Law Library Digital Special Collections

[LAWS OF THE CHEROKEE NATION: ADOPTED BY THE COUNCIL AT VARIOUS PERIODS (1839-1851)]
(TAHLEQUAH, CHEROKEE NATION: 1852).

This extraordinary collection of Cherokee laws was produced at Tahlequah, a capital of the Cherokee Nation and early center of Native American publishing, where printing continues today. The language is Cherokee, printed according to a syllabary developed in the 1810s and 1820s for the sake of writing the language. The printers of these collected laws were John Candy and Mark Tyger; Joseph Blackbird and Hercules Martin translated them into Cherokee. As in some family Bibles, there appears here a handwritten, abbreviated family tree of one generation of the Fodder family. Members of the family are recorded as residing in the Nation in the late 19th and 20th centuries; one is “Sequoyah,” who was likely named after the founder of the Cherokee writing system. Further research is needed to learn more about this intriguing family and its members.


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