Elias Boudinot was born near Rome, Georgia, about 1802. Like his cousin John Ridge, he was sent to Cornwall, Connecticut, to attend school. During the course of his journey he visited Elias Boudinot, the eminent jurist and diplomat, who was his patron and benefactor. As a compliment to him, this young Cherokee adopted his name. Several years after leaving the Cornwall school, he returned to that village to marry Miss Harriet Gold, whose acquaintance he had made while he was a student. He was one of the most progressive men in the Cherokee tribe. He labored with the missionaries in translating the Bible into the Cherokee language and he was the editor of the Cherokee Phoenix, which was the first paper published for any Indian tribe. With Major Ridge and John Ridge, he was regarded as a leader of the Treaty Party and he met his death by assassination on the same day that they did. Several of his descendants have been prominent in the affairs of the Cherokee Nation. Stand Watie, the Cherokee Confederate leader, was a younger brother of Boudinot.

Elias Boudinot (Cherokee Newspaper editor) on Removal and "civilization" efforts, 1828: 

It appears that the advocates of this new system of civilizing the Indians are very strenuous in maintaining the novel opinion that it is impossible to enlighten the Indians, surrounded as they are by the white population, and that they assuredly will become extinct, unless they are removed. It is a fact which we would not deny, that many tribes have perished away in consequence of white population, but we are yet to be convinced that this will always be the case, in spite of every measure taken to civilize them. We contend that suitable measures to a sufficient extent have never been employed. And how dare these men make an assertion without sufficient evidence ? What proof have they that the system which they are now recommending will succeed? Where have we an example in the whole history of man, of a Nation or tribe, removing in a body, from a land of civil and religious means, to a perfect wilderness, in order to be civilized? We are fearful these men are building castles in the air, whose fall will crush those poor Indians who may be so blinded as to make the experiment. We are sorry to see that some of the advocates of this system speak so disrespectfully, if not contemptuously, of the present measures of improvement, now in successful operation among most of the Indians in the US -- the only measures too, which have been crowned with success and bid fair to meliorate the condition of the Aborigines.

Selected Bibliography

Perdue, Theda. ed. Boudinot, Elias. Cherokee Editor: The Writings of Elias Boudinot. Athens, GA: U of Georgia P, 1996.

Boudinot, Elias. Poor Sarah: or religion exemplified in the life and death of an Indian woman. 1818.

Gabriel, Ralph H. Elias Boudinot, Cherokee, & his America. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1941. E99 .C5 B74

Dale, Edward E., and Gaston Litton. Cherokee cavaliers; forty years of Cherokee history as told in the correspondence of the Ridge-Watie-Boudinot family. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1939. E99 .C5 D23

Ashwill, Gary. "Savagism and Its Discontents: James Fenimore Cooper and His Native American Contemporaries." American Transcendental Quarterly 8.3 (Sep 1994): 211-27.

Luebke, Barbara. "Elias Boudinot, Cherokee Editor: The Father of American Indian Journalism; Proc. of Conf. on Native Amer. Press in Wisconsin & the Nation, Apr. 22-23, 1982." Native American Press in Wisconsin and the Nation. Eds. James P. Danky, Maureen E. Hady, and Richard J. Morris. Madison: U of Wisconsin Lib. School, 1982. 121-31.

- - -. "Elias Boudinot and 'Indian Removal'." Outsiders in 19th-Century Press History: Multicultural Perspectives. Eds. Frankie Hutton and Barbara S. Reed. Bowling Green, OH: Popular, 1995. 115-44.

Peyer, Bernd C. The Tutor'd Mind: Indian Missionary-Writers in Antebellum America. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1997.

Walker, Willard. "The Roles of Samuel A. Worcester and Elias Boudinot in the Emergence of a Printed Cherokee Syllabic Literature." International Journal of American Linguistics 51.4 (Oct 1985): 610-612.

MLA Style Citation of this Web Page

Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 3: Early Nineteenth Century - Elias Boudinot." PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. WWW URL: http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap3/boudinot.html (provide page date or date of your login).