Quatie
Quatie (Elizabeth Brown Henley) was the wife of United Cherokee Nation chief John Ross. She died on February 1, 1839, on the steamboat Victoria near Little Rock, Arkansas, while traveling the "Water Route" of the Trail of Tears. Folklore suggests she gave up her blanket to a child before dying herself of pneumonia.
Quatie was the daughter of Thomas Brown and Elizabeth Martin. She married twice. She had a daughter with her first husband, and five more children with John Ross following their marriage in 1813. John Ross and Quatie owned a 200-acre farm in northern Georgia when they were forced off their land to be resettled with 17,000 other Cherokees in the Indian Territory (Oklahoma).
Quatie was originally buried in the city cemetery now occupied by the Federal Courthouse. She was re-interred in Mount Holly Cemetery. The original stone grave marker is in the Historic Arkansas Museum.
References
- "The Observer," Arkansas Times, May 11, 2006.
External links
She had been married previously to a man named Henley, by whom she had a daughter. She and Ross were married about 1813 and had five children together. They owned one of the richest farms in north Georgia of some 200 acres and other businesses and were largely assimilated. Between 1838 and 1839, approximately 17,000 Cherokee were forced from their eastern lands into exile in Indian Territory – present day Oklahoma. On the infamous Trail of Tears, Quatie suffered from exposure and developed pneumonia. She died near present day Little Rock, Arkansas and was buried there. A legend, now greatly circulated, relates that Quatie sacrificed her only blanket for a shivering child, thereby exposing herself to illness.
