Life in Arkansas and Farther West
After the Nation accepted his syllabary in 1825, Sequoyah walked to the Cherokee lands in the Arkansas Territory. There he set up a blacksmith shop and a salt works. He continued to teach the syllabary to anyone who wished. In 1828, Sequoyah journeyed to Washington, D.C., as part of a delegation to negotiate a treaty for land in the planned Indian Territory.
During his trip, he met representatives of other Native American tribes. Inspired by these meetings, he decided to create a syllabary for universal use among Native American tribes. Sequoyah began to journey into areas of present-day Arizona and New Mexico, to meet with tribes there.
In addition, Sequoyah dreamed of seeing the splintered Cherokee Nation reunited. Sometime between 1843 and 1845, he died during a trip to Mexico, when he was seeking Cherokee who had moved there at the time of Indian Removal. His burial location is believed to be at the border of Mexico and Texas.
In 1938, the Cherokee Nation Principal Chief J. B. Milam funded an expedition to find Sequoyah's grave in Mexico. A party of Cherokee and non-Cherokee scholars embarked from Eagle Pass, Texas, on January 1939. They found a grave site near a fresh water spring in Coahuila, Mexico, but could not conclusively determine the grave site was that of Sequoyah.
In 2003, the Cherokee Nation of Mexico received a Congressional Record acknowledging the possible discovery of Sequoyah's burial site in Coahuila, Mexico, where pilgrimages were held for several years, in honor of his legacy.
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