“IN MEMORY OF TOMO-CHI-CHI…THE MICO OF THE YAMACRAWS…THE COMPANION OF OGLETHORPE…AND THE FRIEND AND ALLY OF THE COLONY OF GEORGIA.”

—Georgia Society of Colonial Dames of America (1899)

A Celebration of Tomochichi on Wright Square

The original monument to Tomochichi, the Mico (or Chief) of the Yamacraw Indian Tribe, was erected in 1739 over his gravesite, located in Percival Square, now Wright Square, ordered by General James Oglethorpe, founder of the Georgia Colony and close friend to Tomochichi.

The initial commemoration of a ‘Pyramid of Stone’ to memorialize Tomochichi was likely the first public monument in American history erected in honor of a Native American.

Today, adjacent to Wright Square sits the Tomochichi Federal Building and United States Courthouse. The building was enlarged in 1932 and occupies an entire city block in Savannah’s Historic District.

It is a beautiful building, which I enjoyed painting en plein air on a typical fabulous day in Savannah

The original building was constructed between 1894 and 1899 to serve as the U.S. Post Office and Court House. The building was more than doubled in size during the Great Depression and later listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

The building was rededicated in 2005 to honor Tomochichi, the indigenous Yamasee Tribe leader who helped James Oglethorpe and the original settlers begin the Georgia Colony.

When James Oglethorpe landed in (what is now) Georgia in February 1733, he met Tomochichi nearthe bluff overlooking the Savannah River on which the city of Savannah now sits.

The following year, Tomochichi sailed with Oglethorpe to England and officially ratified the treaty that allowed English colonialists to settle the Georgia Colony.

James Oglethorpe owed much of his success in settling Georgia to the friendly relations he developed with Tomochichi. The Mico of the Yamacraws granted the colonialists a large swath of land between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers. Tomochichi also vitally assisted Oglethorpe by negotiating peaceful relations between the Georgia colonialists and nearby Native American tribes.

On his deathbed in late-1739, Tomochichi requested the burial of his remains inside the English town.

So important became that occasion that London publication The Gentleman’s Magazine reported the 1739 story of Tomochichi’s corpse floating down the Savannah River. His body was then personally carried by Oglethorpe and local magistrates from the Savannah River to Percival (now Wright) Square.

The pomp and circumstance of full military funeral honors followed.

The Tomochichi ‘Pyramid of Stone’ Monument soon disappeared from public documentation. This story is told in detail by SCAD Architectural History Professor Robin B. Williams in a fascinating onlinearticle entitled: “The Challenges of Preserving Public Memory: Commemorating Tomochichi in Savannah.”

Tomochichi’s significance to Savannah’s history would take another 150-years to reassert itself.

#53: A Celebration of Tomochichi on Wright Square