Storyline
The living community: state recognition in 2002, the tribal lands near Pleasant Grove, and the nation’s own telling of its history.
In briefThe Eno-Occaneechi Indian Association formed in 1984, took the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation name in 1994 and won state recognition in 2002 after a decade of petitions and a court ruling. The band bought land for its tribal grounds near Pleasant Grove in 2004, rebuilt the replica village at Hillsborough, and dedicated a state highway marker in 2024.
Read the 28 eventsAll storylines
37 works about The Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation today are indexed here. 3 held at OCPL →
Events in this storyline, in date order. See these 28 dated events in the chronology →
Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first.
Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.
Filter these works by material, period, or place. Counts refer to works, not individual copies. A work may appear under more than one period or place.
John Bradley's interview with John Blackfeather Jeffries, an elder of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation, whose tribal grounds lie in northern Orange County near Hillsborough. Occaneechi history and Native history in North Carolina and Virginia, the tribe's older homeland, are its subjects. Published in 2021.
Included because: Catalog heading in the OCPL record: Occaneechi Indians -- History.
Lisa A. Smith's 1994 paper on how Hillsborough presents its past and how the story of the Occaneechi, the Native people whose town stood on the Eno near Hillsborough around 1700, has been brought into that public history. 47 leaves, filmed by the University of North Carolina Library on a microfilm reel with two other items.
Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Occaneechi Indians.
Microfilm copy of one of the Research Laboratories of Anthropology reports on the mid-1980s excavations at the Occaneechi Town site near Hillsborough, dated 15 May 1986 and later numbered research report 4. The work was funded by a National Geographic Society grant, and the reel, filmed by the University of North Carolina Library, reproduces 171 leaves including a bibliography.
Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Occaneechi Indians.
Roy S. Dickens's final report on the 1986 excavations at the Occaneechi Town site on the Eno River near Hillsborough, prepared by the Research Laboratories of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina and dated May 1987. Funded by a National Geographic Society grant and later numbered as the laboratories' research report 8, it covers the archaeology of the Occaneechi and culture change at the site. 171 leaves with illustrations, maps and a bibliography.
Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Occaneechi Indians.
Criss Wynters's children's book retelling an Occaneechi folk story, published in 2024. Its Orange County connection is the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation, based in the northern part of the county.
Included because: Catalog heading in the OCPL record: Occaneechi Indians -- Folklore -- Juvenile Literature.
Alegría Rojas-Patino's bilingual Spanish and English graphic novel for young adults, published in 2024. This science fiction story of time travel is set in Durham, North Carolina, with Occaneechi people, cicadas and extraterrestrial beings among its elements. The Occaneechi town site lies on the Eno near Hillsborough in Orange County.
Included because: Catalog heading in the Durham record: Occaneechi Indians -- Fiction.
A 28-minute documentary video from the Native American Resource Center at UNC Pembroke in which members of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation speak about their history, culture and identity. Speakers include Tony Hayes, Forest Hazel, Vivette Jeffries-Logan, Sharn Jeffries, John Jeffries, Wanda Whitmore-Penner and Tammy Hayes Hill, and their words are set against photographs of the community's past and present. Produced by Stanley G. Knick and issued on DVD in 2008. Their ancestors' town stood on the Eno at present-day Hillsborough.
Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Occaneechi Indians.
A 29-minute documentary video on the eight state-recognized Indian tribes of North Carolina and the North Carolina Commission of Indian Affairs, produced in 2005 by the Native American Resource Center at UNC Pembroke with Stanley G. Knick. Among the tribes covered are the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation, whose home ground includes northern Orange County, along with the Lumbee, Coharie, Haliwa-Saponi, Meherrin, Waccamaw and Eastern Band of Cherokee. One DVD, sound and color.
Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Occaneechi Indians.
Jeremiah James Nowell Jr.'s 2000 study of race formation and the politics of American Indian recognition in North Carolina, with the Occaneechi people, whose present-day band is based in Orange and Alamance counties, among its subjects. Topics include the political, economic and social conditions of Native peoples in the state. xvii and 313 leaves with illustrations and maps.
Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Occaneechi Indians.
Christina D. Morrow's 1999 study of how the Occaneechi people of North Carolina have sought political recognition of their Native American identity, 81 leaves. Subjects include the Occaneechi Indians of North Carolina, with the many variant spellings of the tribe's name from Acconeechy to Okenechee. The Occaneechi community today is centered near Hillsborough and Mebane, which gives the study its Orange County connection.
Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Occaneechi Indians.
A CD-ROM publication from UNC Press (1998) presenting the archaeology of Occaneechi Town, the eighteenth-century Occaneechi village on the Eno River at Hillsborough known to archaeologists as the Fredericks site, excavated by UNC archaeologists. Text, images and data describe and interpret what was found, and an 'Electronic Dig' module lets students plan their own research strategy and work through the site themselves. Comes with an eight-page guide; requires a PC.
Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Occaneechi Indians.
Forest Hazel's 1991 study of the Occaneechi-Saponi descendants living in the Texas community of Orange County, near Mebane, tracing the families of that settlement. It concerns Occaneechi genealogy and Indians of North America in North Carolina. A starting point for anyone researching the county's Indigenous families.
Included because: Catalog heading in the OCPL record: Occaneechi Indians -- Genealogy.
Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection whose titles, catalog subjects, or descriptions match this storyline. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled. Books marked Wider context cover the broader subject rather than this storyline itself.
John Bradley's interview with John Blackfeather Jeffries, an elder of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation, whose tribal grounds lie in northern Orange County near Hillsborough. Occaneechi history and Native history in North Carolina and Virginia, the tribe's older homeland, are its subjects. Published in 2021.
Forest Hazel's 1991 study of the Occaneechi-Saponi descendants living in the Texas community of Orange County, near Mebane, tracing the families of that settlement. It concerns Occaneechi genealogy and Indians of North America in North Carolina. A starting point for anyone researching the county's Indigenous families.
Tutelo, a Siouan language once spoken in Virginia and North Carolina, is recorded here in two vocabularies of about fifty words each, printed in 1913 and both gathered in Ontario: Leo Frachtenberg's from Lucy Buck, an elderly Tutelo woman, in 1907, and Edward Sapir's from Andrew Sprague, a Cayuga who had heard Tutelo as a child, in 1911. Seven Saponi place-names noted by William Byrd in 1728 are added. First issued in 2002; reprinted 2022.
Printed in London in 1709 as 'A New Voyage to Carolina', John Lawson's book pairs a natural history of the colony with the journal of his two-month, 500-mile trek from Charles Town, begun in December 1700, north and west to near present-day Hillsborough and then east to Bath, with accounts of the Indian nations he met. Frances Latham Harriss edited the Garrett and Massie edition, first issued in 1937; this is its 1951 second edition.
Karen Lynch Harley wrote and illustrated this picture book about a young Haliwa-Saponi boy who learns from his grandmother's stories while he plays on her front porch, with Tutelo-Saponi words woven into the telling. The Haliwa-Saponi, descended from Tuscarora, Nansemond, Tutelo and Saponi people, number some 4,060 citizens, most of them in Warren and Halifax counties of northeastern North Carolina. Published in Raleigh in 2024.
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