Reporting to the Board, the Director will provide interpretive direction of programs and exhibitions, manage the Museum’s financial, human, and physical resources, and represent the Museum to donors, partners, and the community.  In addition, the new Director will work with the Museum’s Board to implement an ambitious new vision for the Museum and its surrounding property.

The ideal candidate will have a bachelor’s degree, with advanced degree preferred, in non-profit management, museum administration, business or public administration, or related field.  Professional experience should include proven fundraising ability, staff leadership, budget development and management, public outreach, and strong interpersonal, written, and oral communication skills.

Send resume with cover letter and three references to ruthink@comcast.net.

Chieftains announces the “AY” (“summer” in Cherokee)  day camp for June 11 – 15, from 10 – 2 p.m. for children 8 to 12 years old.   The week-long camp is $100.00, discounts for families with more than one child., $95.00 for children of museum members.  Games, arts and crafts, Indian lore, storytelling, mask making, fun with nature, early settler ways, theater, and archaeology!  All you have to do is bring your lunch!  Space is limited, please call early to reserve your space!

Call Debby at 706 291-9494 or email at debrown4@bellsouth.net.

Name____________________________________________Age__

Parents names__________________________________________

Address ______________________________________________

_____________________________________________________

Email________________________________________________

This will be the 2nd year of our festival. We had a great response last year but believe it will be much bigger and better this year!  We hope you will join us!

Please keep in mind that this is a Cherokee  Celtic Festival.  We would like our vendors to be offering only items or foods that are traditionally Cherokee or Celtic.

Are you a food vendor or a craft/art vendor?______________________

Name of Business or organization_______________________________

Name of Vendor______________________________________________

Address ____________________________________________________

City____________________State_______________Zip______________

Phone#______________________Email___________________________

Website#___________________________________________________

Please list what you will be selling at your site_______________________

__________________________________________________________

Do you have your own power source, or do you need power____________

We plan for vendor spaces to be 10′x 10′, if you need something different, please let us know.____________________________________________

Please submit the following with your application:

Vendor fee: $25.00, if you need power it will be $35.00.  Make check out to Chieftains Museum.  By signing below, I agree to indemnify and hold harmless the Chieftains Museum/Major Ridge Home and all organizations and persons, sponsors managing or in any other way participating in the 2012 Chieftains Cherokee & Celtic Festival from any loss, claim, penalty or lawsuit in any way arising from my involvement in the festival.

Vendor signature___________________________________Date______

Mail application and payment to:

Chieftains Museum/Major Ridge Home

P.O. Box 373, Rome, GA 30162

Museum:

Paint outside of house

Repair all cracked plaster, walls, and ceilings in all rooms and repaint all walls, ceilings, and trim.

Paint inside window frames.

Replace curtains.

Remove wallpaper in upstairs bathroom and paint.

Repair gaps in museum store entrance door.

Build up driveway in front of museum entrance door to avoid flooding.

Clean gutters.

Wash all windows inside and out, but not by powerwashing the exterior.

Fix bottom step of staircase.

Fix carbon dating holes throughout.

Remove tubs from bathrooms and replace with shelving and doors.

Replace or repair light fixture on south side exterior

Repaing screened porch and repair lock at top of porch screen door.

Replace or stabilize fence around dig site.

Note:  All paint should be either satin or semi-gloss, not flat, for better cleaning.

Grizzard Center:

Repair leak in upstairs room and repaint walls and ceiling.

Repaint all exterior trim including doors.

Remove peeling wallpaper in kitchen and replace or paint.

Repair floor and ceiling in upstairs hallway closet and repaint.

Repair cracks in upstairs hallway.

Wash all windows inside and out but not by powerwashing.

Repaint walls and floor of archaeology lab and check duct work.

In the years around 1800, Ridge built a homestead on Oothcalooga Creek near present day Adairsville, Georgia. Ridge married a Cherokee named Susanna (Sehoya) Wickett and was chosen to be a representative to the Cherokee Council. There he began to work with others to preserve the Cherokee culture while adopting important aspects of Euro-American culture learned through increased contact with traders, missionaries and visitors to the Cherokee Nation.

During the war of 1812, the Cherokee sent a contingent to fight alongside the American forces against the British and the Creek Red Sticks. In 1814, Ridge’s troops were a decisive factor in the defeat of the Creeks at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. Because of his brave role in recruiting and leading the Cherokee, Ridge was awarded the rank of major by General Andrew Jackson. Ridge would soon begin to use his rank as his first name, forever becoming “Major Ridge”.

