Background
Elias Boudinot was born around 1803 in Georgia among his people, the Cherokees, who, due to contact with the whites, were rapidly becoming civilized. His Indian name was Galagina, pronounced Killke-nah.
Elias Boudinot was born around 1803 in Georgia among his people, the Cherokees, who, due to contact with the whites, were rapidly becoming civilized. His Indian name was Galagina, pronounced Killke-nah.
Boudinot was sent to Cornwall, Connecticut, to attend the American Boarding School. He enrolled in school as Elias Boudinot after having met and been impressed by another Elias Boudinot, a writer, poet and statesman who was once President of the United States under the Articles of Confederation and director of the United States Mint.
The education of the Cherokee Elias Boudinot began at the school of the Moravian Mission at Spring Place (now part of Murray County, Georgia).
In 1818, Boudinot, with two other young Cherokees, was sent by the missionaries to the mission school at Cornwall, Connecticut While there he took the name of the benefactor of the school, Elias Boudinot.
Since George Guess (Sikwaji, or Sequoyah), a young man of Cherokee-German blood, who could not read, invented a Cherokee syllabary of eighty-six characters, this was immediately followed by a great increase of interest in Indian education. In 1824 the National Council decided to establish a newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, and employed young Boudinot as editor at $300 a year.
The greater part of the paper was printed in English, but a fourth or more was in Cherokee and it was very popular among the natives. In his editorial work Boudinot was assisted by the Rev. Samuel A. Worcester, a medical missionary. The paper appeared weekly, except for occasional omissions, from February 21, 1828, until October 1835, when it was suppressed by the Georgia authorities for unfavorable remarks about the attitude of the state.
In 1833, the United Brethren's Missionary Society published in Cherokee characters at New Echota a book by Boudinot called Poor Sarah or the Indian Woman.
In 1831, the Council elected John Ross, who was bitterly opposed to removal to the West, chief executive for an indefinite term. This seemed to John Ridge, cousin to Boudinot, a death blow to his own political ambitions and he gradually, under pressure and persuasion from government agents, became an advocate of removal.
In 1835, Boudinot joined him and a few others in signing, without any authority, a treaty for removal. In September 1837, along with John Ridge and his family, he joined Dr. Samuel Austin Worcester, a medical missionary, in Park Hill, near the capitol at Tahlequah.
On June 22, 1839 Boudinot was treacherously murdered in revenge for his part in the transaction.
Elias Boudinot's chief achievement was in being the first editor of the bilingual newspaper Cherokee Phoenix, which began publication in the Cherokee Nation East (now Georgia) in 1828. He collaborated from 1823 until his death, with Worcester in translating several books of the New Testament into Cherokee language. He was also known as a strong supporter and defender of Cherokee rights. Boudinot was one of the strongly supporters of the enactment of the death penalty for giving away Cherokee land which initiated in 1829. He later became a primem over in the Treaty Party and was a signer of the Treaty of New Echota in 1835.
Boudinot converted to Christianity about 1820 and considered entering the Andover Theological Seminary. Boudinot had taken classes at Andover Theological Seminary in Massachusetts, it being his goal to take the gospel of Christianity to his people.
Pressure for the Cherokees to be removed to the west mounted, and utilizing his newspaper, Boudinot became a defender of Cherokee rights. In 1829 he strongly supported the enactment of the death penalty for giving away Cherokee land.
Boudinot was twice married: in 1826 to Harriet Ruggles Gold, who bore him six children, and, after her death in 1836, to Delight Sargent, who died without issue.
1784–1832
1828–1853
1827–1856
1832–1845
1814 – unknown
1808–1852
writer, poet and statesman
1806–1871
1829–1877
1799–1893
1805–1836
medical missionary Worcester, known as the "Cherokee Messenger" among the Cherokees, had worked with Boudinot since 1826 in the old Cherokee Nation.
1836–1864
1835–1890
