Caroline Bradby Cook
Introduction
Text-to-speech Audio
Images
Photograph of Caroline Bradby Cook, Oct. 1899, created by De Lancey W. Gill, NAA INV 06196100 OPPS NEG 00880, Glass Negatives of Indians (Collected by Bureau of American Ethnology), National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
Family of George Major Cook, Oct. 1899, created by De Lancey W. Gill, NAA INV 06196100 OPPS NEG 00880, Glass Negatives of Indians (Collected by Bureau of American Ethnology), National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
The Library of Virginia honored Caroline Bradby Cook as one of its Virginia Women in History in 2009.
The Virginia Women in History Digital Trail is made possible by the Library of Virginia and American Evolution: Virginia to America, 1619–2019.
Backstory and Context
Text-to-speech Audio
She was a founding member of the Pamunkey Baptist Church, organized in April 1865. Her son, whom she raised with the help of her relatives, served as chief of the Pamunkey from 1902 until his death in 1930. He championed the rights of Virginia's Indians when their cultural heritage and even legal existence were being challenged. The last known reference to Caroline Bradby Cook in public records is the 1910 census, which recorded that she was then living in the house of her son the chief.
Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.