements of improbability and appears to he one of those
genealogical myths built upon a chance similarity of name. On the
other hand, it is certain that Sequoya was horn before the dale that
Phillips allows. On his mother's side he was of good family in the
tribe, liis uncle being a chief in Echota. 2 According to personal infor-
mation of dames Watford, who knew him well, being his second cousin,
Sequoya was probably horn about the year L760, and lived as a boy
with his mother at Tuskegee town in Tennessee,