whites had been burning Native houses and cornfields for 186 years, beginning
in Virginia in 1622.
A census taken among the Cherokee in Georgia in 1825 (reported in Vogel, ed.,
This Country Was Ours, 289) showed that they owned “33 grist mills, 13 saw
mills, 1 powder mill, 69 blacksmith shops, 2 tan yards, 762 looms, 2,486
spinning wheels, 172 wagons, 2,923 plows, 7,683 horses, 22,531 black cattle,
46,732 swine, and 2,566 sheep.” Some Cherokees were wealthy planters,
including Joseph Vann, who cultivated three hundred acres, operated a ferry,
steamboat, mill, and tavern, and owned this mansion. It aroused the envy of the
sheriff and other whites in Murray County, who evicted Vann in 1834 and