Cherokee Phoenix

The Cherokee Phoenix (ᏣᎳᎩ ᏧᎴᎯᏌᏅᎯ, Tsalagi Tsulehisanvhi) was the first newspaper published by Native Americans in the United States.LeBeau, Patrik. Term Paper Resource Guide to American Indian History. Greenwoord. Westport, CT: 2009. p132.Woods, Thomas E. Exploring American History: Penn, William - Serra, Junípero Cavendish. Tarrytown, NY: 2008. p829. The first issue was published February 21, 1828, in New Echota, capital of the Cherokee Nation (present-day Georgia).

19th century

The newspaper's first editor, Elias Boudinot (Galagina Oowatie in Cherokee), was born in 1804 at Oothcaloga, Cherokee Nation, near present-day Chatsworth, Georgia. Boudinot chose the name "Phoenix" for the newspaper after learning during his university studies in Connecticut of the mythical bird that rose to new life from ashes of fire. Boudinot edited the newspaper for its first four and a half years.

The newspaper was printed in English and Cherokee, using the Cherokee syllabary developed in 1821 by Sequoyah. It served as the primary vehicle of communication among the many Cherokee townships that constituted the Cherokee Nation. The Nation occupied parts of what are now Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama and Georgia.

Transcriptions of the English-language portions of the newspaper can be found at Western Carolina University's Hunter Library's Web site.

In the mid-1820s the Cherokee tribe was being...
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