Listen to the episode here.

Each week, we come up with some absolutely bonkers stories, and this week is no different.

Angie shares how Holland dealt with an unpopular Grand Pensionary (think prime minister). Johan de Witt sparked such anger among the crowd that on August 20, 1672, they tore him apart and ate his remains.

Theresa gingerly side-steps the cannibalism and shares how Cherokee Chief Sequoyah fell in love with the concept of written language and created the first written version of a Native American language. The Cherokee Syllabary remains in use to this day.

This episode pairs well with: 
“Lord” Timothy Dexter
Tarrare
Sacagawea

Transcript:

Theresa: Hi, and welcome to the Unhinged History Podcast. The podcast where two compulsive nutjobs are just going to compulsively study the history stories that our husbands text us. And then we’re going to tell each other the story we’ve only recently learned that we’ve been basically forced to a book report on. And you’ve decided to tune in. So we’re excited to see you. I’m host for… 

Angie: I’m Teresa. I’m Angie. I’m Angie. Ha! I’m that. Hi, I’m that. There is no actual way to just tell you my story, so I’m just going to start it. Oh, I guess you’re starting then. I am. I’m not even going to give you a chance because here’s the thing. I can’t wait to end my story. I smoke like… 

Theresa: Like what? You’re just going to start pounding alcohol? 

Angie: No, because I am dying to see the reaction that you make and how you have to tell your story after my story. Many blessings. Good luck. 

Theresa: So what I’m hearing is you’re going to do all this stuff. You’re going to get to the last line and it’s going to be the end. 

Angie: It’s going to be like, oh yeah, this whole thing was a hoax. Never mind, okay, bye. 

Theresa: Okay, no, you say that. I’m going to interrupt you. When I taught English in Japan, there was a person who… Another foreigner, he was a Canadian, he got hired to teach at a university. And so the way they did it there, you taught the same students all four years that they went to school. Okay. So you start with freshmen and then you follow them to their sophomore and go to the first and so. Okay, so senior year, last class, he stands in front of his students and he says, everything I’ve taught you has been a lie. Bye. 

Angie: That’s goals right there. Yeah. Many blessings. Good luck. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I can give you my sources, but I’m not going to give you the title of my sources. Do you want me to just take my headphones off? Nope, because I also want the audience to be like the hell that I just hear. I promise. 

Theresa: Well, I’m grateful that you, Audie, and its member are with me on this health trip. 

Angie: You can hold each other’s hands. The Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art is one of my sources. Have you ever heard of the notable names database? 

Theresa: No. It’s not the National Park Service. I know, right? It is not the National Park Service. Basically, while they were operational, because I don’t think they’re adding names to the list anymore, but they are this source of biographies of people of note throughout history. So they collect a ton of information and whittle it down into a biographical format, but they’re not operating anymore. So this is like, I wouldn’t call it an old source or a defunct source, but a source that no longer gets added to. Anyway, they had a catalog of really interesting things to talk about. I briefly used the Wikipedia article to learn this individual’s parents’ relationship and names. I’m going to pronounce this wrong. The Haggis Historic Museum. And all its interesting article by Cara Goldfarb of May of 2018, and that is a name I’m impressed with. 

The Bodlelin Library has the correspondence of my individual, and it covers 37.5 meters of shelf. Take that, Alexander Hamilton. That’s quite a bit of writing. It’s quite a lot of writing, yes. A Dutch review article by Vlad Moka Gramma. 

It was updated in March of this year. There is the University of Waquia Kato. I think I’m pronouncing that right. There’s senior lecturer there in history. Dr. Chip Van Dyke has a really great article. This is the New Zealander article. And then a follow-up article from La Bruja Verde, if I pronounce that right. Okay, I can’t tell you the name of any of these because it just ruins it. 

Theresa: I mean, I don’t feel like you’re giving us the right name for any of these. Good. 

Angie: But I can assure you, none of my sources came from the bathroom wall or a subreddit. So I’ve got that going for me. And I cited the Bodlelin. So, okay, I’m winning. We are going to the 17th century Netherlands. And what I learned while doing this is that I know Diddly Jack about how the Netherlands were formed as a nation. And I’m still very confused. Thankfully, to tell this story, I didn’t need to know the birth of the nation. 

But it certainly does help in understanding the way that it behaves. So, my guy, Johann DeWitt, is born on September 24th in 1625 in Dort, or Dorttrek. He is a member of a rather influential family. The notable people database says that he is from one of the old Berghaal region families of his town. Dad, he’s called Jacob DeWitt. He is the sixth-time burglemaster of Dort. So this would be like the mayor. 

Theresa: The what? The burglemaster? I thought like burglemaster? Yeah. I was going to say like a head cat burglar. 

Angie: Oh, who would in that house? No, he’s just the mayor. Like, that’s the equivalent. He runs the town. And I think for me, that’s probably far more important than that it is today. I don’t feel like we hear a lot about mayors anymore. I think we just take them for granted. I think so. 

Like, I don’t think they’re on the news anymore. If you have a good one. Yeah. Yeah, that’s true. 

If you don’t have a good one, then yeah, they’re probably in the scandalous pages of the news. So dad, he is the mayor of this town and he also sits as a representative for the town to the states of Holland. Because again, I have no idea why they were called states. There’s several little territories or several territories rather that unify to become the Netherlands, right? 

Holland happens to be one of the bigger, more cosmopolitan. Like, I learned a ton. I had no idea that any of this was set up this way. 

So the whole thing for me. For a little bit more context, I have to quickly tell you about the rest of his immediate family because it doesn’t work otherwise. DeWitt’s mother, she’s called Anna van den Korput. But her uncle is a prominent Dutch military leader as well as a cartographer called Johannes Corputus. 

Hopefully I said that right. Now his older brother, Johan, our guy, his name is Cornelius. We will see from him later, but just know that he also, he follows a political path just like dad. But for the most part, even though he’s the older brother, he sort of largely stays in Johan’s shadow. Like, he’s kind of his biggest defender and biggest like hype man. But for the most part, kind of does his own thing quietly in the shadows. Johan’s the mayor? Johan is the son of the mayor. 

Theresa: Okay. And then older brother follows in younger brother’s shadow? Yes. Okay. 

Angie: And you’ll see why here shortly. Through another of their uncle’s marriages to Margarita of Nesua, she is the daughter of Johan of Nesua, Sagan. And this makes them distant relatives of William of Orange. 

