Wu-te-he 'Wuttah'

Wuttah is a Cherokee woman

Biography

Almost nothing is known of Wurteh, the Cherokee mother of Sequoyah. Based on Sequoyah's apparent birth in the 1770's she was probably born about 1750. She is believed to be a relative of the chief known as Old Tassel. Accounts of Sequoyah's early life state that he lived with his mother and engaged with her in a small dairy farm and in the deerskin trade. Her date of death is unknown, but George Lowrey's account suggested that she was still alive in the early 1800's. [1]

Biographer John Davis wrote, "On his mother's side of his ancestry, Sequoyah was of a good family in the tribe, his uncle being a chief at Echota. Sequoyah's mother was of the Paint Clan... If little is known of Sequoyah's mother, even less is known of his father." [2]

Research Notes

Her name is most often seen spelled as Wurteh, but as Cherokee syllables never end in 'r'

Sources

1. ↑ Notable Persons in Cherokee History: Sequoyah. Recounted by Major George Lowrey, translation recorded by John Howard Payne, 1835. Reprinted in the Journal of Cherokee Studies, Vol. II, No. 4, Fall, 1977 pp. 392
2. ↑ Davis, John B. The Life and Work of Sequoyah, Chronicles of Oklahoma, 1930, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 149 ff. Oklahoma Historical Society. Digitized at Davis
See also:

There are numerous published biographies for Sequoyah, but few are considered reliable. In addition to the two cited above, generally, reliable sources are:

• McKenney and Hall, Sequoyah in History of the Indian Tribes of America, Philadelphia, 1856 (language is extremely dated, but text appears to be accurate)
• Cherokee Advocate newspaper articles published during Sequoyah's life
• Cherokee Phoenix newspaper articles published during Sequoyah's life

Source: The WikiTree Native American Project @ https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Cherokee-300
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Wurteh Paint Clan was born 1742 in Tasagi Town, Crockett, TN, USA1, and died 1800 in TN.She married Nathaniel Gist on 1761 in Tennessee.