Ann (fl. 1706–1712), Pamunkey chief, was a successor to the most famous Pamunkey queen, Cockacoeske, who led the Pamunkey for thirty years until her death in 1686. Cockacoeske was succeeded by an unidentified niece, perhaps the leader whose mark and the name "Mrs. Betty, the Queen," appear on a petition requesting the confirmation of a sale of Pamunkey land to English subjects that was submitted to the General Court on 22 October 1701. Sparse documentation and the Powhatan tribe's practice of changing their names on important occasions have led to confusion in identifying the principal leaders of the Pamunkey. It has been conjectured that the niece who succeeded Cockacoeske, Mrs. Betty, and Ann were the same woman and that she changed her name to Ann after Queen Anne ascended the English throne in 1702.
Ann's parentage, the times and places of her birth and death, and other important information about her life are not known. She had at least one son, whom she sent to the school for Indigenous children at the College of William and Mary in November 1711 as a hostage for the tribe's good behavior and to receive the rudiments of education. Although not required to do so, she also sent the sons of two of the Pamunkey "Greatmen."
Ann's name and mark appear on three extant documents submitted to the colonial government, one by August 1706, another about 1710, and a third later in the decade. Several other eighteenth-century records, the latest dated in June 1723, refer to the Pamunkey leaders in similar words, "the Queen and Great Men of the Pamunkey Indians," but do not name the queen. The three petitions on which Ann's name appears, together with the others that do not name her, all eloquently document important events in the history of her people. Despite provisions of the 1677 peace treaty that Cockacoeske had signed that forbade English settlement within three miles of any Indigenous town, settlers gradually encroached on the Pamunkey lands. With less land on which to hunt and fish, younger members left the lands. This reduction in population left the Pamunkey in a "distressed & miserable state & condicion," unable to pay the tribute required by the treaty. At the same time unscrupulous colonists were selling liquor to Indigenous persons, getting them into debt, and then taking their possessions. In the petitions that Ann and the great men of the Pamunkey submitted to the government, she firmly requested that squatters on tribal land be removed, that ownership of tribal lands be confirmed, and that the annual tribute be reduced. In records not bearing her actual mark but obviously reflecting the queen's beliefs, she asked that young Indigenous persons employed away from the reserved lands be returned to their people and that strong liquor be kept out of Native American towns. Despite the survival of only a few records, Ann is known as an Indigenous leader who fought for the rights of her people.
Ann's name appeared for the last time on a petition that has a penciled notation of "abt 1712," although it was printed in the Calendar of Virginia State Papers and Other Manuscripts with the date 1715. At a meeting on 1 November 1718, the governor's Council referred to a similar petition from the "Queen and Great Men of the Pamonky," but did not specify her name. Ann died probably in or not long after 1723, the last year in which reference to a hereditary ruler of the Pamunkey appears in extant records.
Sources Consulted: Helen C. Rountree, Pocahontas's People: The Powhatan Indians of Virginia Through Four Centuries (1990), 112–113, 163–164, 168–169; Mrs. Betty's petition (first quotation) is in Colonial Office Papers 5/1312, pt. 1, fols. 318–319, Public Record Office, Kew, England, on Virginia Colonial Records Project microfilm reel 37 at the Library of Virginia (LVA); Ann's mark is on Petition of the Pamunkey Indians, 15 Aug. 1705/1706 and on Petition of the Pamunkey Indians, 1710 (fourth quotation), both in Colonial Papers, Record Group 1, LVA; last time Ann appears by name is in Petition of Ann, Queen of the Pamunkey Indians, [1712–1718?] (fifth quotation), Colonial Papers, Record Group 1, LVA; William P. Palmer et al., eds., Calendar of Virginia State Papers and Other Manuscripts, 1652–1869 (1875–1893), 1:184–185; Henry R. McIlwaine, Wilmer L. Hall, and Benjamin J. Hillman, eds., Executive Journals of the Council of Colonial Virginia (1925–1966), 3:290–291 (second quotation), 487 (sixth quotation); Waverly K. Winfree, comp., The Laws of Virginia: Being a Supplement to Hening's The Statutes at Large, 1700–1750 (1971), 263–265 (third quotation).