This is relevant, I swear to you. He also has ties to the naval royal line via admirals and all sorts of other people that are very relevant to the European world at this time. Their other uncle is Andres de Wit and he serves as the grand pencillary of Holland. And that is basically, for lack of another way of describing it, their prime minister. Okay. 

Theresa: So right now, ton of names, ton of titles, and I don’t have a map. 

Angie: And you don’t have a map, right. Okay. So just know that their uncle from 1619 to 1621 serves as the prime minister of his region and of like all of the Netherlands as it was. Our guy, he’s born in 1625. And now that we have this sort of family treaty and we understand that he not only comes from old money, he comes from powerful connections. So he’s got all of these people in high places that he can sort of follow after and learn from. He is educated at Leiden and early on displays remarkable proficiency in both math and law. When he’s like 20, him and his older brother Cornelius, they do like the grand tour of Europe, you know, like all well to do, gentlemen do. So they see France, Italy, Switzerland, England. When they return home from this little jaunt, DeWitt takes up residence at the Hague and he works as an advocate there in the Hague. 

Okay. One thing you need to know before I get any further is remember, dad also had this political leaning life, right? Like he served as the mayor for their town six times. He is a strong supporter of the Republican oligarchic states party. They favor power resting with the ruling regent class rather than with the house of the prince of Orange, who the prince of Orange kind of stands for this more centralized power and has super big popularity among the people of the Netherlands. So dad is pretty much a staunch opponent of these, these princes of Orange and by default then his sons are also like the sense of my father, I guess that sort of thing, right? 

Theresa: I mean, you grow up in a politically leading household, you’re going to typically follow that same voting pattern. Right. 

Angie: Okay. So according to the all that’s interesting article, the Orange monarchists and the Republican merchant class had this long running conflict. Now obviously, like I just mentioned, following in daddy juris footsteps, our guy is also anti-Orange and he is becoming more and more politically influential by 1650. So like early thirties or late twenties, he is the pensionary of dork. So he is like the head representative for his region. 

And this office, this office, it makes him this leader and spokesman and it also makes him a representative to the state and that’s sort of a big deal. However, in the same year, Holland finds himself heavily engaged in this big struggle for like supremacy of the provinces with the Prince of Orange, William too, because there’s this question of do we disband the troops or not? 

Theresa: Disband the troops from where? Did I miss something? The army. No. 

Angie: So up to this point, the Dutch military world has sort of always been kind of neck and neck with England and taking care of its outer borders and kind of always in these little skirmishes. But the Prince of Orange, he basically is like, hey, we need to keep the troops strong, we need to keep them mobile, we need to keep them a standing army. Whereas the rest of the merchant Republican class are in favor of kind of disbanding it. Like they don’t believe we need a standing army any further to the extent that the Prince of Orange thinks they do. 

Theresa: So they want to lict and stine their army. Basically, yeah. And for those of you playing at home, lict and stine European country, Angie’s covered previously that just dissolved their army. 

Angie: And yet they make friends everywhere they go. It’s wild. Now, unfortunately for our guy, Johann William, the Prince of Orange, is backed by the army and the states general. And so right about this time, the states general arrests five key members of Holland’s states right faction. Remember, this is a group that’s favoring this more centralized power and imprison them. 

One of those arrested is none other than Johann’s dad, Jacob. Okay. So we’re a little bit upset. 

Then all of a sudden, William, the second Prince of Orange suddenly dies. Okay. Okay. Which is inconvenient. For him. 

The guy who died. Inconvenient for him. Inconvenient for him and the people that are siding with him because basically now they really don’t have a figurehead to steer the ship, so to say, right? William the second has a son. He is William the third. And the problem is he is not old enough. 

He is an infant. So he can’t take the power like they want. So this sort of leaves a little bit of vacuum, right? Now, this allows for Jacob DeWitt and his party and Johann DeWitt to gain strength and become the predominant authority in the Republic, right? Like without the William of Orange to push back at them, they really have nothing stopping them. 

Theresa: So William of Orange, the Prince of Orange. 

Angie: Yeah, the Prince of Orange. I’m sorry. The Prince of Orange, William. 

Theresa: So basically- But he is not the William of Orange of note of legend. 

Angie: That actually not this particular one I don’t think, but there are several Prince of Orange. And I do believe one of them is from his family is the one you’re thinking of. Okay. 

Theresa: I just want to make sure that I am tracking because I feel a little lost. 

Angie: Yeah, there’s a lot of people, but it’s going to get less people here very quick. He’s dead, so he’s out. Johann is- What’s the word I’m looking for? He’s gaining all this power, right? And then he- Oh, I’m so sorry. 

I didn’t say this. You know what kills? The Prince of Orange? Shocking. You’re going to be shocked. Siphaelus. Smallpox. Oh, okay. Didn’t see that coming. I know. I thought it was Siphaelus. 

Theresa: I mean, we’ll do that in our consumption. I mean, Siphaelus would have been the scandalous one, but- In truth, it was conception or smallpox. 

Angie: Yep, smallpox it was. So with William the Prince of Orange dead and the power going to the DeWitt side and all of their stuff, our guy Johann, he’s super intelligent and he’s super eloquent. And with the help of dad’s influence, he becomes what is called the counselor pensonary at just 28 years old in 1653. Now this means he basically is the de facto ruler of these United States that we’re working with of the Netherlands. At least 28 years old. 

Theresa: So it’s a lot of power for a young person. I mean, his frontal lobe is disconnected. 

Angie: Seriously, like we’re only three years outside of that reconnection happening, right? Two things here. The first one is DeWitt is empowered during the Dutch Golden Age while simultaneously at the same time that he takes control, the Dutch, they have been at war with England for a minute. But because of his savvy, he’s able to negotiate peace talks and he manages to pit England and France against each other. 

So basically like a Wednesday for the Mean Girls in high school, like he just figures out how to schmooze everybody and get them to take their eyes off him and start yapping at each other. Okay. So as I mentioned before, the Dutch are dealing with a little bit of a weakened state because they’ve been losing these battles to England and they’re losing a lot of trade too. What DeWitt does is push for peace. Enter Cromwell, the fun governor. 

Theresa: Oh, all right. Well, welcome Oliver. Stage left. 

