[1]: 154–55 Kakowatcheky led an unknown number Shawnees from the Ohio River Valley to eastern Pennsylvania, together with the Dutch trader and explorer Arnaut Viele.
[4]: 148 On 23 April, 1701, Opessa and chiefs of the Susquehannock, Piscataway and Onondaga tribes signed a treaty with William Penn ceding lands along the Potomac River to the English in return for protection and trade privileges.
Opessa and the other chiefs agreed by their "hands and seals," with each other, with William Penn and his successors, and with other inhabitants of the province, "to be as one head and one heart, and to live in true friendship and amity, as one people.
"[7] Soon after the Treaty of 1701 many Shawnee migrated from South Carolina to the lower Susquehanna and the upper Delaware, where they settled near the Forks, at a village called Pechoquealin (now Smithfield Township, Monroe County, Pennsylvania).
[1]: 93, 144 In 1727, because of various conflicts with the traders in the Province, and because of the unrestricted sale of rum, the Shawnee began migrating west towards Ohio, to escape from the oppressive control of the Iroquois as well as from problems with the Pennsylvania Provincial authorities.
In early May 1728, Kakowatcheky, who was the head of the Shawnees living at Pechoquealin, heard a rumor that the Catawbas from North Carolina had entered Pennsylvania with the intention of attacking the Indians along the Susquehanna.
The Governor replied with a reprimand for Kakowatcheky's aggressive behavior: It was not becoming [for] any of our friends to come into the Christians' Houses with Guns, pistoles and Swords, painted for War, and to take away the poor People's Provisions by force with great threatnings to those that opposed them.
Tyoninhogarao, a Seneca chief, visited Kakowatcheky in Wyomink in August, 1732 and told him that "the Iroquois never intended to hurt the Shawanese; that he should not look to Ohio, but turn his face to them.
Colonial authorities were concerned at the migration of Shawnee and Lenape communities from Pennsylvania to the Ohio River valley, where it was feared that they would become allies of New France.
Secretary James Logan told them, since your nation first left their settlement near Pextang, on the west side of the Susquehanna, and retired to so great a distance as the River Ohio, or Allegheny, this Government has ever been desirous of a conference with some of your chiefs.
Some of your older men may undoubtedly remember that about forty years ago a considerable number of families of your nation thought it fit to remove from the great river that bears your name, where your principal correspondence was with those of the French nation.The Indians were then reminded of the obligations entered into between their chief, Opessa, and William Penn, in 1701.
In October 1742 the missionary Count Zinzendorf, founder of the renewed Moravian Church, together with Andrew Montour and Conrad Weiser, visited Kakowatcheky at his community of Wyomink with the intention of converting them to Christianity.
The Shawnees suspected that Zinzendorf was conjuring spirits in his tent to show him the location of the silver mine, and wanted to kill this "sorcerer," but Kakowatcheky was able to use his diplomatic skill and authority to keep the count and his party safe.
[16][10]: 106 In late April 1745, Peter Chartier and about 400 Pekowi Shawnees, including Meshemethequater and Neucheconeh, stopped at Logstown to visit Kakowatcheky and to try to persuade him to join them.
Weiser's journal, under the date of 10 September, contains the following entry: This day I made a present to the old Shawnee chief, Kakowatcheky, of a strand, a blanket, a matchcoat, a shirt, a pair of stockings, and a large twist of tobacco, and told him that the President and Council of Philadelphia remembered their love to him as to their old and true friend, and would clothe his body once more, and wished he might wear them out, so as to give them an opportunity to clothe him again.
[10]In early August 1749 Pierre Joseph Céloron de Blainville's expedition down the Ohio river arrived in Logstown, and Kakowatcheky, fearing an assault, rallied the town's population in its defense.
Cawcaw-wi-cha-ke, the Shawnese King about 114 years of age, set his back against the flag staff with his gun in his hand and desired the young men to kill them all.
[20]: 538 In June, 1752, The Treaty of Logstown was signed by representatives of the Iroquois Confederation, Lenape and Shawnee leaders, and commissioners from Virginia headed by Joshua Fry.
On 11 June the commissioners, addressing themselves to the Shawnees, "acquainted them that they understood that their chief, Cockawichy [Kakowatcheky], who had been a good friend to the English, was lying bed-rid, and that, to show the regard they had for his past services, they took this opportunity to acknowledge it by presenting him with a suit of Indian clothing.
Brown describes Kakowatcheky as "A perceptive and astute observer of people, he was one of the wisest and most revered of the sachems of the era, and was more aware of the consequences of Euroamerican-Indian contact than almost anyone else at the time.