Entrepreneur, steamboat operator, and prominent member of the Cherokee Tribe. He worked as a businessman and planter along the waterways of Tennessee, Ohio, Mississippi, and Arkansas.
When he was eleven years old, he witnessed his father's murder.
Born to a family of mixed Cherokee and European ancestry, he was a prominent slaveholder.
He had spouses named Jennie Springston and Polly Blackburn.
Andrew Jackson, by passing the Indian Removal Act of 1830, forced Vann out of his home.