Presented by Dr. Tim Alan Garrison, "To be an Indian: The Ridge-Boudinot Family, Indigenous Identity, and the Marshall Court" tells the story of John Ridge and Elias Boudinot and the development of the US Supreme Court's perception of indigenous identity. Through the late 1820s, John Ridge and his cousin Elias Boudinot engaged in numerous speeches and public epistolary addresses which were heard and read throughout the nation. These literary performances described the progress of Indian/Cherokee civilization and sought to define indigenous identity in the white Jacksonian American mind. Among those who were likely influenced by Ridge and Boudinot was Chief Justice of United States Supreme Court John Marshall, who would play a pivotal role in the judicial drama of Cherokee Removal. Evidence suggests that the writing and speeches of the Ridge-Boudinot family had a role in shaping John Marshall and the US Supreme Court's understanding of indigenous identity, thus helping to lay the foundations of American Indian judicial policy. 

Dr. Tim Alan Garrison received a JD from the University of Georgia and PhD from the University of Kentucky, where he focused on the history of the American Indians of the South, United States Indian policy, and American legal history. For over twenty years, he served as professor of history at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Garrison held university positions as Director of Native American Studies (2005-2009) and Chair of the Department of History (2014-2019). He received the rank of professor emeritus at Portland State and has served as the Pre-Law Advisor at Clemson University since 2020.  Garrison has authored and edited numerous articles, volumes, and monographs on the history of American indigenous life and legal policy in the American South. He is currently working on a history of the United State Supreme Court’s “Cherokee cases” which will be published by the University Press of Kansas.

The Cherokee language is deeply tied to Cherokee identity; yet generations of assimilation efforts by the U.S. government and anti-Indigenous stigmas have forced the Tri-Council of Cherokee tribes to declare a State of Emergency for the language in 2019. While there are 430,000 Cherokee citizens in the three federally recognized tribes, fewer than an estimated 1,500 fluent speakers remain—the majority of whom are elderly. The covid pandemic has unfortunately hastened the course. Language activists, artists, and the youth must now lead the charge of urgent radical revitalization efforts to help save the language from the brink of extinction.

This feature-length documentary was shot on-location in Oklahoma and North Carolina throughout 2019-2022; through intimate interviews, vérité footage of community gatherings, and extensive archival materials, the film explores the nuanced ways the Cherokee language is vital to maintaining a unique cultural identity and relationship with the world.

Chieftains Museum/Major Ridge Home is proud to partner with RIFF and Berry College in presenting this documentary.

Presented by Dr. Michael Morris of the College of Coastal Georgia, “Cherokee Indian Removal in Georgia: A Battle for the Soul of the Nation,” tells the story of the moral and political effects of the Congressional debate over the Jackson administration’s Indian Removal Bill on the young American republic. The political arguments in Congress over the merits of the Indian Removal Bill desired by then President Andrew Jackson put the nation into an ethnical quandary.  Proponents of the Removal publicly stated it was in the best interests of Indians to remove them from some of the more unhealthy aspects of contact with mainstream America, such as disease and alcohol.  Critics of Removal claimed Removal was just a wolf in sheep's clothing—a poorly disguised attempt just to take more Indian land, especially that of the North Georgia gold deposits. What doomed the great moral debate in Congress was that it got turned into a North versus South argument some twenty years before the Civil War. Those who voiced their opinions in the great debate predicted some dire consequences for the United States over Removal.   The great Indian debate has some lasting ramifications in modern times—the city of Dahlonega promotes its gold rush history doing little to balance it with its Cherokee history.  The gold dome of  Price Memorial Hall on the UNG campus is a painful reminder of that unbalanced history.

Michael Morris, PhD is Professor of History at the College of Coastal Georgia in Brunswick. In addition to teaching American History and World History survey classes, Michael teaches Native American History, Atlantic World History, Social and Cultural History, American Revolution, Early Republic US, The Age of Thomas Jefferson, The Age of Andrew Jackson. He has taught history at the post-secondary level since 1994.  Michael publishes and presents scholarship at the regional level on topics involving the intersection of Native American and British Colonial culture. He has published three books, a book chapter, and numerous articles and reviews in peer reviewed journals, and his most recent work, Cherokee Odyssey: The Journey from Sovereign to "Civilized."  Michael accepted an invitation to join the GA TOTA Board in 2021. He was recruited by former colleague and fellow Board member Lynne Cabe for his scholarship in Cherokee and Muscogee (Creek) history. Michael has made significant contributions to GA TOTA’s work with the GA Department of Education in developing K-12 teaching and learning resources on the Cherokee and Muscogee (Creek).

