Cyrus Byington (March 11, 1793 – December 31, 1868) was a Christian missionary from

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who began working with the Choctaw in Mississippi in 1821. Although he had been trained as a lawyer, he abandoned law as a career and became a minister affiliated with the

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) was among the first American Christian missionary organizations. It was created in 1810 by recent graduates of Williams College. In the 19th century it was the largest and most imp ...

. During this period he learned the

Choctaw language The Choctaw language (Choctaw: ), spoken by the Choctaw, an Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, is part of the Muskogean language family. Chickasaw is separate but closely related language to Choctaw. The Choctaw Nation of Oklahom ...

, which was then entirely unwritten. He also began to develop a Choctaw

orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...

. After the U.S. government began enforcing its Indian Removal policy to relocate Native Americans from their lands in the Southeastern states to

Indian Territory The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans who held aboriginal title to their land as a sovereign ...

, later called Oklahoma, during the 19th century, in 1835, Byington and his family returned to the new Choctaw homeland and founded a mission near Eagletown. He sought to construct a lexicon and develop other linguistic tools for the Choctaw language to translate Christian prayers, hymns, and bible passages. Byington's work is considered one of the most complete lexicons for a Native American language. He worked nearly 50 years translating Choctaw as a written language.Coleman, Louis."Byington, Cyrus (1793-1868). ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture''.
Accessed April 13, 2018.

Family

Cyrus met Sophia Nye (1800-1880), the daughter of a prosperous family living in

Marietta, Ohio Marietta is a city in, and the county seat of, Washington County, Ohio, United States. It is located in southeastern Ohio at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio Rivers, northeast of Parkersburg, West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, Ma ...

in October 1827. Less than a week after their meeting, he proposed marriage to her (which she apparently did not accept immediately), then left for a preaching tour. During their separation, he wrote passionate letters to her, asking her again to marry him and accompany him back to Mississippi, where he served as a minister to the Choctaws. The letters were obviously persuasive, for the couple married in December 1827 and set off on their life-long partnership shortly afterward.Baird, W. David and Danny Goble. "Sophia Nye Byington." In:''The Story of Oklahoma''. pp. 242-244. 1994. Available on Google Books. University of Oklahoma Press. Norman, Oklahoma.
. Accessed April 14, 2018. The Byington family was very susceptible to local illnesses during the early part of their tenure at Eagletown. Cyrus and his wife both fell critically ill several times. Cyrus' sister joined the mission in 1839, but died of illness a few weeks later. Their elder son died in 1840, at the age of eleven, while their younger son died in 1846 at the age of two and a half.
Accessed April 14, 2018.

Career

Cyrus Byington spent much of his adult life at Eagletown. Like many of his fellow missionaries, he worried over conflicting loyalties between his church superiors, who were adamantly opposed to slavery, and his Choctaw followers, whose families were slave owners. Arguments over slavery intensified throughout the 1850s. Sponsors of the missions, such as the

ABCFM The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) was among the first American Christian missionary organizations. It was created in 1810 by recent graduates of Williams College. In the 19th century it was the largest and most imp ...

, demanded that their missionaries speak out against slavery. However, the government of the Choctaw Nation threatened to expel any who did so. When the missionaries declared they would remain, the sponsors cut off financial support. Byington reportedly said this experience was "like death." Byington defiantly stayed at his post. He published his Choctaw Definer, made up of English words and Choctaw equivalents, in 1852 but his Grammar and Dictionary were not printed until after his death. Meanwhile he continued his normal missionary duties and medical work. Byington expected to continue working at the mission after the end of the Civil War. However, he became so seriously ill, that people at the mission feared he was about to die. His sole surviving son, Cyrus N., brought a carriage and drove him to Little Rock, away, so that he could travel by steamboat, where he could stay with his now-married daughter. He caught smallpox during the trip and had to be quarantined for a month after arriving in Ohio. His wife, who had remained in charge of the Eagleton mission while awaiting the arrival of a new missionary, finally rejoined Cyrus in the spring of 1867.

Death and legacy

Somehow, Byington completed his translation of the first five books of the Bible into Choctaw and personally delivered them to the printer in New York City. He returned to Ohio in the spring of 1868, and resumed work on the 7th edition of his Choctaw Grammar. He was still working on this when he died on December 31, 1868. The grammar book could not be published until 1871, but handwritten copies were made by others for missionaries to use in the meanwhile.

Byington's linguistic work

The

is a member of the Muskogean family and was well known among the frontiersmen, such as US President

Andrew Jackson Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American lawyer, planter, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, he gained fame as ...

and

William Henry Harrison William Henry Harrison (February 9, 1773April 4, 1841) was an American military officer and politician who served as the ninth president of the United States. Harrison died just 31 days after his inauguration in 1841, and had the shortest pres ...

. The language is closely related to

Chickasaw The Chickasaw ( ) are an indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands. Their traditional territory was in the Southeastern United States of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee as well in southwestern Kentucky. Their language is classif ...

; some linguists consider the two varieties a single language. The following table is an example of Choctaw text and its translation:

Orthography

The written Choctaw language is based upon English version of the Roman alphabet and was developed in conjunction with the civilization program of the United States in the early 19th century. Byington's alphabet and a version modified by

John Swanton John Reed Swanton (February 19, 1873 – May 2, 1958) was an American anthropologist, folklorist, and linguist who worked with Native American peoples throughout the United States. Swanton achieved recognition in the fields of ethnology and ethn ...

is seen here.