Elias Boudinot

(c. 1803 - 1839)

A Cherokee Indian born around 1803 as the first of nine children, Gallegina or “Buck” assumed the name of Elias Boudinot, a former member of the Continental Congress, after meeting his namesake on the way to enrolling at the Foreign Mission School in Connecticut. He became a founder of the Moral and Literary Society of the Cherokee Nation in 1824, and served as the editor of the new Cherokee Phoenix in 1828.