Sarii (1746-1821)

Portrait by Alex Osborn, 2022

Sarii (also known as Sally New River) was a leader of the Catawba Nation in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. She earned respect through her knowledge of Catawba history and traditions and her remarkable calming presence. By the late 1700s, she was the Catawba Nation's largest landholder and used her power to protect her ancestral homelands from permanent European settlement.

Sarii was born in 1746 near current-day Nations Ford into a community led by her famed grandfather, King Hagler (Nopkehe). Not much is known of her early life, but during her teenage years around 1759, she likely survived a smallpox epidemic that left her as an orphan. Between 1760 and 1796 she married General New River and united two distinct Catawba lineages into one powerful kin group.

In 1796, the Catawba community voted to entrust Sarii with the deed to more than 500 acres of land. This was a key symbol of women's influence in the Catawba Nation, and helped to prevent settlers from buying more Catawba land. After her husband's death in 1804, Sarii continued to be recognized be European and Catawba observers as a key decisionmaker and respected elder until her own death in 1821.