Sequoyah was born about 1770 in the village of taskigi. He was a Cherokee Indian, and , along with his entire tribe, he was illiterate. As a result of a hunting accident that left him partial Crippled, he enjoyed more leisure time than other tribesmen. And he began to ponder the idea that the Indian people might also come to possess the secret of the 'talking leaf'. Alone in the woods, he spent hours playing with pieces of wood or making odd little marks on one stone with another. Neither his wife nor his friend offered him any encouragement, and many ridiculed him. But sequoyah was obsessed with his dream of developing an alphabet for the Cherokee language.