Category: Native American Women

Cockacoeske Marker Queen of the Pamunkey Cockacoeske was a Native American woman born on the land lying between the Pamunkey River and Mattaponi River in Virginia. Her father was Opechancanough, the Great Weroance of the Pamunkey Tribe. Each tribe was led by its own Weroance. (Weroance is an Algonquian word meaning tribal chief or king, notably among the Powhatan Confederacy of the Virginia coast and Chesapeake Bay region.) Cockacoeske became the Queen of the Pamunkey after her husband Totopotomoy’s death in 1656 fighting as an ally of the English at what became known as the Battle of Bloody Run.

Squaw Sachem of the Wampanoag Weetamoo was born in 1640 to the Sachem (chief) of the Pocassets, Corbitant, and one of his wives. Weetamoo’s name means sweet heart in the Pocasset language. She grew up in the Pocasset’s largest and main village, Mettapoisett, on the shores of Cape Cod. She had a younger sister, Wootonekanuske. Because Corbitant had no sons, Weetamoo was destined to become the next Sachem of the Pocassets. Since Weetamoo would one day become Sachem, she would endure a vision quest. At the age of fourteen, she was sent alone into the woods and fasted until her child soul was killed. She became a skilled hunter, swimmer, and fisherman. She also learned the duties of other girls…

Native American Women in New England The Wampanoag, a North American Indian tribe of Eastern Algonquian linguistic stock, inhabited the territory around Narragansett Bay in present-day Rhode Island and Massachusetts. They occupied approximately 30 villages in this region and controlled the lands east of the bay, including the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. Food and Shelter Like other Algonquians in southern New England, the Wampanoag were a horticultural people. Families gathered together in the spring to fish, in early winter to hunt, and in the summer they separated to cultivate individual planting fields. The three sisters, corn, beans, and squash were the staples of their diet.