Angie: He is ruling England as the Lord Protector and he makes some demands. He makes some pretty extreme ones. He wants this kind of union between England and the Dutch Republic and they’re pretty much rejected, like his demands are pretty much rejected. But they finally agree to a peace treaty in 1654. It’s called the Treaty of Westminster where the Dutch have to make these pretty big concessions. And one of them being striking the flag to the English ships when they pass each other in the narrow C. 

Theresa: What does it mean to strike a flag like to take it down? Yes. Okay. 

Angie: So you’re basically saying you’re the dominant one here. My flag is lower. Deuces move on and then you can raise the flag again. It’s like. 

Theresa: So basically they’re saying I’m the alpha dog. When I come through, you need to show your belly. 

Angie: Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. One of the other things that happens is this pretty controversial provision. It’s called a secret clause. Holland has to commit to never appointing a member of the House of Orange, which, okay, this young Prince William III of Orange, as the state holder or commander. And that’s basically like the highest ruling person in the country outside of this counselor pensionary. It would be like the prime minister and the king, right? And but Holland commits to never appointing a Duke of Orange or a Prince of Orange to that role. 

And this is called the act of seclusion. Cromwell pushes for this exclusion partly because the Orange family is tied by blood to the stewards, which, you know, he’s not that big of a fan of. And that’s politely threatening to him. 

And also this benefits Johann DeWitt because excluding William III personally feels pretty much like the same reason why Oliver Cromwell would want to, because we’ve got some deep-seated family issues here. Right. Okay. 

We’re just not happy with each other. After the 1654 peace treaty with England, Johann DeWitt takes control of the Dutch Republic’s policy. He helps restore the country’s money situation and boost its trade power overseas, especially in East Indies. He is also backed. He also backs Denmark against Sweden and then in 1662 makes a favorable peace deal with Portugal. This all matters because prior to this, the Netherlands were an ununified area of land that were sort of owned by other entities. And so he’s working to not only are we unified, he’s working to keep everybody unified and keep everybody on the outside happy with trade deals. So they still have that money coming and going, right? 

Now, it’s 1655. He marries a cute little woman called Wendella Bicker. Together they have two sons and three daughters. Because of his success, he’s very influential in running foreign affairs and overall state business for nearly 20 years. 

He’s elected to this role three more times. Okay. Okay. Right. 

Yeah. Regardless of his stance and position with Cromwell, he remains an opponent to the Princess of Orange and never lets them hold any political power. However, this and then this competition of trade amongst the English eventually puts him back at odds with England, who eventually actually later support the Prince of Orange anyway. And remember, the Prince of Orange has the love of the people. So friction is starting to build and it eventually contributes to war in 1665. When the war does break out, it breaks out at sea. 

Johanna Witt, he steps up his game. He’s not just an office holder. He goes out and like leads the fleets and battle because what the Dutch army lacks on the ground, they have excelled at on the sea. So he’s got this and he’s got great leadership and commanders and admins. And so because of all of this and this great negotiating, they get a favorable treaty in July of 1667 that super protects their interests. 

He then signs an edict which abolishes the office of stakeholder or like the Supreme Command position. So this is a little bit more problematic again for the Princess of Orange who are like, hey, what’s going on? He then proceeds to enact a triple alliance between England and Sweden and the Dutch Republic. 

This is problematic because it blocks Louis XIV of France from taking over the Spanish side of the Netherlands for his wife because I guess she just wanted something new and pretty. 

Theresa: I mean, I can’t say I’ve had an anniversary gift that was as nice. 

Angie: Right? However, so he’s got all these diplomatic skills over in sea and that’s really what all of that previous story was to say is that he’s great at international conflict. Like he’s great at resolving conflict. However, he is now getting troubles at home. 

The young William of Orange number three, he is coming of age and he has supporters across the country working super hard to undermine, like undermine DeWitt’s authority and put his authority back in its like rightful place quote unquote. Right? So they’re running smear campaigns. 

They’re doing their best to just at any moment just undermine, undermine, undermine. Remember when I texted you the other day and I was like, my story is a family bush. And I always thought you met Reese. Yeah, no, I met Bush in this one, not Reese. 

Okay, carry on. So this William, William, the third Prince of Orange is the one and the same as the husband of Mary Princess Royale. From the, she’s the sister of Queen Anne of England from that very messy love triangle story I shared back in June. So like when I learned that I was making all these connections like, okay, so now only are we dealing with Oliver Cromwell. We’ve got all of this other stuff going on in the world outside of this Johan DeWitt fellow who is at worst just trying to keep his country together. Like we’re just trying to make money and do good, do good by our people. Right? So things are starting to look okay. 

William Prince of Orange, he is coming of age. He is creating problems as I mentioned. He’s undermining. 

He’s doing all of these things. But then all of a sudden in 1672, Louis XIV of France suddenly declares war, which in hindsight seems to make sense when you give that they blocked him in a triple alliance a few years earlier. While the Dutch, as I mentioned, have a superior navy, they do not have a superior army. And you have Louis of France, magnificent at the front of his splendid army. 

And there is almost no resistance whatsoever. Like our guy is screwed. At this point, a couple other things start happening. There is like this unanimous voice of the people calling for William, the third Prince of Orange, who is like 22 years old at this point, to lead the affairs. Like DeWitt, step down. William, step up. We’ve got to handle this. There’s all sorts of violent demonstrations against our guy. It’s a rough go. The Dutch have a war for this year of 1672. It’s called the ramp jar, if I pronounce that correctly. And it means disaster year. 

Theresa: I think we’re in the middle of ours. Right. Okay. 

Angie: I’m not going to butcher the Dutch here, but they have a slogan for the year also that translates in English to the people were rational, the government helpless, and the country beyond salvation. So we’re having a minute. We’re crashing out here already. 

Theresa: What I’m hearing is obviously the Netherlands have survived. So there’s hope for us. 

Angie: Yeah. Yeah. There’s hope for us. With these violent demonstrations, July 24th rolls around and our guy’s brother Cornelius, who I mentioned earlier, he gets arrested on charges of conspiracy against the Prince of Orange. On August the 4th, Johann deWitt resigns his post as the grand pensionary and he is looking at this situation like, this is not great. At the same time that all of this is happening, the French, the English, and two more power players from the German regions of Cologne and Munster join the fray. So like the people of the Netherlands are, they’re angry. They’ve been invaded. 

