"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 the chiefdom. The town of Cofitachiqui was located on the bank of the Wateree River below the fall line near present-day Camden. Spanish accounts, from De Soto’s 1540 expedition, refer to the “Lady of Cofitachiqui” as the local ruler. According to her the province had suffered a great pestilence and she ruled following the death of a male relative. Her realm included the central portion of present-day South Carolina and may have extended to the coast and as far northwest as the Appalachian Mountains. The English explorer Henry Woodward visited Cofitachiqui in 1670 and the last known reference to the town is the name “Cotuchike” on a circa 1685 map.