Sequoyah (/səˈkwɔɪə/ sə-QUOY-yə; Cherokee: ᏍᏏᏉᏯ, Ssiquoya, or ᏎᏉᏯ, Sequoya, pronounced [seɡʷoja]; c. 1770 – August 1843), also known as George Gist or George Guess, was a Native American polymath and neographer of the Cherokee Nation.

In 1821, Sequoyah completed his Cherokee syllabary, enabling reading and writing in the Cherokee language. One of the first North American Indigenous groups to gain a written language, the Cherokee Nation officially adopted the syllabary in 1825, helping to unify a forcibly divided nation with new ways of communication and a sense of independence. Within a quarter-century, the Cherokee Nation had reached a literacy rate of almost 100%, surpassing that of surrounding European-American settlers.

Sequoyah's creation of the Cherokee syllabary is among the few times in recorded history that an individual member of a pre-literate group created an original, effective writing system. It is believed to have inspired the development of 21 scripts or writing systems used in 65 languages in North America, Africa, and Asia.

Sequoyah was also an important representative for the Cherokee nation; he went to Washington, D.C., to sign two relocation-and-land-trading treaties.

Few primary documents describe facts of Sequoyah's life. Some anecdotes were passed down orally, but these often conflict or are vague about specific times and places.

Sequoyah was born in the Cherokee town of Tuskegee, Tennessee, around 1778. James Mooney, a prominent anthropologist and historian of the Cherokee people, quoted a cousin as saying that as a little boy, Sequoyah spent his early years with his mother. In the people's matrilineal kinship system, children were considered born into their mother's family and clan, and her male relatives were most important to their upbringing. His name is believed to come from the Cherokee word siqua meaning "hog". Historian John B. Davis says the name may have been derived from sikwa (either a hog or an opossum) and vi meaning "place, enclosure". This is a reference either to his childhood deformity or to a later injury that left Sequoyah disabled. According to a descendant of his, he was born with the name Gi sqwa ya ("there's a bird inside"). After repeatedly failing to complete his farm duties, his name was changed to Sequoyah ("There's a pig inside").

His mother, Wut-teh, is debated to be either the daughter, sister, or niece of a Cherokee chief. Historians believe her to be related to the chiefs who have been identified as the brothers Old Tassel and Doublehead. John Watts (also known as Young Tassel) was a nephew of the two chiefs, so it is likely that Wut-teh and Watts were related in some fashion. Due to native customs, Sequoyah learned everything from his mother, such as the Cherokee language and his first job of a tradesman.

Sources differ as to the identity of Sequoyah's father. Davis cites Emmet Starr's 1917 book, Early History of the Cherokees, as saying that Sequoyah's father was a Virginian fur trader from Swabia named Nathaniel Guyst, Guist, or Gist. Other sources state that his father could have been an unlicensed German peddler named George Gist, who entered the Cherokee Nation in 1768, married, and fathered a child. Another source identified his father as Nathaniel Gist, son of Christopher Gist, who became a commissioned officer with the Continental Army associated with George Washington during the American Revolution. Gist would have been a man of some social status and financial backing; Josiah C. Nott claimed he was the "son of a Scotchman". The Cherokee Phoenix reported in 1828 that Sequoyah's father was a half-blood and his grandfather a white man.