Cathay this period, many cartographers were placing Cathay on the Pacific coast, north of Beijing (Pekin) which was already well-known to Europeans. The borders drawn on some of these maps would first make Cathay the northeastern section of China (e.g. by Gerardus Mercator), or, later, a region separated by China by the Great Wall and possibly some mountains and/or wilderness (as in a by Jodocus Hondius, or a by John Speed). J. J. L. Duyvendak hypothesized that it was the ignorance of the fact that "China" is the mighty "Cathay" of Marco Polo that allowed the Dutch governor of East Indies
Cathay Williams final resting place is now unknown. In 2016, a bronze bust of Cathay Williams, featuring information about her and with a small rose garden around it, was unveiled outside the Richard Allen Cultural Center in Leavenworth, Kansas. In 2018, the Private Cathay Williams monument bench was unveiled on the Walk of Honor at the National Infantry Museum. Cathay Williams Cathay Williams (September 1844 – 1893) was an American soldier who enlisted in the United States Army under the pseudonym William Cathay. She was the first African-American woman to enlist, and the only documented to serve in the United States Army