Joseph Vann

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Chief Joseph "Rich Joe" Vann

Chief Joseph "Rich Joe" Vann
Born February 11, 1798(1798-02-11)
Spring Place, Georgia
Died October 23, 1844
near Louisville, Kentucky
Occupation Chief Vann House Owner, Cherokee Leader
Spouse Jennie Springston, Polly Blackburn

Cherokee Chief Joseph H. "Rich Joe" Vann, (11 February 1798 – 23 October 1844). He was a Cherokee leader who owned Chief Vann House, many slaves, taverns, and steamboats that he operated on the Arkansas, Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee. He born Spring Place, Georgia on February 11, 1798. Joseph was the son of Chief James Vann and and Margaret "Peggy" Scott. His grandparents were Clement Vann, a Scottish trader who came from South Carolina, and Mary Christiana (Wah-Li or Wa-wli). Joseph was his father's favorite child and primary recipient of his father's estate and wealth.

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[edit] End of "Crazy James", Start of "Rich Joe"

Joseph was 11 years old in the room when his father, Chief Crazy James was murdered, in Buffington’s Tavern in 1809 near the site of the family-owned ferry. Before Chief Crazy James was killed, he was a powerful chief in the Cherokee Nation and he wanted Joseph to inherit the wealth that he had built instead of his wives but Cherokee law stipulated that the home go to his wife, Peggy, while his possessions and property were to be divided among his children. Eventually, this was the Cherokee tradition at the time, so the Cherokee council granted Joseph the inheritance in line with his father's wish; this included 2,000 acres (8.1 km²) of land, trading posts, river ferries, and the Vann House in Spring Place, Georgia. Joseph also inherited his fathers gold and deposited over $200,000 in gold in a bank in Tennessee. This was a fortune worth well over $2 million by today’s standards. That gave Joseph earn of nickname, "Rich Joe".

In 1810, Rich Joe rode 300 miles (480 km) to attend school in Charleston at age of 12 to earn an educational level. When he was 15 years old, he explored the Mississippi, Ohio and Tennessee Rivers on a keel-boat in searching for setting his own shipping, boating, and trading business in 1813. He built his own way of freight wagons and roads as well as operating several-boats when he fought in wars, bought, sold and hauled business. He also bought sailing ship to make a partnership between Charleston, SC and France to operate that ship. He was also in material business so he bought and installed a cotton gin at Spring Place, organized the Cherokee in producing cloth, wool, corn liquor, furs, skins, corn, and smoked meats. He traded much of his products to Andrew Jackson during the “Indian Wars” with the Creeks and collected over $1 million in federal IOU’s in return. He had to put his trusted Cherokee escort on his freight wagons for protection while traveling through hostile territories. He possessed his father's talent for shrewd trading.

In 1819, President James Monroe and his three men were on a trip from Augusta to Nashville, they were going to spend the night in the Spartan Moravian mission at Spring Place but President Monroe went to near location - Vann House about a mile away. Rich Joe was 20 years old when he met President Monroe. He found that Vann House more comfortable than mission so he asked Rich Joe a permission to spend his house.

Through the 1820s Rich Joe proved every bit as shrewd as his father James and expanded the family wealth like his father. He was married Jennie Springston in 1820 and Polly Blackburn in 1826. He was a bigamist. He and Jennie had 4 sons and 4 daughters including John Shepherd (Se La U Le) Vann. In 1827, Rich Joe secured his political place in the Cherokee Nation. He was a successful candidate for the National Council, the lower house of the Cherokee legislature.

[edit] Eviction from Georgia

After the Georgia Gold Rush Rich Joe hired a white man to run Vann House. Although the man never actually worked for Vann, the Cherokee had unknowingly violated a new Georgia law forbidding whites from working for Cherokees without a permit. In 1834, Colonel William Bishop and his infamous Georgia Guard tried to take over the house. A man, Spencer Riley, who claimed to have won the house in the Land Lottery of 1832 as known as the Sixth Georgia Land Lottery leading up to the Cherokee Trail of Tears, Rich Joe, his wife and family were caught in the midst of the struggle between the two. Rich Joe was evicted by Colonel Bishop of the Guard this time for Vann's violation of hiring a white man without a permit.

Colonel Bishop used the house as his local headquarters and permitted his brother, Absalom Bishop, to live there. He did not like about the idea of Riley's ideas including settle in the house and did not sit well with his brother so he and his men took a smoldering log and threw it on the cantilevered steps and smoked Riley out as forcing Riley out and returning his brother to the house. Rich Joe and his family were finally forced out of the house in March, 1835. In November of that year Colonel Bishop imprisoned John Howard Payne for 13 days on the grounds. Payne, noted as composer of "Home, Sweet Home" had been charged with sedition for supporting the claims of the Cherokee over the state of Georgia.” Rich Joe filed a lawsuit over the dispossession of his property and was eventually awarded $19,605 for the loss of Vann House.

[edit] New Life of Oklahoma

After the eviction, Rich Joe moved his family to Tennessee, where he owned a large plantation on the Tennessee River near the mouth of Ooltewah Creek but in 1836 They again moved west, this time to Webbers Falls, Oklahoma on the Arkansas River. When the Cherokee were being forced off their native lands during Trail of Tears in 1838 to Oklahoma, that Rich Joe took a party of surveyors to the Oklahoma territory. He discovered that the land was dry, rocky and not capable of supporting crops or game. He surveyed the surrounding area and discovered that the land on the east side of the Mississippi was far superior. He went to Washington and inquired through official channels to purchase the good land. When the commission gave him the price of $1 million in gold, he opened his bags and counted out $1 million in federal IOU’s signed by Andrew Jackson. He transported several hundred Cherokee men, women, children and horses on his steam-boat to the new territory as he established a steam-boat line.

In 1839, he became the first Assistant Chief of the Cherokee Nation under the new 1839 Constitution that was created in Oklahoma, serving with Principal Chief John Ross as a statesman for the Cherokee nation for helping Cherokees rebuilding their new lives in their new home. He is still 'Rich Joe'.

[edit] Death and End of "Rich Joe"

On October 23, 1844, while his steamship Lucy Walker was headed to New Orleans during during a drinking party and an impromptu steamboat race on the Ohio river, Rich Joe tried to win the race but he was falling behind in the race and he was almost out of fuel to stoke the burner so he gave the order to throw on some of the fat sides of pork that were nearby which is bad and hazardous mixed chemicals. The stoker who was a freed-slave, protested, but in his drunken state, Rich Joe ordered it done, and displayed a pistol for emphasis. The stoker did as he was told and then jumped overboard. For Rich Joe's mistake, a boiler exploded sinking the ship, killing him and more than 60 other passengers near Louisville, Kentucky. The stoker was the only survivor of Lucy Walker. The remains of Rich Joe were found across the river as hair, teeth and eyeballs dotted the river bank, and the left arm that still wearing his purple silk sleeve, and a huge diamond ring, was found dangling from a tree 1/4 mile down-river from the explosion.

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