They’re hungry. Their boys are having to defend things that none of this should have happened. And so they’re upset. They’ve got some thoughts. 

They’ve got some feels. And deWitt, he resigns thinking that maybe this will start to calm things down if he just lets the Prince of Orange do his thing. And for his part, it is worth mentioning that deWitt at the time is one of the only non-royal leaders in all of Europe. 

Which is pretty cool. Right? Now, unfortunately for him, his brother sitting in prison constantly being tortured and trying to get forced to concessions out of him about how corrupt him and his brother are. And all sorts of made up, trumped up charges that they didn’t have anything to do with. But Cornelius never confesses. Like he swears by his brother to his dying day. So he gets sentenced to deprivation of his office and banishment. On August 19th, August 19th, August 20th, give or take, he is confined at this prison place called Gazing Angeport, if I am pronouncing that right, G-E-V-A-N-G-E-P-O-O-R-T. And deWitt goes to the prison to see his brother. 

One source suggests that he was actually on his way there to escort his brother to his banishment. Like things aren’t great for you. I’m going to help you get out of the country. You’re banished. 

You can’t come back. That sort of thing. But by the time that deWitt gets into the prison, a very vast and angry mob has heard that the brothers are there. And for whatever reason, there’s like no guards around. 

Theresa: Everyone took a coffee break at the exact same moment. Yeah. 

Angie: So this mob bursts into the prison, sees the brothers, and then literally proceeds to rip them to pieces. Oh, yeah. What remains of them after this incident is then hung up by their feet to what I understand to be a lamppost, but it may have been an impromptu scaffolding for like a gallows. Either or, or maybe it was a little bit of both. 

Long story short, they’re hung up. Alexander Dumas, because this couldn’t be a who’s who of the world at the time without Alexander Dumas, writing about it 200 years later says, quote, every one of the miscreants, emboldened by Johann’s fall, wanted to fire his gun at him or strike him with blows from the sledgehammer, or stab him with a knife or swords. Everyone wanted to draw a drop of blood from the fallen hero and tear off a shred from his garments. Dumas goes on saying, after having mangled and torn and completely stripped the two brothers, the mob dragged their naked and bloody bodies to an extemporized givet where amateur executioners hung them up by the feet. 

Then came the most dastardly scoundrels of all who, not having dared strike the living flesh, cut the dead into pieces, and then went about town selling small slices of the body of John and Cornelius at 10 south apiece. That’s the last line of what Dumas has to say. Now, I did not put it on my notes, so I’m hoping I can find it very quickly. There is a poet living at the time who experiences this first hand and basically says exactly that. It’s pretty gnarly what he saw, and I, for the life of me, did not put his exact work in my notes. 

But, excuse me while I scroll back down because I lost them. These exact details I’m about to give you have not been confirmed by anybody other than the poet, and there were pamphlets that went out around the same time that express similar sentiments, but it hasn’t been confirmed by like scholarly sources other than if you would take this quote, for word. While these murders are savage, it is believed that the Dutch people actually ate parts of Dwight and his brother after killing them. One version says an eyeball, and another says their livers were cut out and cooked. Here’s the wild part. This seems insane. 

Theresa: Wait a minute, wait a minute. We haven’t gotten to the wild part. 

Angie: That’s wild, but what I think is wild is that we think it’s wild today, but in Holland, at the time, crowds like this were known to pick souvenirs from like public lynchings and executions and like take them home or to the pub to brag about them. So like you might have a tooth or a finger or a whole arm. 

Theresa: Okay, but yeah, no, I thought so during this time that you would take the hand of the convicted thief and you would turn it into a candle. 

Angie: Yeah, okay, so this is like normal for them, but I mean, they just eat it. Yeah, they kicked it up a notch and ate them. Now, what I learned last night right before I went to bed was that at the same time this is happening, there is portraits hanging in a gallery, not portraits, excuse me, paintings hanging in a gallery at like a cross town of these gentlemen and some of their naval battle, like wins, some of their victories, being also ripped down and like torn to shreds, like in a, what’s the word, like a show version, like a mock execution. 

So on one side, you’re getting the mock execution, on the other side, they are eating their livers. I’ll take the pain, William. William the third, he was now the new boss, obviously the Prince of Orange, he does nothing to prosecute the ring leaders of this. 

No one knows for sure if he had anything to do with this very public assassination, but what we do know for sure is this event effectively ends the Dutch Golden Age. A little bit of cannibalism. 

Theresa: Yeah, a little bit of cannibalism would end a lot of golden ages. 

Angie: Great. For funsies, the articles, titles were fake news and real cannibalism, a cautionary tale from the Dutch Golden Age, how the Dutch ate their prime minister in 1662, the brutal end of Johan de Wit, who was torn apart and eaten by his own people, and the Dutch review, that time the Dutch people ate their prime minister. And all of it was because of a smear campaign, like hindsight is 2020 and the historians today are looking back going, we see what happened here. These guys didn’t do anything wrong, but someone’s great at their propaganda. 

Theresa: Wow. Yeah, you’re welcome. Okay. So I’m going to do a very different topic. Do you know about Sequoia? 

Angie: Sequoia National Park? 

Theresa: That’s a place. Do you know about the person? I can’t say I do. Rock on. Okay. My sources. Oklahoma Historical Society, the Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, Sequoia, circa 1778 to 1843, National Geographic, Sequoia, and the Creation of the Cherokee Ciliary, history.com how a Cherokee… Ciliary? Yes. Okay. Making sure I heard that right. History.com how a Cherokee leader ensured his people’s language survived by Michelle Seca and the Resolute Podcast, Episode 63, Sequoia. Here we go. So it’s 1778 and a man named… Or not a man, but Sequoia is born. He’s born a baby boy. 

Angie: Not a full grown man. Typically not. Really? Thank you. 

Theresa: Now, his mother is a woman named Wete. She’s a full blood Cherokee. She’s sister of Old Tassel, who’s a Cherokee chief. Now, his mother’s side, because they’re matrilonic matriarchical, there’s a word I’m looking for. Matriarchical. 

They taught him everything. So father, unknown. Maybe he’s a German trader or a farmer or a named Cherokee. 

Paternity of his is hotly debated, but he claims that he’s 100% Cherokee. Okay. So I don’t know. I wasn’t there. Now, Sequoia is a member of the Red Paint Clan. He’s also given the English name George Guess or George Geist, though he only spoke Cherokee. 

