McKenney and Hall, 1836-1844 - YOHOLO-MICCO. A CREEK CHIEF., from History of the Indian Tribes of North America - ca. 1836 - T-Shirt

This design reproduces a half-length portrait of Yoholo-Micco, a Creek leader, drawn from the 1830s lithographic series History of the Indian Tribes of North America.

Visual Elements & Composition

The figure fills a vertical, rectangular plate framed in cream. He faces forward in a striped, patterned turban, and a beaded diamond-pattern sash crosses his chest. The palette is restrained: cream and off-white ground, warm brown skin tones, and touches of brick red and steel blue in the dress. The printed caption, YOHOLO-MICCO. A CREEK CHIEF., sits beneath the image in plain capitals, so the name and identity are stated as clearly as the face.

Meaning & Symbolism

Yoholo-Micco was a Creek orator and diplomat who worked through the treaty negotiations of the Indian Removal era. His portrait stands for the authority of Creek leadership at a time when federal policy was dismantling the nation's political autonomy and forcing its people from their homelands. Thomas McKenney and James Hall commissioned the series to preserve the portraits and biographies of Native leaders, and the sober, formal pose reflects the Victorian-era habit of cataloguing Indigenous peoples as ethnographic subjects. The image therefore records both the dignity of its subject and the conditions under which he was documented.

On the Tee

A portrait like this is built for a close, deliberate look. On a tee, the plate sits across the chest, where the eye reads the face first, then the sash, then the caption. Wearing it puts the leader's image in conversation with the person carrying it, which suits a piece of history that asks to be looked at closely.