The Cherokee are an Iroquois-speaking tribe that lived in isolation, their own way, with a population of about 50,000. The Cherokee tribes were originally scattered throughout the states of North and South Carolina, Virginia, Alabama, and Georgia. The Cherokee now live mostly in Oklahoma and number about 15,000. The chief of the Sequoia tribe became the founder of the syllabic alphabet of the Cherokee language in 1826. Two years later he began publishing a newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, in the language of his people.