On this day in ...... 2007, in Bermuda, Dame Lois Browne-Evans (right), "a pioneer in many fields," died from a stroke 3 days short of her 80th birthday. In 1953, Browne-Evans became the 1st woman called to the bar of the island state. She became the 1st black woman to be elected a Member of Bermuda's Parliament " in the history-making 1963 election, in which adults who did not own property received the right to vote for the first time." In 1968, she became the 1st woman to lead an opposition party anywhere in the British Commonwealth; 30 years after that, she was named Bermuda's 1st woman Attorney General. "Her career," the Bermuda Sun wrote at the time of her death, "was defined by one in which she championed the rights of black and working-class Bermudians, who stood on the margins of power, back in the 50s and 60s."
... 1677, Cockacoesk, the weroansqua, or female ruler, of the Pamunkey tribe, and her son called "Captain John West," the weroance, or male ruler, of the Nansemond, signed The Treaty of Middle Plantation, referring to what is now Williamsburg, Virginia, part of the Chesapeake Bay area shown at left. By this treaty certain Native Americans -- "the Powhatan captives" -- held captive by English settlers were to be returned to their tribes. "Because this treaty is still in force, the Pamunkey and Mattaponi still pay "tribute" of game to the governor of Virginia each autumn."
