Our Christian Heritage: 'Elias Boudinot – Cherokee Editor and Leader'
By Simonetta Carr - Posted at Place for Truth:
Published June 22, 2026
"In 1828, Boudinot was elected editor of the bilingual Cherokee Phoenix, the first to be published by a Native American nation. For Boudinot, the newspaper was more than a source of information about important news and recent laws. It was a way to tell the colonists that the Cherokee were not savages, but highly civilized and deserving of running their own nations."Many have heard of an American Founding Father named Elias Boudinot. As a President of the Second Continental Congress, a president and founder of the American Bible Society, and a signatory of the Treaty of Paris (which formally ended the American Revolutionary War), he deserves an article of his own.
This article is instead about a Cherokee man named at birth Galagina (The Buck) Oowatie who was so impressed by the founding father’s character and ideas that he asked for his permission to adopt his name. The founding father, who was equally impressed by the young man, was happy to give it.
Our Boudinot was born around 1802, the eldest son of nine children of Oowatie and Susanna Reese, of mixed Cherokee and European ancestry. He adopted the name Elias Boudinot in 1819 when he enrolled at the Foreign Mission School in Connecticut. From his youth, Boudinot was convinced of the importance of education and committed to promote it among his nation – both for their prosperity and their survival. He formally converted to Christianity in 1820. In 1824, Boudinot collaborated with others in translating the New Testament into Cherokee.
