Early Life and Education
James Vann was born the oldest of three children of Wah-Li Vann and a Scots trader, at Spring Place (in present-day Georgia) in February 1765 or 1766. Wah-li was of the Anigategawi or Wild Potato People clan. James had younger sisters Nancy and Jennie.
The children grew up within the Cherokee culture and clan of their mother. As the Cherokee had a matrilineal system of property and hereditary leadership, the children traditionally gained their status in the tribe from their mother's people. Their maternal uncles were more important to the rearing of the children, especially the boy James, within the Cherokee nation than was their father.
The Vann children were likely bilingual, learning some European-American culture from their father. Wah-li later married Clement Vann (possibly related to Joseph), who acted as a stepfather to the children. (Sources disagree about the identity of Vann's biological father: Gary E. Moulton of the University of Nebraska, suggests Clement Vann. William H. Vann, Jr. in his self-published genealogy book, Vann Generations with Cherokee Origins from John Joseph Vann & James Clement Vann I of NC, SC, TN, GA ca 1750-1989, identified Joseph Vann. Virginia Vann Perry chooses another James Vann, and Belinda Pierce, a contemporary genealogy expert, thinks John Joseph Vann was the father. "According to the experts at the Vann House in Chatsworth, Georgia, Vann's father is unknown.")
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