14/04/2021
The only image of a Native American depicted by William Bartram (1739-1823) during his time as a naturalist exploring the "wilds" of the American South, this engraved portrait is the frontispiece of Bartram's "Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee country, the extensive territories of the Muscogulges or Creek Confederacy, and the country of the Chactaws," first published in Philadelphia in 1791.
The original sketch Bartram made for this engraving is now in the collections of the American Philosophical Society. Interestingly, that original sketch names this man as "Mico-chlucco/King of the Muscogulges or Criks/call'd the Long Warrior," whereas he is identified more specifically as "King of the Seminoles" in the book engraving.
The Seminole were a group of people who lived in northern Florida, and were part of the larger Creek Confederacy which spanned from the east coasts of present-day Georgia and Florida west to what is now Alabama.