Edith Turner lived in Southampton County, Virginia, and had been active in land transactions since 1794, although her name first appears on a petition to the Virginia General Assembly dating to 1792, marking her earliest appearance in the historical record.
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Edith Turner is said to have been intelligent, thought not highly educated, and a fluent and skilled conversationalist in both English and Nottoway.
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Edith Turner owned a prosperous farm, and as a leader among her people attempted to convince them to adopt the farming practices used by whites.
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Edith Turner was active as a foster mother and advocate for Nottoway children, successfully petitioning white trustees to return four to the reservation.
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Edith Turner 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.
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Edith Turner is remembered as one of the last three speakers of the Nottoway language, which became extinct sometime before 1900.
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Edith Turner knew the tribe's legends, and provided an account of one of them to an anonymous writer who submitted it to The Gentleman's Magazine of London, which published it in 1821.
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Edith Turner taught children Nottoway traditions, as well as how to exist in a white-dominated society.
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Edith Turner was the only member of the tribe, at the time, to write a will, 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.
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