They Passed This Way: Quatie Ross and the Steamboat Victoria at Little Rock

At North Shore Riverwalk Park, on the Arkansas River, a Trail of Tears National Historic Trail exhibit titled "They Passed This Way" tells the story of the last Cherokee to travel the water route west. The exhibit is a joint project of the National Park Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Park Service publishes an audio description of it; this page retells what the exhibit says.

NPS Exhibit.

The last voyage of removal

In 1839 the last Cherokee to leave Tennessee set out by steamboat for Indian Territory. Principal Chief John Ross had bought the steamboat Victoria to complete this final journey of removal. When it reached Little Rock, the Victoria landed across the river, on the Arkansas River's south bank.

It was a sad day. Quatie Ross, the chief's wife, was one of nine people who died in this final group of 200 traveling the water route. The exhibit says she most likely died of both grief and illness, and that no Cherokee escaped the hardships of daily life on the Trail of Tears. After her burial, the Victoria went on west to Indian Territory.

Two voices from the time are on the panel. John Ross wrote that his children were left motherless and his wife's remains left in a strange land. And The Gazette reported on February 6, 1839: "Among those on board the Victoria were John Ross and his family. Mr Ross' wife, we regret to say, died shortly before reaching Little Rock, and was buried in the cemetery of this city."

She was later moved to Mount Holly Cemetery, where her grave and a memorial can be visited; her original headstone is at the Historic Arkansas Museum. An old illustration on the exhibit shows her being carried off the Victoria.

The detachment

The final detachment was led by John Drew. "Detachment," a military term, was used throughout Indian Removal, even for groups led by the Cherokee themselves. Along with the Ross family, other well-known Cherokee were aboard — and so were people Drew held in slavery.

Dangers of the water route

Those who went by water faced many dangers on flatboats and steamboats: sickness spreading quickly on board, disease in the river lowlands, fires on the steamers, unpredictable weather, and changing water levels that made navigation difficult.

The Trail of Tears spans more than 5,000 miles of routes the Cherokee took in 1838–1839, five routes across North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

Along the Arkansas River

The exhibit lists sites on the Arkansas River portion of the water route, by distance in miles from the river's mouth at the Mississippi:

Sources

Rewritten from the National Park Service's "North Shore Riverwalk Park Exhibit Audio Description" (Trail of Tears National Historic Trail; public domain), in hubnx's own words. The 1839 newspaper passage is quoted as printed. The exhibit photograph, which reproduces a painting, is not included. Pictures an earlier version of this page left out were restored on 2026-09-26.