Back home after the war, Major Ridge continued his rise in political power, eventually becoming Speaker of the Tribal Council. Ridge worked tirelessly to set-up an organized government patterned after that of the United States. He helped defeat obsolete laws such as the blood law, and he pushed new laws through the council. Ridge also encouraged the acceptance of missionaries into the nation and the education of the Cherokee people.
Sometime in the early 1800′s Ridge moved his family to a two-story dogtrot log cabin on the Oostanaula River near present day Rome. In 1828, Ridge decided his family deserved something even better, so his son John, who had been to school in New England, oversaw renovations of the cabin. When the work was finished, the cabin had become a white clapboard plantation home. Here the Ridge family oversaw a ferry, trading post and a working plantation complete with numerous crops, orchards and slaves.

Despite Ridge’s best efforts, his people were still viewed as uneducated savages by many Americans. In 1830, the state of Georgia, hungry for the fertile valleys and gold deposits of Cherokee land, extended its laws over much of the Cherokee Nation. In addition, the state legislature declared the Cherokee laws null and void and forbade the Cherokee to meet in council. Two years later, Georgia held a land lottery and gave all of the Cherokee land to white people. Major Ridge’s home was given to a widow named Rachel Ferguson. Unlike many Georgians, Mrs. Ferguson made no effort to settle on her new property in advance of Cherokee removal.

Ridge descendants visit Chieftains Museum in 2009.

The Cherokee fought Georgia through the United States court system. In Worcester v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Cherokee were a nation separate and independent from the U.S. The U.S. should help and protect the Cherokees, but neither the federal government nor the individual states had legal jurisdiction over them. This seeming victory was turned into defeat when President Andrew Jackson refused to honor or enforce the ruling. He not only allowed Georgia to take the land, he encouraged them to do so.

By 1835, Major Ridge, his son John, and nephew Elias Boudinot along with a small number of influential Cherokees were convinced their people had only one chance for survival. On December 29, 1835, Ridge and the others signed the Treaty of New Echota selling the Cherokee land to the United States in exchange for land in modern-day Oklahoma. The treaty gave the Cherokee two years to move. The treaty was unsanctioned by the Cherokee government and thus considered illegal by most Cherokee. Ironically, years before, John Ridge had pushed a law through the Cherokee Council setting death as the penalty for selling tribal lands.

The Treaty Party and the Ridge family packed up their belongings in 1837 and moved to the Oklahoma Territory. There they started over. John Ross told the remaining Cherokee not to worry. He thought that he could go to Washington and plan a way for the Cherokee to stay or at least get a better deal for the land. Ross was wrong.

In May of 1838, the United States government started rounding up the Cherokee and placing them in stockades. By fall they were forced to leave for Oklahoma. They were not given enough supplies or transportation for the trip, and they traveled through one of the worst winters on record. By the time they arrived in Oklahoma, it was March of 1839, several thousand had died, escaped, or otherwise went missing.

The embittered survivors blamed the Treaty Party and especially the Ridge family for their suffering on what they came to call the “Trail of Tears”. A small group met in secret, held a trial and declared all of the treaty signers guilty of treason. On June 22, 1839, Major Ridge was ambushed and shot five times. John Ridge was dragged from his bed and, in front of his wife and children, he was stabbed twenty-five times, had his throat slit, was thrown into the air and then trampled by his assailants. Major Ridge’s nephew, Elias Boudinot was struck in the head multiple times with an axe and then stabbed several times. These men truly paid the ultimate sacrifice for their people. No one was ever arrested for the murders of the Ridge men. John Ross claimed no knowledge of the deeds and eventually pardoned all involved, including his son. After the murders, many of the Ridge family moved to Texas where their descendants live today.

The former home of the Ridge family on the eastern bank of the Oostanaula River still stands today. Later occupants of the house began calling their home “Chieftains” in recognition of its significance to Native American history. It has served as the home of the Verdereys, Wrights, Jones, Jeffries, and Porters. It also functioned as the residence of the various managers of the synthetic fibers mill constructed near the site in 1930. In 1969, the Celanese Corporation donated the house to the Junior Service League of Rome. It has been preserved and utilized as a museum ever since. Chieftains is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is a National Historic Landmark, and is a designated site on the National Park Service Trail of Tears National Trail, the first private site to be so designated. Since 1987, the museum has been operated by Chieftains Museum, Inc., an independent, nonprofit, membership organization. In 2002, the name became Chieftains Museum/Major Ridge Home.