Sequoyah makes Native American memes possible.

Imagine being the guy who invents a written alphabet for your people’s language. I’d say that definitely makes you worthy of immortalization in statue form. It’s probably on par with Martin Luther’s German translation of the Latin bible (European history nerds, where y’all at?). Sequoyah, the Native American man raised as a Cherokee by his mother in Tennessee, created a written alphabet of his language in the 19th century. Vinnie Ream was the G.O.A.T. and sculptor of Sequoyah, best known for her memorial statue of Abraham Lincoln that was commissioned when she was a teenager. She was the first woman to receive a statue commission from the U.S. government.

Sequoyah created symbols for the 86 sounds of the Cherokee language, and his people picked up the written language quickly. He was politically active among the Cherokee of Oklahoma, often serving as an envoy to Washington, D.C.. Vinnie’s connection to the Native American tribe dates back to her girlhood days in Wisconsin, but she actually had a Sioux man stand for her in conceiving this statue.

Unfortunately, this is the last sculpture that Vinnie ever worked on before she died. Indeed, she started molding busts of Sequoyah 40 years earlier, but that good for nothing husband of hers prevented her from working on sculptural pieces for decades. Richard Hoxie was one of those fellas who believed a woman’s place was to support a man at the expense of her own independence. Not uncommon for the times, but still frustrating to read about. George Zolnay completed the work which now stands in Washington, D.C..

Sequoyah represents the achievements of two trailblazing individuals in one convenient statue. It warms my icy heart to see statues of people who deserve to be memorialized.