Cofitachequi, was a Mississippian 'paramount chiefdom' in the U.S. state of South Carolina, encountered by Europeans in the 16th and 17th centuries. Centered in the Wateree River valley, the Mico (or "emperor"DePratter, Chester B. "Cofitachequi: Ethnohistorical and archaeological evidence." Anthropological Studies 9 (1989): 133.) of Cofitachequi held sway over the immediate neighbors on the Wateree and Broad Rivers, and at its peak in the 1500s extended influence into the North Carolina piedmont and the Pee Dee River.
While it was always based in the Wateree River valley around Camden, South Carolina, the capital district of Cofitachequi shifted over the years, likely beginning at the Belmont Neck, one of the earliest Mississippian temple mounds in South Carolina just a mile southwest of Canosi (the 16th century capital of Cofitachequi).
By 1300, Belmont Neck had been completely abandoned and the capital shifted to Talimeco (the Adamson site). At Talimeco, Cofitachequi rose to be a middling regional power, and by 1400 competing with contemporaries like Sarati and Guatari (descendants of the Town Creek Mound),Beck, Robin. Chiefdoms, collapse, and coalescence in the early American South. Cambridge University Press, 2013. pp. 52, 89 and most importantly Ocute. Scholars have speculated the Ocute's anti-Cofitachequi alliance stretched as far as regions like Guale Mayor-Micoship (another Savannah River refugee destination) on the Georgia Coast, Tugaloo (last of the Savannah River chiefdoms), and Ichisi (on the Ocmulgee River). The wars between Ocute and her allies against Cofitachequi virtually emptied out the Savannah, Saluda and Broad River basins, creating a buffer zone known as the Despoblado of Ocute (translated variously as wilderness or desert).
When the Spanish made first contact on the coast in the 1520s they heard news of large kingdoms with pearls and a mighty king who dominated the coast; this was Cofitachequi. By the time of the De Soto Expedition in 1540, Ocute was fairly regularly organizing defences against Cofitachequi raids. After being provided with a couple thousand laborors by the Mico of Ocute, De Soto collaborated with Lord Patofa, whose territory lay on the northern edge of the Oconee River, to attack Cofitachequi.
De Soto's rampage in Cofitachequi spelled the start of the end of Cofitachequi's paramount rule. When Spanish conquistador Juan Pardo came in 1566, Cofitachequi was much diminished, usurped by its subordinates of Orista on the coast, Joara in the Northwest, Guatari in the Northeast and Ylasi in the East in regional power, happy to make friends with the Spaniards. After just 2 years of fort building and alliance making with the Spanish however, the Spanish forts were all destroyed in one fell swoop, likely due to misconduct by Spanish officers and poor organization.
Slave raids by northern alliances like the Iroquoian Westos, Yuchi, and Occaneechi decimated the region in the 17th century, though a short English expedition still noted that Cofitachequi held some level of regional power to the coast, possibly from the power vacuum caused by the Spanish after their departure. After 1670 Cofitachequi wasn't mentioned again, and its descendants likely fled to the emerging Catawba Confederacy, created out of Cofitachequi's former subjects in the north.
Nomenclature The polity of Cofitachequi may have been first recorded under the name of Duahe by Spanish conquistador Francisco de Ayllon. Despite attempted connections of this name to the Iroquoian Tuscarora,Rudes, Blair A. "The first description of an Iroquoian people: Spaniards among the Tuscararas before 1522." Coastal Carolina Indians Center (2004). it is generally considered that Datha and Duahe were related to Cofitachequi, possibly coming from the Cusabo deity "Toya."Waddell, Gene. Indians of the South Carolina Lowcountry, 1562-1751. Vol. 5. Southern Studies Program, University of South Carolina, 1980. Cofitachequi may have its origin in Muskogean languages, like the Hitchiti word for "dwelling"; ciki; the word for "to dig out"; ita;Booker, Karen M., Charles M. Hudson, and Robert L. Rankin. "Place name identification and multilingualism in the sixteenth-century Southeast." Ethnohistory (1992): 399-451. the Hitchiti word for "dogwood"; cofi, or "dogwood thicket"; cofita.
History
Emergence and Belmont Neck phase (900-1300) Mississippians, thought to be a religious as well as a cultural movement composing of hierarchical-theocratic governance and a Corn Mother religious movement,Butler, Amanda J. "Mississippian missionaries: bundling a Cahokian religious movement." PhD diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2021. took root in the Wateree Valley around 1000. Capital of a Belmont Neck phase polity, Belmont Neck is thought to have been the earliest Mississippian mound site in the Camden region. With it being just over a mile southwest of the Mulberry Mounds (1500s era Cofitachequi), as well as the unbroken line of mound centers in the region since Belmont Neck, it's likely Belmont Neck was the first capital of Cofitachequi.
Although occupation began in the 10th century, the site was mainly occupied after 1200, signaling the start of the regional Belmont Neck phase.Vanier, Jeremy Allen. "A ceramic vessel function analysis and foodways approach to the Late Woodland/Mississippian interface in Kershaw County, South Carolina." Master's thesis, University of South Carolina, 2010. p. 23 It likely had some sort of relationship to neighboring chiefdoms/micoships such as the Blair Mound in the Sumter National Forest, around 80 miles to the east, based on the similarity of material culture and the primacy of Belmont Neck.Benson, Robert W., Thomas J. Pluckhahn, Thomas H. Gresham, Douglas S. Atkinson, and Karen Payne. "Cultural resources overview of the Sumter National Forest." Report by Southeastern Archaeological Services, Athens, GA, submitted to Francis Marion and Sumter National Forests, USDA Forest Service, Columbia, SC (2006).
Now inundated under Lake Murray, the mound site "Other"Cable, John S. Megadrought in the Carolinas: The archaeology of Mississippian collapse, abandonment, and coalescence. University Alabama Press, 2020. in the Broad River region could've played a role in Belmont Neck's rise. In 1225, a chiefdom centered on the Blair Mound site emerged, around 40 kilometers north of "Other." Blair Mound may've been a successor of the "Other" site as the Broad River Chiefdom seems to have moved 40 kilometers north again in 1300, almost exactly the same distance. There are a few possibilities on how this relates to Belmont Neck, which rose to prominence around the time Blair was established. Perhaps the rise in population around 1200 represents Belmont Neck accepting migrants and mound-building elites from the Broad River Chiefdom, unhappy with the move north to Blair. Perhaps the movement of the Broad River Chiefdom north could've gave Cofitachequi the space needed to build their own influence. As the "Other" site is currently underwater, we may never know for sure, but the closeness of material culture between the Broad River Chiefdom at Blair and Cofitachequi Chiefdom at Belmont Neck certainly points to at least some sort of close relationship.
Adamson phase and the Adamson Site (1300–1450) From 1225 onward the Cofitachequi polity began to shift its monument-construction and population away from the Belmont Neck site to the Adamson Mounds site, identified as the town of Talimeco, meaning capital town. The largest mound at Talimeco boasted the largest mound in Cofitachequi.Beck, Robin. Chiefdoms, collapse, and coalescence in the early American South. Cambridge University Press, 2013. Atop this mound was a large temple on which the revered dead of Cofitachequi was kept, as well as wealth such as pearls and deerskin, and weapons.Hudson, Charles. The Juan Pardo Expeditions: Exploration of the Carolinas and Tennessee, 1566-1568. University of Alabama Press, 2005.
The splendor of Talimeco during this period is clear from the descriptions given centuries later by the Spanish. Garcilaso the Incan describes the temple in the most detail, though certainly with some exaggeration as his account is based on multiple eye-witnesses years later. He describes twelve life-like statues "like giants" guarding the door, copper and pearl bands on their arms, wielding wooden clubs, wooden broadswords, a flint axe, longbows (in ready position) and a copper pike. More rows of life-size statues stood at the back of the temple, of both genders, and doors there led to a treasury room, where statues of men, women and children equipped with shields stood towering above the chests and equipment. There were 8 more rooms, each holding a different class of weapons; pikes, clubs, axes, broadswords, staffs, bows/arrows. round shields and oblong shields. Though many aspects are exaggerated, it is worth noting that Rangel and Biedma, two other chronicles of more official and reliable status, do agree in areas like the abundance of pearls, the rooms and the types of weapons.Clayton, Lawrence A., Vernon J. Knight, and Edward C. Moore, eds. The De Soto Chronicles, 2 Volume Set: The Expedition of Hernando de Soto to North America in 1539-1543. Vol. 1. University of Alabama Press, 1995.
Rise of Cofitachequi (1350–1500)
Cofitachequi's rapid century-long rise to become one of the largest and most powerful polities in America is closely linked to the era of crisis and instability across the Mississippian World in the 14th-16th centuries. A megadrought caused a major decrease of population in many regions in the Mississippian world, known as "Vacant Quarters."Cobb, Charles R., and Brian M. Butler. "The vacant quarter revisited: late Mississippian abandonment of the Lower Ohio Valley." American Antiquity 67, no. 4 (2002): 625-641. Cofitachequi and its leaders were able to weather the storm and in fact took advantage of the drought politically, promising stability and power to polities willing to center themselves on Cofitachequi, and war for those unwilling. The material culture of Cofitachequi during this time was a variant of the Lamar culture spread across Georgia, Tennessee, and South Carolina that was broadly comparable to that of the people of Ocute in Georgia.
Absorption of the Broad River chiefdom (c. 1375) Around 1375, the Broad River Chiefdom, centered on the McCollum Mound, collapsed.Riggs, Brett H., R. P. Davis Jr, and Mary Elizabeth Fitts. "Archaeology at Ashe Ferry: Late Woodland and Middle Mississippian Period Occupations in the Lower Catawba River Valley, York County, South Carolina." (2015). Likely caused by a combination of drought, and warfare with Cofitachequi, the end of Cofitachequi's longtime regional competitor signaled the start of Cofitachequi's rise to power regionally. A large influx of people from the now-abandoned Broad River Chiefdom likely boosted Cofitachequi's population and capacity, enabling a larger workforce to create more earthen monuments like those at Canosi (Mulberry) and Talimeco (Adamson). When De Soto went through the area in 1540, he encountered a few abandoned hunting camps, and roads leading to the McCollum and Blair Mounds, though the towns were reported to be abandoned.
Fall of the Middle Savannah River Chiefdom (c. 1375-1390)