Cockacoeske

Cockacoeske (pronounced Coke a cow ski) (also spelled Cockacoeskie) (ca. 1640 – ca. 1686) was a 17th-century leader of the Pamunkey tribe in what is now the U.S. state of Virginia. During her thirty-year reign, she worked with the English colony of Virginia, trying to recapture the former power of past paramount chiefs and maintain peaceful unity among the several tribes under her leadership. She was the first of the tribal leaders to sign the Virginia-Indian Treaty of Middle Plantation. In 2004 Cockacoeske was honored as one of the Library of Virginia's "Virginia Women in History". Early life and rule The death of Opechancanough in 1646 led to the disintegration of the confederacy built by his brother Powhatan. Cockacoeske's husband Totopotomoi became leader in 1649, but English colonists in Virginia only referred to him the "king of the Pamunkeys," not "king of the Indians," as they had earlier paramount chiefs. Totopotomoi was killed in what was later called the Battle of Bloody Run, while fighting alongside the Virginia militia against migrating Westo Indians. A descendant of Opechancanough herself, Cockacoeske became solitary Werowansqua (Chief) of the Pamunkey and the colonial government of Virginia recognized her as the "Queen" of Pamunkey. She remained in power for nearly thirty years, living in the land between the Pamunkey and Mattaponi Rivers on land ceded to them after the end of the war in 1646 (land later designated as the Pamunkey Indian Reservation). The biggest threat to peace during her rule came during Bacon's Rebellion, a multiracial uprising of disaffected groups led by Nathaniel Bacon. Although of the wealthy planter class, Bacon competed for power with Gov. Berkeley, drawing upon resentments among frontier settlers about poor land and the colonial government's protection of allied Indian nations who raided frontier settlements in retaliation for their land grabs. Cockacoeske soon after heard from Governor Berkeley's faction as he sought help from the Pamunkey in this new conflict. So she went to the statehouse in Jamestown to answer the request, dressed in her finest state regalia: wampum, a fringed deerskin mantle, and accompanied by an interpreter and several retainers, including her son. Cockacoeske's response when told she must honor treaty obligations by supplying warriors for Berkeley, she played the consummate diplomat: