Cherokee Phoenix
The Cherokee Phoenix (ᏣᎳᎩ ᏧᎴᎯᏌᏅᎯ, Tsalagi Tsulehisanvhi, since 1829 Cherokee Phoenix, and Indians' Advocate ) was the first newspaper published by Indians in the United States .
Emergence
The first edition of the newspaper appeared on February 21, 1828 in New Echota , the then capital of the Cherokee Nation in what is now Georgia . The Cherokee Nation Council appointed a Cherokee executive to be the editor of the Cherokee Phoenix , which was to appear regularly on a weekly basis in English and Cherokee for the following period. In the Cherokee language this man was called Galagina Oowatie , but his English name was Elias Boudinot (1802–1839). He had taken this name from Elias Boudinot Jr. (1740-1821), who had financed his training as a missionary. After completing his missionary training, he translated the New Testament into the Cherokee language.
The fact that the newspaper was printed in both languages was only possible because the Cherokee syllabary had been developed by Sequoyah shortly before, between 1809 and 1821 . The Cherokee Council was able to commission missionary Samuel Worcester to cast the lead letters needed for the Cherokee alphabet.
The founding of the newspaper is related to Andrew Jackson's presidency and above all to the Indian Removal Act of 1830. With this law, a few years later, most of the Indians who lived east of the Mississippi were driven westward (see Path of Tears ). The first edition appeared on February 21, 1828. Thus the paper was founded in the years in which other important newspapers appeared for the first time, such as the Charleston Mercury (1822), the New York Evening Post (1829) and the New York Sun ( 1833).
In accordance with its objectives, the paper reported on political and legal decisions that affected the Cherokee, including the Indian Removal Act , which provided for the expulsion of the Cherokee and other tribes to the west, and of religious groups. Isaac H. Harris did the printing.
Change of editor and hiring
Tensions within the Cherokee about staying or leaving increased, especially between John Ross , who was called Guwisguwi by the Cherokee , and Elias Boudinot. Ross had been chief of the Cherokee since 1828 and a sharp opponent of leaving the ancestral territories, whereas Boudinot increasingly advocated leaving because he saw that his assimilation efforts were unsuccessful.
On August 1, 1832, Boudinot had to resign as editor under pressure from Ross and was replaced by Elijah Hicks, Ross's brother-in-law.
The departure was opposed by the new editor. Due to the opposition to federal government policy, the paper soon got into trouble, ran out of funds and on May 31, 1834, the paper finally had to cease publication after the publication of the state of Georgia was banned. A total of 409 issues were published.
Elias Boudinot, who had hoped to prevent the Cherokee from being forcibly relocated through cultural adaptation ("civilization"), nevertheless signed a treaty with the USA together with around 500 other Cherokee, which was called the Treaty of New Echota ( Treaty of New Echota ) became known. However, the majority of the tribe refused to submit and never signed the treaty. However, under military pressure, she had to follow the path of tears that killed around 4,000 of the 10,000 Cherokee.
Boudinot, as one of the driving forces behind the so-called "Ridge Faction" that voted for the signing of the treaty, was held accountable by the "Ross Faction", who viewed the eviction of the Cherokee from their ancestral territories as a capital crime. On June 22, 1839, Boudinot was stabbed to death in Oklahoma by one of the opponents of the treaty and the unsuccessful adjustment policy. The same fate befell Major Ridge and other representatives of the Ridge faction . Stand Watie, on the other hand, a younger brother of Elias Boudinot, who was also supposed to pay for the forced relocation, was the only one to escape and later became an important opponent of John Ross and also his successor as chief chief of the Cherokee nation from 1862 to 1866.
revival
In the 20th century, the newspaper was revived in Tahlequah , now the capital of the Cherokee nation. It has been published monthly and in English since 2007.
Web links
- Transcription of the English-language newspaper parts by the Hunter Library of Western Carolina University : library.wcu.edu
- Digital version: galib.uga.edu
Notes and evidence
- ↑ The Cherokee Phoenix shouldn't be the last Indian newspaper. The Quileute in western Washington state also made their ideas heard in a newspaper from 1908 to 1910. See Heather McKimmie: Quileute Independent and Quileute Chieftain, 1908-1910. A Seattle Ethnic Press Report , University of Washington Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project website , 1999 . The Real American was published there from 1922 to around 1924 . A National Paper for Indians and their Friends , cf. Erin Plummer: The Real American. “A National Paper for Indians and their Friends,” University of Washington Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project website , 2005 .
- ^ Howard Zinn: A People's History of the United States , Harper Perennial, 2005, p. 137 ISBN 0-06-083865-5
- ↑ Cherokee Phoenix: digital.library.okstate.edu ( Memento of the original from July 19, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Official website: cherokeephoenix.org
