Weapemeoc: The People of the Albemarle

Before English colonists set foot on Roanoke Island, this shore belonged to the Weapemeoc, an Algonquian confederation that controlled the territory south of the Chesapeake Bay and north of Albemarle Sound. Their principal town stood near present-day Edenton. In fifteen eighty-five and fifteen eighty-six, Ralph Lane and his colonists from the first English settlement on Roanoke Island traveled here and made contact with Weapemeoc leaders.

The confederation was organized into four sub-groups: the Pasquotank, Perquimans, Poteskeet, and Yeopim. Each held their own towns along the rivers and sounds of the inner coast. Within a century of European contact, the Weapemeoc had been absorbed into neighboring groups or had simply ceased to exist as a recognized political body, casualties of disease, displacement, and colonial pressure.