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.