Mississippian paramount chiefdom of the Wateree River valley in present-day South Carolina, ruled by a female Mico ('cacica') at first Spanish contact and famed among conquistadors for its freshwater pearls.
Devastated by Hernando de Soto's 1540 visit and hostage-taking of its ruler; found 'much diminished' by Juan Pardo in 1566; last documented in the 1660s before its remaining people merged into the emerging Catawba Confederacy.
Charles Hudson's expedition-based reconstruction devotes substantial primary-source analysis to Cofitachequi as the first and most important chiefdom the Pardo expeditions encountered.