The Cherokee Syllabary was finished by Sequoyah (George Guess) in 1821, after 12 years of work. He is credited as the only man in history to create an alphabet in such a manner. His story is one of persistance and perseverance, as t here were obstacles along the way to the creation of this syllabary. There are various books that tell his story in detail, check out Amazon.com for more information.
    A syllabary is an alphabet where each symbol stands for a syllable. In Cherokee, there are 85 symbols, each representing a different syllable and sound. There are 6 vowels, an s that stands alone, and the remaining 78 syllables are a combination of consonant and vowel. The s is used as a prefix and suffix, without it, 17 more symbols would be needed.
   There are no sounds for the English sounds B, F, J, P, R, V, X, or TH.
 
Much of this info is from Prentice Robinson's book, the Easy to Use Cherokee Dictionary.

A large gif file of the entire syllabary in one image.