He served as the chief of Pamunkey and as werowance of the Powhatan Paramount Chiefdom for the term lasting from about 1649 to 1656, when he died in the Battle of Bloody Run.
Totopotomoi became the weroance of the Powhatan Paramount Chiefdom, a unified group of Native American tribes in Virginia, in about 1649 upon the death of Nectowance.
About 1654, six or seven hundred members of the Shackoconian tribe of the Manahoac confederacy in search of a new dwelling place, moved down near the falls of the James River.
After the tremendous defeat, Hill was censured by the Virginia Assembly, stripped of his rank and had to personally pay for the English cost of the battle.
Cockacoeske, Totopotomoi's widow, reminded the Virginia General Assembly of this 20 years later when they again requested assistance during Bacon's Rebellion.
Over the thirty-year span of her leadership, she worked within the English colonial system to recapture the former power of Opechancanough, to protect her people by maintaining a peaceful unity among the tribes under her control.
The Treaty of Middle Plantation, signed on May 29, 1677,[3] nominally made the tribes subjects of the British Crown, and relinquished their remaining claims to their ancestral lands.