Angie: So was he given the English name by like a missionary nearby or…? 

Theresa: Good question. I didn’t ask, so I didn’t look. Okay. Now, his mom, Wete. She, Wete, Wete, I probably neither. It’s felt very different, but from what I understand, it’s close to either Wete or Wete. She spoke only Cherokee. She refuses to learn English. She doesn’t want her son to learn the language either. Now, she runs a trading post. 

She tends cattle and at some point, Sequoia becomes lame in one leg. Maybe he was born like it. Maybe something happened, like it was broken, not set. 

Well, something happens. Add it to the list. Oh, dang it. I didn’t realize I accidentally… So if this is your first episode, for whatever reason, my figures tend to be fine. Or missing a leg, or they lose a leg. Always, yeah. 

Angie: Always losing a leg, always. How do you not see that? 

Theresa: How do I never… I’m not doing this intentionally. 

Angie: I think you save it just for me to realize. Like, I think you’re like, oh, yeah. 

Theresa: My stuff is not just good. Leg. Do this one. He only needs one shoe. Do this one. 

Theresa: Anyhow, originally, our man is named Gisquia, which means there’s a bird inside. So it could be something along the lines of the way he chirped or chattered or something, but there’s a bird inside. Now, as a kid, he fails to do his chore often. His name changes into Sequoia. There’s a pig inside. 

Angie: Okay. I love this for him, actually. 

Theresa: Now, he doesn’t have a trait because of the leg. He has no formal education, but he’s said to have invented many things. Okay. Some of the things he does is he ends up building an entire dairy house and making the tools needed for it, like troughs and skimmers as a child. 

Angie: Look, when you only have one working leg, you’re bored. 

Theresa: You’re going to do something, right? Yeah. Now, he gets older, he meets people outside of his tribe, and he sees jewelry, and this fascinates him. So he goes on to create beautiful silver jewelry. 

Okay. And there are some historians who believe that there are pieces out there that could have been his, but he never really signed anything, so we can’t concretely say which piece for sure, if any. Not even based on style? We don’t know for sure, but it’s like, well, this one was, from stories, my great-grandmother got it from. Right. 

But we have no way to be like for sure uncertain. Gotcha. Now, his mom, she passes away when he’s pretty young. 

Her trading post, though, it’s already been established as a meeting hub. He’s in his early 20s, and he slips into drinking whiskey. Oh, man, poor guy. Okay. So he is self-medicating, and he is drinking so often that he’s buying whiskey by the keg. So that’s a lot. He commits. 

Angie: Yeah. Okay. Now, eventually, I guess, what was that? Do your thing, I guess. That’s a lot of whiskey. It’s a lot of whiskey. 

Theresa: What might be a lifetime supply for some. Now, he eventually pulls himself out of it. I don’t have a ton of detail about it, but seems to give up the drink, and he turns to blacksmithing. This guy is talented. He has the ability to really do whatever he wants. That’s my takeaway. Yeah. 

Angie: Okay. I would go with you on that. He turns to blacksmithing. Do your thing, man. He makes his own dollar. I guess, actually, when you think about it, blacksmithing is not a far cry from jewelry making. 

Theresa: It’s like, well, the different metals respond differently. Right. 

Angie: But it still requires that same type of patience and expertise. So if you’ve learned, like, what I’ve known from the blacksmiths that I’ve seen in my life and the 7000 episodes of Forged in Fire that I’ve watched is that if you are a blacksmith jewelry making or accessory making, like, for horses, like that tack. Yeah. That and it’s silver, right? Like, that’s very much something you’re interested in. I’m not saying everybody, but it seems like a sort of a segue. Okay. All right. 

Theresa: So makes the bellows. He makes his own tools. He’s even creating solid segue here, his own horse tack, and he’s embellishing them with a silverwork. See, I’m telling you, man. 

Angie: Thanks, Will Willis at Forged in Fire. 

Theresa: There you go. Now, by this point, he has stopped drinking altogether. Even the water? I mean, probably not. But he’s interacting with white men and he’s noticing that they have written language and he’s seeing it as an advantage. That’s fair. Okay. Yeah. He calls the letters talking leaves. I love that. 

Angie: That’s so whimsical, isn’t it? Why can’t we go back to naming things like they should be? I mean, because it just, because we hate ourselves. 

Theresa: The, his community as a whole, they view the concept of written language as witchcraft. 

Angie: Okay. I wouldn’t have thought that, but okay. Well, here’s their explanation. 

Theresa: You take the juice from berries for the ink. You have paper or leaves, and then you take the feather of an eagle and you get the paper to talk to others. Okay. And I’m like, oh, yeah, that does seem like witchcraft when you put it like that. 

Angie: Witchcraft is just science. We don’t understand yet. 

Theresa: But you know, it’s like, I hear you, but when you hear some emails, explain it like, that’s craziness. It’s like, you know what? Yeah, that is. Yeah. Yeah. Now, okay. 

I love it. So Sequoia, again, monolingual and he doesn’t know how to read or write in any language, any language. And he’s sitting down and he’s thinking, you know, I could do, I bet I could somehow create a symbol for every word that we’ve got in Cherokee. 

Angie: A symbol for every word, not every syllable sound. 

Theresa: Every word. He’s like, I’m going to congee this out like I’m Japanese or Chinese. 

Angie: Like I’ve got nothing to do for the next 500 years. Let’s go. Yeah, basically. 

Theresa: Now, I can’t like, obviously he finds this too cumbersome and this makes sense for me because in Japanese, there’s 5000 congee. Yeah, okay. This, yeah. Yeah, eventually he’s like, you know what? 

I’m out of paper and I haven’t even gotten to the tree yet. Yeah, okay. Okay. 

So he kind of puts that down for a second and he fought with a Cherokee company against the Red Stick Cree or Creeks at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814. Okay. So big battle, he’s part of the battle and it’s here he’s watching soldiers share battle plans via writing and then write letters back home. Okay, okay. So it’s reinforcing the tactical advantages. 

Right. And so he ends up getting discharged and about a year after he leaves the service, he marries a woman named Sally Waters and she’s a mixed blood Cherokee. In 1817, he signs a treaty exchanging Cherokee land in the southeast of the area of our in Arkansas. And then Sequoia agrees to move west, but he recants this in 1819. He still lost his home, however, and then he moves to Fort Payne, Alabama. 

