[2] She, along with Maria Filipa de Oliveira (died 1873) and Sister Joana Angélica (1761-1822), are known as the three Bahian women resistance fighters in the War of Independence against the Portuguese.

The historian Aristides Augusto Milton, a childhood friend of the poet Castro Alves, grandson of the major who defended Maria Quiteria for her skill with weapons and recognized military discipline, and incorporated it her to his troops, considers Maria Quitéria "a lady as brave as honest" in the Efemérides Cachoeiranas.

[2] After her time serving in the war, Quitéria married Gabriel Pereira Brito (who was a former lover of hers) and had one daughter with him, named Luisa.

[2] Near the end of her life, the widowed Maria Quitéria was nearly blind, and in 1853 she died in relative obscurity and poverty near Salvador.

Her remains were placed in the ossuary of the Church of the Blessed Sacrament of Saint Anne (Portuguese: Igreja do Santíssimo Sacramento e Sant'Ana), in the neighborhood of Nazaré in Salvador.

By presidential decree in 1996, Maria Quitéria was proclaimed Patron of the Corps of Support Staff Officers of the Brazilian Army.