Chieftains Museum/Major Ridge Home is pleased to host the 11th Annual Floyd County Seed Swap on the museum campus from 1pm-3pm on Sunday, February 25th.

The Seed Swap is an informal event co-sponsored by the museum along with the Berry College Department of Environmental Science and Studies and Floyd County Master Gardener Extension Volunteers. The purpose of the Seed Swap is to encourage the production and protection of heirloom seeds and plant varieties that are at risk of being lost in order to provide a sustainable and diverse landscape in our community. Seed saving was particularly important to Cherokees like Major Ridge in order to sustain his family through the winter months and provide crops for the spring and summer.

This year’s program will be outdoors in the Major Ridge Demonstration Garden on the Chieftains Museum campus. In case of weather, the event will be held indoors at the Chieftains Museum. Participants are encouraged to bring their own open-pollinated/heirloom seeds, plant cuttings, seedling, saplings or other gardening-related items like implements, seed packets, or scionwood to share/trade with other guests. Dr. Brian Campbell, Chair of the Berry College Department of Environmental Science and Studies, will provide a presentation on the basics of seed-saving and agricultural biodiversity conservation at 1pm and the seed swapping will take place from 2-3pm. Dr. Campbell, Berry College students, and Master Gardeners will be on-hand to answer questions and discuss seed saving for those who attend.

The Annual Floyd County Seed Swap is a free event open to the public.

For more information on the Seed Swap and other upcoming events, contact the museum at (762) 327-6124.

Join us for a Louisiana-inspired dinner, drinks and live music with Kevin Allen and the KAMP Band!

Tickets: $90 or 2 for $175

Host Committee Tickets: $300

Dress: Dressy Casual - Mardi Gras Style!

Special Thanks to our Event Sponsors!

Presented by Professor Jeff Bishop of Reinhardt University, “Enforcing Indian Title:  Cherokee Resistance to White Encroachment in Vann's Valley” tells the story of the Beaver Dam evictions—the last official use of civil force by the Cherokee government to resist white encroachment and enforce Cherokee title to their ancestral lands. In early February 1830, Principal Chief John Ross commissioned Major Ridge and the Cherokee Light Horse Brigade to evict seventeen white families who were illegally squatting in Cherokee houses in the Beaver Dam community near present-day Cave Spring and Vann's Valley. The presentation traces the origins of these events, their relationship to the wider drama of Indian Removal in Jacksonian America, and their effect on future Cherokee governmental resistance to white encroachment. The lecture also highlights the increasingly aggressive tactics used by white intruders to obstruct and retaliate against the enforcement of Cherokee title over their lands and property. 

Jeff Bishop is the Director of the Funk Heritage Center and a Professor of Public History at Reinhardt University in Waleska, GA.  He is an expert on the history and culture of the southeastern indigenous peoples, especially the Muskogee and Cherokee. He has been a leader in the preservation and interpretation of indigenous cultural heritage sites in North Georgia for over two decades. He served as president of the Georgia chapter of the National Trail of Tears Association from 2007-2014. He has worked extensively with the National Park Service on major interpretive and preservation projects including the NPS Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, Cherokee Removal Forts, Running Waters-the home of John Ridge in Rome, the Vann Cabin in Cave Spring, the John Ross House in Rossville, and Rockdale Plantation in Fairmount. As a natural storyteller and public historian, he has written numerous articles and several books on Southeastern indigenous history and culture, especially the Cherokee Trail of Tears. 

Professor Bishop was recently appointed by Governor Brian Kemp to serve a second term on the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Council (GHRAC). He is also spearheading the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) funded Cherokee Voice Project, whose goal is to transcribe thousands of claim documents filed by citizens of the Cherokee Nation, prior to the Trail of Tears in the 1830s.  

Chieftains Museum/Major Ridge Home members are welcome to join us for an evening of holiday fun!

Get to know other members, renew your membership, and do some Christmas shopping in the gift shop all while enjoying the museum as it is decorated for the Christmas season.

This event is open only to members of Chieftains Museum/Major Ridge Home.

The 2023-2024 Chieftains Lecture Series is sponsored by the family of Jody Selman, a founding member of Chieftains Museum/Major Ridge Home.

Presented by Dr. Ellen Cushman, “To Write A People: The Cherokee Syllabary and Cherokee Identity Past and Present,tells the story of the creation, development, and continued vitality of the Cherokee syllabary from its introduction by Cherokee metalworker and inventor Sequoyah, its print transmission in publications like the Cherokee Phoenix, to its present civic and cultural use among the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes. The presentation traces the creation, dissemination, and evolution of Sequoyah’s syllabary from script to print to digital forms, thus illustrating how it has remained and continues to be a principal part of Cherokee identity. The lecture also highlights the unique character of the Cherokee syllabary through demonstrating its origins in distinctly Cherokee syllables and Cherokee meanings over Euro-American alphabetic writing systems.