Angie: Fort Payne as in like PAIN. That is PAYNE. Oh, okay. So somebody’s last name because I’m over here thinking I wouldn’t do it. Don’t do it, buddy. 

Theresa: That’s like going, but I mean, I don’t care how you spell it. There was a dentist in my hometown named Dr. Payne. Yeah, nope. Not going there either. Yeah. Nope. I heard, I heard how you answered the phone when I called the office. I’ve got the wrong number. 

Theresa: I’m gonna go to Smith or Jones. 

Angie: Yeah, as it turns out, actually, I don’t have teeth. It’s fine. 

Theresa: Yeah, Dr. Comfort. That’s my fault. I’m going to Dr. Comfort. Yeah. Now, Sequoia back in Alabama, he restarts his work on written language, but he starts listening really carefully to Cherokee speech, and he’s studying sound patterns and listening to how they form the words. Okay, this makes sense. He hears what he can think of as vowels or consonants, and he’s discerning so many variations, and he isolates it to about 85 distinct syllables. 

Angie: How many does the English language have? I don’t know. I have to know. Carry on. I’ll let you know. Okay. 

Theresa: So he starts, he creates a syllabary, you know, so basically alphabet, but of syllables. 

Angie: Right. I was wondering what a syllabary is. That makes sense. 

Theresa: Now, each symbol assigns a sound to that symbol, and this includes characters composed of English, Greek, and Hebrew letters. 

Angie: Because that’s what he’s seeing other people. Yes. Right. 

Theresa: Now, he doesn’t use the same sounds, but he likes the shape of the letter, and he ascribes his sound to that shape. 

Angie: I love this. Yes. There’s no single definitive answer on how many syllables the English language has, because it depends on whether you are asking about the number of possible syllables, the number of syllables in a specific word, or the average number of syllables per word, but some estimate there is a possibility of 15,000. Okay, so just a couple. 

Theresa: Yeah, just a few. Now, he works obsessively on this language, on this syllabary. This causes him to neglect responsibilities at home and in the fields. Hey, when the leg, but now neighbors, they’re up on that witchcraft. They’re like, ah, you know, our man, yes, he’s got that witchcraft. He’s doing a witchcraft. Yeah. She is so frustrated that she burned some of his papers. 

Angie: No. What? Okay. Okay. 

Theresa: You know, there are things, as much as I try to be a good and faithful wife, I am going to be upset at hugs, and I’m going to destroy some of the things he’s doing. That’s fair. 

Angie: Okay. You know. Makes sense. We all have our moments. 

Theresa: He ended up taking his daughter, she’s young. She’s like age six, and he wants to prove his system of writing to the Cherokee Council in 1821. And he isn’t teaching her the syllabary when she’s six years old. Next, he teaches his brother-in-law to read it and word of this spread. So Sequoia and the Cherokee Council, they’re going to drop to trial before their town chief. So him and Ayoka, his daughter, are forcibly separated and they’re asked to exchange messages using the script to see if it worked the way that Sequoia said it did. 

Theresa: Like to prove what this is. 

Theresa: And then you put it down and then I’m going to hand the paper to her and she’s going to read it to me. Okay. Okay. And if it matches. Witchcraft. Somehow if you prove it’s witchcraft here it works. Okay. It’s like it went from witches to witches. Yay. 

Angie: Mm. Medicine in. Got it. 

Theresa: Now this peruse to be a success because even though she’s six, she can still read. And some are convinced that they’re still using magic to communicate. However, they end up really believing that the paper itself isn’t talking, but it is a process. 

It is a skill that you can learn. Not. This makes sense. Yeah. But in the end, there is a couple of people, like the warriors presiding over the trial, they believe in Sequoia and they’re like, Hey, can you teach me? 

Angie: Because it’s beneficial. Right. Like you’re telling me I can write down my tactics to the to the unit over there. 

Theresa: You’re telling me I can tell that beautiful young lady over there that I’d like to share some special time with her. 

Angie: My tent. I’d like to write a poem, please. Yes. 

Theresa: Now, okay. Because the sounds are unique to the Cherokee language and the syllables match that. His syllabary is pretty easy for Cherokee speakers to learn. Okay. By the 1830s, 90% of the Cherokee are literate. 

Angie: We don’t even have that for Americans today. Yeah. 

Theresa: No, because the next line is it’s a far higher literacy rate than among the white settlers in America during the same time period. 

Angie: All right. So yeah, hasn’t changed much then. Okay. 

Theresa: Now, Sequoia, he travels west of the Mississippi and he’s teaching the syllabary to the Cherokee in the present day state of Arkansas. Now, few years later, Congress passes the Indian removal act in 1830. And this is where most of the Cherokee would be forced to migrate along the trail of tears and they’re forced from their homes, robbed of most of their belongings, but they took the language and the syllabary with them, even though along the way many died. But before they go, so we’re going to go back just a little bit to 1824, the Cherokee National Council, they award Sequoia with a medal as a token of respect and admiration for his ingenuity in the invention of the Cherokee syllabary. 

Angie: I love that. I wouldn’t have thought that they hand about medals. Like that’s awesome. That was my response too. Yeah. This is going to sound weird, but it seems a trivial thing for a person of an Indigenous culture in the United States to be like, you need a medal for this. It seems like such a European like tradition of pomp and circumstance, whereas I feel like, and I’m not saying this in a bad way at all, I feel like the Indigenous people have a higher value of things in general. And so for them to decide that you need a medal for doing this thing seems to me to be a very like random decision on their part. I didn’t know they handed out medals. Like you would think that that would have instead of just here’s this cool piece of metal, you would think it would have elevated his status among his people. Like that would be my thought process. 

Theresa: It might be yes and because we did say that he was both a silversmith and a blacksmith. 

Angie: Yeah. Okay. So maybe they’re honoring him too by his trade. 

Theresa: Could be. Like, yeah, oh, that’s fascinating. Now I’m here for it. Yeah. So that is fantastic. Now four years after that happened, when the federal government, they determined that they couldn’t secure the land in Arkansas that the Cherokees had settled on. So Sequoia was one of the old seller delegates that goes to Washington DC. 

And he ends up being one who signs a treaty exchanging their Arkansas domain for a territory in the Indian territory, which is now Oklahoma. While they’re in Washington, Sequoia sat for a portrait and it was painted by an artist named Charles Bird King. Bird King? Correct. 

Two words. So bird, middle name, king, last name. I think it’s really just two last names. But like hyphen. There’s even no hyphen, but either way, when you search up Sequoia, you will see his image and it is most likely a work painted by Charles Bird King. 

Angie: I kind of love that. Yeah. I love that there’s a painting that exists that somebody was like, you know, who needs their picture painted? This guy. This guy. 

Theresa: Yeah. Now the Cherokee Nation formally adopts the syllabary in 1825. And this ends up being an incredibly difficult period in their history. Surprise, surprise. Shopping. Now it’s through the work of white Christian missionary named Samuel Worcester, that the Cherokee obtained a printing press and they launched the Cherokee Phoenix in 1828. This is the first bilingual newspaper in US history. 

Angie: Okay. I don’t know why I would have thought it would have been a Spanish speaking one. How dumb of me. 

Theresa: You know, honestly, I didn’t make the same assumption. Like my first thought was Texas exists. Like you would. We just have two newspapers. Do you have the Spanish version or do you want the English version? You can’t have both. Yeah. Yeah. 

Angie: Okay. That’s super cool. I wouldn’t. That’s awesome. 

Theresa: Now the newspaper and other written messages helped the Cherokee maintain their unity and solidarity as they’re being dispersed geographically by the Indian Removal Act. 

Angie: Okay. They got a printing press. You can’t keep us down. Right. 

Theresa: Now there’s a ton going on because they’re being divided politically and there’s tensions between the traditionalist and the assimilationist factions because there’s going to be a group that just be like, we can just blend in with the white dudes. We can eat their bread. Like your chocolate lawyer. Yes. Like your chocolate lawyer. Yeah. 

Okay. Now, missionary sea literacy among the Cherokee has this opportunity to spread the gospel. As you do, they get the religious tracts translated in Cherokee because they have their own printing press. They’ve got their own thing. Right. Yeah. So Bibles are translated into Cherokee as well. 

That’s cool. Now the nation also translated the legal documents, educational materials, annual almanacs, all into Cherokee. They have a written constitution that’s adopted in 1827 that’s printed in Cherokee. And so it’s accessible to every single member of their nation. That is so cool. That is so cool. 

Angie: I want to see it. I want to get ready. 

Theresa: It’s such a modern written language. Like it’s an old language, but it’s a modernly new written, you know. Right. 

Angie: Yeah. I get what you’re saying. 

Theresa: That’s crazy because it’s partly the result of these early efforts. There’s more literature published in Cherokee than any other Native American language. Like so much more time. Like total even sense then. Yeah. Like because of the length of time that we’ve been able to write their stuff down. Right. 

Angie: Okay. That makes sense. Okay. 

Theresa: So that’s on the Cherokee Phoenix. That’s that newspaper. Sequoia ends up moving from Arkansas to the Indian territory in 1829 and he settled near present day Salasaw. His cabin still stands. It’s owned by the Cherokee nation and is open to the public. That’s cool. 

That’s cool. Now, I wish to see it. I would love to see it. That would just be so neat. We’re going to get to 1830. 

President Andrew Jackson signs the India Removal Act. He does this thing. Peruse is an asshole. And this decade. That’s how you really feel. Yeah. I mean, I’ll hold back. I promise. You know, for the past. I figure he’s so long gone. I can just speak my piece. 

Angie: Honestly, I feel like if you’re going to be a person in that sort of position anyway, you’re you should probably able to have the thick and our skin for people to speak their piece. Like you’re going to offend somebody at some point in Jackson, Newbetter. 

Theresa: The only thing I liked about Jackson is he had a parrot that swore profusely. Your beer garden. That is what I want. I just want enough awful swearing parrots. I want them to sound like I’m sitting in a room of Tourette’s patients. And I want to drink beer at the zoo. 

Angie: Which should be allowed in my opinion. It should be. At least maybe a couple of nights of the week anyway. Like so right like maybe only Fridays and Saturdays. 

Theresa: And just in the swear beer garden. 

Angie: Where do you work? I work with the parents in the swear beer garden. Thank you so much. Yeah. Yeah, I’m here for it. 

Theresa: Okay, back to my story. So things get rough. Brutal treatment for the Native Americans, even in Oklahoma, where they’re supposed to be, you know, having a good time on Newland. 1834, the Georgia Guard burned down the office of Cherokee Phoenix, their newspaper. 

Angie: And the Georgia Guard, like this would be like their militia? 

Theresa: I think this would be like the state troopers, not state troopers, the National Guard, but of Georgia. Okay. Yeah, okay. That’s what I think they’re trying to say. That makes sense. 1838, the Cherokee are forced to march the trail of tears to the Indian Territory. Thousands die on this journey. Not a good time. 

Right. Now, 1838, they get to the Indian Territory. Sequoia attempts to unite the old settlers with the Roth Party. And he signs the Act of Union and a new Cherokee Constitution in 1839. It’s in 1842 that he goes in search of Cherokee who have migrated to Mexico. 

And he ends up dying in Mexico the following year. Okay. Now, I will, I’ve got, I’m gonna, I’m gonna take us back up on a high note, right? 

I’ve got, I’ve got quite a bit more. His syllabary is not only transformative to the Cherokee Nation, it provides a template for many other novel writing systems. The syllabics that are used by Cree, Ojibwe, and Inuit peoples that are now in Canada, and the dissimilation for the syllabic writing, or syllabic writing, among the Cree in the 1840s. They’re all inspired by Sequoia’s work. 

That’s cool. And this led to a similar rapid explosion of literacy. There’s a linguist and scholar named Dr. Peter Unseth of Dallas International University. 

He estimates that Sequoia’s influence, or Sequoia’s creation influenced the development of 21 scripts across three continents in 65 languages. Holy cow. And just one person being like, look what I can do. And the others went, oh, I could do that too, actually. 

Angie: This sounds, this sounds like something we need. Yeah. It’s like, now that you mention it, do you have an example of any of the other languages that he inspired? 

Theresa: Looking at my writing. Other than the Cree, Ojibwe, Inuit, or the first, but of the 65, I didn’t take a list. 

Angie: No, hey, it’s cool either way. I think it’s awesome that they, for first of all, I think it’s awesome that they were able to get access to it and then do it for themselves. Like, that’s super cool. 

