Cherokee Phoenix - 19th Century

19th Century

In the mid-1820s the Cherokee tribe was being pressured from the government and particularly Georgia to remove to new lands west of the Mississippi River, or to end their tribal government and surrender control of their traditional territory to the United States (US) government. The General Council of the Cherokee Nation established a newspaper, in collaboration with Samuel Worcester, a missionary, who cast the type for the Cherokee syllabary. The Council selected Elias Boudinot as the first editor.

Named Galagina Oowatie, in the Cherokee language, he was born in 1804 at Oothcaloga, Cherokee Nation, near present-day Chatsworth, Georgia. He chose the name of Boudinot after meeting the statesman, while on his way to the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Connecticut, where he graduated. There Boudinot married Harriet Ruggles Gold, daughter of a prominent Congregational family. They returned to live at New Echota. Boudinot edited the newspaper for its first four and a half years.

Boudinot named the Cherokee Phoenix as a symbol of renewal, for the mythical bird that rose to new life from ashes of fire. The Nation founded the paper to gather support and to help keep members of the Cherokee Nation united and informed. 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. As the issue of removal attracted attention in the United States (US), the newspaper arranged a fund-raising and publicity tour, which attracted new subscribers from almost all areas of the US and Europe. Boudinot gradually published mostly in English, trying to reach that larger audience.

In 1829, Boudinot renamed the Cherokee Phoenix as the Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate, reflecting his intention to influence an audience beyond the Cherokee. He addressed issues which Indians across the United States and its territories faced related to assimilation and removal from their traditional homelands. The paper no longer related solely the Cherokee tribe. The paper also offered stories about debates over Indian removal and U.S. Supreme Court cases that affected Indian life.

Boudinot believed removal was inevitable and that the Cherokee should protect their rights by treaty. He was allied with Major Ridge in this view. His views were opposed by the majority of the Cherokee, including Principal Chief John Ross, elected by the constitutional republic in 1828. The Council forced Boudinot to resign in 1832.

Elijah Hicks, an anti-removal Cherokee, replaced Boudinot as editor. When the federal government failed to pay the annuity to the Cherokee in 1834, the paper ceased publication. In 1835 the Georgia Guard took the printing press to prevent any further publication. The state militia was organized to police the Cherokee territory which the state had claimed.