At the time many refused to participate in intensive farming, and as a result they were forced to sell off reservation land to pay debts; she attempted to divide tracts among individuals instead of treating them collectively.
[2] To that end, on October 27, 1821 Turner, acting in her role as chief, petitioned the Virginia General Assembly to parcel out the remaining portion of the reservation among individual residents.
[2] She is known to have met Jedidiah Morse in 1820 as he traveled the United States studying Indians at the President's request; he described her as the "reigning Queen" of the tribe and praised her intelligence and business sense.
[6] A wordlist which she provided to surveyor John Wood in 1820 found its way to Thomas Jefferson, who shared it with Peter Stephen Du Ponceau; it is one of the best surviving sources of information about the language.
She was also the only member of the tribe, at the time, to write a will,[2] a brief document which makes no mention of relatives and which leaves the bulk of the estate to one Edwin Turner, whose relationship to her is unknown.