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unknow artist
Painting: An eighteenth-century oil painting owned by the Winterthur Museum claims to depict James Oglethorpe presenting the Yamacraw Indians to the Georgia Tru
An eighteenth-century oil painting owned by the Winterthur Museum claims to depict James Oglethorpe presenting the Yamacraw Indians to the Georgia Trustees, an event on July 3, 1734, one year after Oglethorpe landed to start the new colony. The 25 bewigged and befrocked Englishmen have been identified. Oglethorpe is standing in the center, receiving an Indian boy by the hand. This suggests the Christianization of Indians, one of the chartered purposes of the philanthropic Georgia colony. The boy is dressed in English style, while the Indian men are in native dress. The Savannah trader John Musgrove (d. 1735) mediates as interpreter. Oglethorpe had boasted that the Lower Creek Nation "is within half a mile of us and has concluded a peace with us giving up their right to all this part of the countryX The king comes regularly to church and is desirous to be instructed in the Christian religion and has given to me his nephew, a boy who is his next heir, to educate." The one Indian woman in the painting, also portrayed in English dress, is TomochichiXs wife Senawchi. The other Indians are usually identified simply as "Indians," though sometimes they are called Creek or "Yamacraw."
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