The Yeopim Reservation

In seventeen oh four, colonial authorities in North Carolina set aside roughly ten thousand acres on the North River as a reservation for the Yeopim Indians. The Yeopim were an Algonquian people who had once ranged across what are now Camden, Currituck, Perquimans, and Pasquotank counties. Their numbers were small at the turn of that century.

The reservation deed granted the Yeopim all hunting and fishing rights, while reserving to the colony one-half of any gold or silver discovered on the land. The quitrent was set at a single ear of corn per year. By seventeen twenty-three the tribe began selling parcels, and after seventeen thirty-nine they received permission to sell freely.

The reservation was gone within a generation, and by mid-century the Yeopim had ceased to exist as a distinct people in North Carolina.