High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Elias Boudinot (born Gallegina Uwati, also known as Buck Watie) (1802 – June 22, 1839), was a member of a prominent family of the Cherokee Nation in present-day Georgia. Educated in New England, he was one of several leaders who believed that acculturation was critical to Cherokee survival; he was influential in the period of removal to the West. In 1828 Boudinot became the editor of the Cherokee Phoenix, the first Native American newspaper. It published in Cherokee and English, to showcase Cherokee achievements as well as to build unity within the Nation while under United States pressure for Indian Removal.