12 Facts About Joseph Vann

Joseph H Vann was a Cherokee leader of mixed-race ancestry, a businessman and planter in Georgia, Tennessee and Indian Territory.

Joseph Vann built up his businesses along the major waterways, operating his steamboats on the Tennessee, Ohio, Mississippi, and Arkansas rivers.

James Vann was a powerful chief in the Cherokee Nation and had several other wives and children.

Young Joseph Vann was his father's favorite child and was the major heir of his estate and wealth.

At age 11, Joseph Vann was in the room when his father James was murdered in Buffington's Tavern in 1809 in present-day Forsyth County, GA, about 70 miles from the family home, Diamond Hill, at Spring Place, Murray County.

Joseph Vann inherited his father's gold and deposited over $200,000 in gold in a bank in Tennessee.

In 1834 Joseph Vann was evicted from his father's Georgia mansion, "Diamond Hill," as part of this process.

Joseph Vann moved his large family and business operations to Tennessee.

Joseph Vann established a large plantation on the Tennessee River near the mouth of Wolftever Creek, which became the center of a settlement called Joseph Vann's Town.

In 1837 prior to the main Cherokee Removal, Joseph Vann transported a few hundred Cherokee men, women, children, their African-American slaves and horses aboard a flotilla of flat boats to Webbers Falls at the falls of the Arkansas River in Indian Territory.

Joseph Vann built up his steamboat business, sending his boats throughout the Mississippi tributaries and to New Orleans.

Joseph Vann put his surviving slaves to work as crew members of his steamboat, named Lucy Walker after his favorite race horse.