Authorities are agreed that the birth, breeding, and fortune of Sequoyah were low and that his greatness rested on a life of labor. They are in disagreement, however, as to the date and place of his birth, and have been able merely to offer conjectures concerning his parentage. These mists of uncertainty that surround Sequoyah’s earliest years are, undoubtedly, due to conditions of early frontier life. The fur trader, who represented the outer edge of the advancing wave of European civilization, was the first to penetrate the American wilderness in his exploitation of beasts. Early in the settlement of America he entered the country of the Cherokee which then embraced the beautiful reaches of the southern Appalachians. The Cherokees received the trader with hospitality and kindness, and a lucrative traffic in furs soon resulted; the trader offering professions of regard and extracting exorbitant profits. To better secure the faith of the savage, thereby insuring the success of their venture, many of these traders married Cherokee women. Some, fascinated by this wild life of freedom, reverted to savagery and became “squaw men,” but the great majority adopted this method of wife-taking to avoid a bill for board and lodging, and then speedily disappeared as soon as their trading enterprise was over. An episode of this nature occurred just prior to the termination of the French and Indian War. Of the married life of this couple there is little record. It is quite certain, however, that it was of short duration and that the trader concerned gathered together his effects and went the lighthearted way of other traders before him, and was never heard of again. The babe born to this deserted mother soon afterwards was called by the Cherokees George Gist, presumably the name of the father, while the mother bestowed upon the infant the more musical name of Sequoyah. Tradition has it that the mother of Sequoyah was a woman of no common character and energy. To the end she remained true to her faithless husband and lived alone, maintaining herself by her own efforts and caring for her babe with a devotion that would put many of her more polished sisters to shame. Unaided, she cleared a little patch, carrying her babe about while she broke the ground with a short stick and planted it with Indian corn. “That she is a woman of some capacity is evident from the undeviating affections for herself which she inspired in her son, and the influence she exercised over him. This is all the more extraordinary since Indian women are looked upon in the light of servants rather than companions of man, and males are taught early to despise the character and occupations of women.” But with Sequoyah it seems to have been otherwise, for he carried a lofty respect for his mother to the grave. [Illustration: SEQUOYAH From original painting made in 1828]