“C” is for Cofitachiqui

“C” is for Cofitachiqui. Cofitachiqui is the name of a sixteenth-and seventeenth-century Native American chiefdom as well as one of the principal towns of that chiefdom. The towns of Cofitachiqui and neighboring Talimeco were located on a bank of the Wateree River below the fall line near Camden.  In 1540 the chief of Cofitachiqui was a woman. The  chiefdom included the central portion of South Carolina and may have extended to the coast and as far west as the Appalachian Mountains. Scholars differ on the language and ethnic identity of the chiefdom. If they spoke Muskhogean, they were likely related to the Creek Indians of Georgia and Alabama, and they likely migrated westward in the late seventeenth century.  If they spoke a Siouan language, then the Catawba and related tribes are probably descendants of the chiefdom of Cofitachiqui.