Theresa: Now, I’m here for it. We’re going to get kind of a couple rough spots. It’s going to be not as rough and considering, you know, places I’ve taken us before. Because of the decades that followed, they’re full of boarding schools and forced assimilation efforts. This is all part of a mission to eradicate the native languages and eradicate who the native people are inside. And it’s forcing the separation of native children from their families, their languages, their cultures, their traditions, everything. But because the Cherokee had a written language, they’re able to hold on to a lot more, right? Now, again, things are declining quite a bit. As of 2022, there are only an estimated 2,000 fluent speakers left. Wow. Okay. 

Angie: Because of just this time frame in the world, right? We lost so many. Yeah. Right. Okay. That makes sense. But I hate it, but it makes sense. 

Theresa: The 20th century has witnessed a revival in learning the Cherokee language. There’s a lot of resources along with increased tribal sovereignty. Speaking is tough for me today. 1870, nope, 1975, the Cherokee Nation passed a new constitution, began printing their newspaper again for the first time more than a century. And there is a Cherokee linguist named Durbin Feeling, and he published the first Cherokee English dictionary. 

Angie: How would you even begin to understand that if you weren’t already a speaker? 

Theresa: That’s exactly. Probably the same way you have an English to Japanese dictionary. Step one, learn the syllabary. Yeah. 

Angie: I’m just thinking like, okay, this is going to sound dumb, but one day my coworker and I had a wild hair to get Italian food. And with that wild hair to get Italian food, he ordered a book that was like, speak Italian in three weeks. 

And it was a picture book that expressed the word and then gave you the picture for what the word was. So like, we understand that that’s spaghetti because we know what spaghetti is and we know how to pronounce spaghetti. But I am looking at it from an aspect of like, me and my whiteness, please forgive me, don’t know how to pronounce a Cherokee word. So how would I be able to articulate? You know what I mean? Does that make sense? Yeah. 

Theresa: And I think step one, because with you and say Italian, we have a shared alphabet. Right. So step one, learn alphabet. Right. 

Angie: So I’m looking at it from the prospect of while he chose letters that were from alphabets that I’m familiar with, that doesn’t mean I’m going to understand the, oh no, you’re going to see the letter A and it’s not pronounced A. Right. 

Like I’m not going to understand how I’m supposed to enunciate that. Right. Is what my brain is thinking. So I’m over here like, Oh, that’s so cool. I can’t do it. 

Theresa: I mean, but you look at like Tolkien who created his own language. Yeah. Yeah. Like it’s been done. 

Angie: It can be done again. Yeah. I mean, they created the Thragian Valyrian so we could have Game of Thrones following Tolkien’s method. 

Theresa: Yeah. It’s just, it’s just now that you know it can be done, you can be your own language creator. Love it. I’m here for it. Okay. So there’s all this happening. In the 1880s, they ended up adding the syllabary to word processors. In the 1880s? 1980s. Thank you. I can’t read numbers out loud. 

Angie: I’m over here like, you’re going to need to explain an 1880s word processor outside of a typewriter. 

Theresa: I need some help. Yeah. It was a printing press, Trisa. You don’t need to guilt a lily. Now, as of the 21st century, the Cherokee syllabary that Sequoia created is still in use. It’s on street signs and buildings across the Cherokee nation. I love that. The face Angie just made was a, aww. But she didn’t vocalize. It’s so cool. 

Angie: Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. I didn’t get the vocal for that. I’m just imagining how cool would be to see that. Like you’re coming out of the coffee shop. You see the sign and you’re like, oh, I know what that is. Yeah. I can read. 

Theresa: That says the approximation of coffee. Yeah. Now, it’s taught to students of all ages and schools and universities in Oklahoma and North Carolina. It also remains a focus of academic research. In 2019, there is a collaborative team of Native American scholars who published a paper analyzing several inscriptions recently found in a cave near Wilstown, which is near Fort Payne. 

Okay. And it was the Alabama town where Sequoia was staying when he developed the syllabary. Some of the inscriptions appear to be documenting group ceremonies conducted deep inside the Manitou Cave. One date, or the date of one event, April of 20, nope, April of 1828 is actually written on the cave wall. 

That’s cool. Another message is carved in syllabary letters on the cave’s high ceiling. Some of the letters are written backwards facing the rock. 

So to speak and spell out the words, I am your grandson. Now, researchers, because you gave me like a weird look, researchers believe that the writer or writers of this message may have been intending to communicate with ancestral spirits, the old ones, in the recesses of the cave. 

Angie: Which would explain why it’s written backwards. Yeah. That’s crazy, which is the face I made. Like, why did we write it backwards? There’s a reason for that. Yeah. That’s so cool. 

Theresa: Okay. But that is the story of Chief Sequoia and the Cherokee syllabary. 

Angie: Your story was, first of all, much less cannibalism than mine. 

Theresa: And I feel like I’m the one accused of the cannibalistic nature. 

Angie: Terrari! You earned your reputation, Teresa. Yeah, you’re right. And typically you own it just fine. Are we starting on a cowardice journey right now? 

Theresa: No, no. This is not going to be redemption arc for me. Good. 

Angie: Because I’m not ready for that era. Thank you so much. 

Theresa: Yeah, no. I will live and die in the villain era. Good. 

Angie: That’s why I love you. I think your story was amazing. I’m so sorry that mine was full of confusing names that I probably butchered. But yours was straightforward and delightful and told me information I had no prior information on. And I really am going to have to go Google it now because I want to see what the writing looks like. Well, I’m here for all of that. 

Theresa: And did you put a sample in your notes so you can share with the rest of the guys? Why would I do that? 

Angie: Sorry, I didn’t include the picture of the most punchable face that I’ve seen in a while besides PDs. Oliver Cromwell? There’s that. Second most punchable face. You’re right. Oliver Cromwell is the first most punchable face. 

Theresa: Yeah. Look, I know who you are. I get your, your bed. I can’t stand that guy. You know? I think even his mother wanted to water boredom. 

Angie: I was going to say maybe his wife, but then you said that and I’m thinking you actually. 

Theresa: I mean, honestly, if you have a face that you don’t find punchable, then rate, review, subscribe and send this to somebody who does have a punchable face. And on that note, goodbye. 

Theresa: Bye.