Ellen Cushman is the Dean's Professor of Civic Sustainability and Professor of English at Northeastern University. She is also a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and has served as a Cherokee Nation Sequoyah Commissioner. Her research explores the ways individuals and communities use reading and writing to endure and create change.

She has written numerous articles and several books on the relationship between writing, rhetoric, language perseverance and preservation, and cultural persistence. Among these are her book, The Cherokee Syllabary: Writing the People's Perseverance (University of Oklahoma Press, 2012), which traces the instrumental, cultural and historical legacy of the Cherokee syllabary. 

Her current research takes up Cherokee philosophies of collective change and reevaluates the commitment to civic-mindedness at the heart of American literary and rhetorical studies. The book project is entitled Cherokee Lifeways: Hidden Literacies of Collective Action (working title) and will be the first monograph to treat the common writings of Cherokee people as evidence of a lived ethic of individual persistence and a people's collective resilience.

Additionally, Dr. Cushman is currently co-leading a team developing a digital archive to support indigenous language learning through the translation of Cherokee language manuscripts housed in museums and archives around the country. The Digital Archive of Indigenous Languages Persistence (DAILP) project has been generously supported by grants from the National Archives, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Henry K. Luce Foundation, and Northeastern University. 

Join us for an evening of living history at Chieftains Museum/Major Ridge Home.

To help make this event a success, Chieftains Museum/Major Ridge Home has sponsorship opportunities available for individuals and businesses.

If you have any questions about the following opportunities, please contact Olivia Cawood, Executive Director, at director@chieftainsmuseum.org or 762-327-6124.

All sponsorship levels include living history tour, hors d’oeuvres and two complementary drinks per person.

Individual event tickets are $50 and must be purchased in advance! Tickets will not be sold at the door.

Special thanks to our sponsors for making this event possible!

Join us at Chieftains Museum/Major Ridge Home for a Docent Training!

If you are interested in history, meeting new people, or are looking for a new place to volunteer, Chieftains Museum/Major Ridge Home has a place for you!

We will be hosting a Docent Training on September 16, 2023 from 10AM to noon. You'll learn everything you need to know about how you can best lend a hand on our campus.

Sign up for this training using the form below!

Join us at Chieftains Museum/Major Ridge Home for a Docent Training!

If you are interested in history, meeting new people, or are looking for a new place to volunteer, Chieftains Museum/Major Ridge Home has a place for you!

We will be hosting a Docent Training on September 12, 2023 from 10AM to noon. You'll learn everything you need to know about how you can best lend a hand on our campus.

Sign up for this training using the form below!

The 2023-2024 Chieftains Lecture Series is sponsored by the family of Jody Selman, a founding member of Chieftains Museum/Major Ridge Home.

Presented by Dr. Alice Taylor-Colbert, “Living between Two Cultures” is the story of the Ridge family of Cherokees who established a plantation, store, and ferry at a property along the Oostanaula River in Cherokee country that was eventually named Chieftains. The presentation chronicles the lives and legacy of the Ridges who adapted to European agricultural, business, and cultural practices while maintaining a distinctly Cherokee identity and seeking to preserve the Cherokee Nation within the United States. Their story is a tale that ends in violence, but also in the victory of Cherokee persistence and determination that enabled their descendants, along with those of their temporary enemies, to survive and to thrive as Cherokees.

Dr. Alice Taylor-Colbert earned her Masters’ and Ph.D. degrees in American Studies from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.  She has served 5 universities as an American history and public history professor and/or an academic administrator, including Campus Dean (CEO) of USC Union, before leaving higher education in 2019. During her career, she enjoyed teaching Southern history and culture, Cherokee Studies, Museum Studies, and American history of all eras.  As a public historian, Taylor-Colbert began her career at the Atlanta History Center, has led museums, archives, historic sites, and galleries owned by the universities she served, and now leads Development and Strategic Initiatives for South Carolina Humanities.  

Taylor-Colbert served on the editorial board of the Journal of Cherokee Studies for 30+ years and is currently a board member of the Georgia Trail of Tears Association. She recently led a multi-partner traveling exhibit project “Resilience and Revolution: Native Peoples in 18th Century South Carolina” commemorating the 50th Anniversary of SC Humanities and the 250th Anniversary of the United States.

The lecture will be held in Evans Hall on the Berry College campus. Use the following link for directions to the hall. https://map.concept3d.com/?id=648#!m/88601

A PDF of the Berry campus can be found here: