Audience Given by the Trustees of Georgia to a Delegation of Creek Indians

This painting, by British artist William Verelst (1704–1752), captures a moment of cultural exchange in London, the metropole of the British Atlantic world. Depicted is a meeting between a delegation from the Yamacraw—part of the Creek Nation—and the Georgia Trustees, who oversaw the colony of Georgia, founded in 1732. Central in the composition is Chief Tomochichi (c. 1644–1741), clad in a deerskin robe, gesturing toward his fifteen-year-old nephew and chosen successor, Toonahowi, who is strikingly dressed in a brilliant blue frock coat and a finely embroidered white waistcoat, a silver-hilted sword at his side. Tomochichi’s wife, Senauki, stands beside him in a salmon-colored English gown with long sleeves. Other members of the Yamacraw delegation wear traditional deerskin garments adorned with intricate beadwork, their chests and arms marked with tattoos. In the lower right, a bald eagle and a small brown bear—native to North America—are depicted in captivity, tethered by Yamacraw warriors. James Oglethorpe, in a black velvet frock coat, extends his hand to Toonahowi, while John Musgrove, their interpreter, stands just behind Tomochichi in a pale blue suit. Surrounding a green cloth-covered table, the Georgia Trustees either sit or stand, with their President, John Viscount Percival, 1st Earl of Egmont, presiding in an elaborately carved, red-upholstered chair. This highly staged encounter reflects not only diplomacy and performance but also the broader context of colonial power dynamics, in which Indigenous presence in the imperial metropole served as both spectacle and subtle reinforcement of British colonial authority.