Totopotomoi

Totopotomoi is also spelled Totopotomoy and pronounced "To-to-POT-omy." English colonists of his time often spelled his name Totopotomy. Totopotomy Creek in Hanover and Stafford counties memorializes his name.

Totopotomoi was possibly the son of the Nectowance, a weroance—an Algonquian term for a wealthy leader or chief—of the Pamunkey. He married Cockacoeske.

Totopotomoi became the chief of the Powhatan Confederacy, a unified group of Native American tribes in Virginia, about 1649 upon the death of Nectowance.

Totopotomoi's community controlled lands that are now in New Kent County, Virginia, including that part of New Kent which is now Hanover. After the death of Opechancanough, the once mighty confederacy had disintegrated, and the English had grown much stronger in the Virginia Colony. He became a staunch ally of the Virginian colonists and often sided with them in conflicts. The allied Monacan and Manahoac confederacies were constantly at war with the Powhatan and the Iroquois. In the 16th century, the powerful Haudenosaunee Confederacy fought against these tribes to the south, causing others to flee, and eventually to merge for protection.

About 1656, six or seven hundred members of the Shackoconian tribe of the Manahoac confederacy in search of a new dwelling place, moved down near the falls of the James River. In an attempt to remove the colonists, joined by the Pamunkey Tribe under Totopotomoi, precipitated what one of the bloodiest Native American battles ever fought on the soil of Virginia, and the last great fight between the Eastern Siouan and the Algonquian-speaking peoples.

Colonel Edward Hill was put in command of the Colonial Rangers and ordered to dislodge them. He was reinforced by Totopotomoi, who led a hundred warriors.

The resulting battle known as the Battle of Bloody Run took place at a point in the eastern limits of present-day Richmond, Virginia, now known as Bloody Run spring. So many were slain in the battle, that the tradition is that the streamlet from the spring ran with blood. Hill was so disgraced that he had to personally pay for the cost of the battle and was stripped of his rank. Totopotomoi was among the casualties of the battle.

Totopotomoi's widow Cockacoeske then became the Weroance of the Powhatan Confederacy. Over the thirty-year span of her leadership, she worked within the English system to recapture the former power of Opechancanough and maintain a peaceful unity among the several tribes under her control. The Powhatan eventually decided to join the English colonists and followed their laws by 1665. The colonists appointed their chiefs. After the Treaty of Albany was signed in 1684, the Powhatan Confederacy all but disintegrated.

• "Middle Peninsula Historic Marker "Cockacoeske"
• "The Powhatan Indians of Virginia: Their Traditional Culture. Rountree, Helen C., University of Oklahoma Press, 1989.
• "Cockacoeske, Queen of Pamunkey: Diplomat and Suzeraine." W. Martha W. McCartney.
• "Powhatan's Mantle: Indians in the Colonial Southeast by Peter H. Wood.
• "A Brief Outline of Recorded History of the Patawomeck Tribe." Deyo, William L., 2000.
• "Monteith Family and the Potomac Indians." Deyo, William L., 1991.