Sir John Yeamans 1st Baronet (1611–1674 in South Carolina) was an English colonial administrator described in his day as "a pirate ashore".

Born February 1611 in Bristol, England, Sir John Yeamans was a younger son of John Yeamans, a brewer of Redcliffe, Bristol who died about 1645, and his wife Blanche Germain. The younger John was awarded a baronetcy on 12 January 1665 as intended governor of the new settlement at Cape Fear River Carolina but possibly also for service as a royalist colonel during the civil war. A settler in Barbados, Sir John Yeamans married twice and his many descendants continued to take prominent positions in West Indies affairs.

John's younger brother, Robert, also received a baronetcy on 31 December 1666 but he left no children.

Yeamans had settled on the West Indies island of Barbados and had become a large landholder there (he had held land in Barbados since 1638) a colonel of the militia, judge of a local court of common pleas, and a member of the royal council.

In the deteriorating economic conditions of the 1660s and 1670s many Barbadian planters sought better opportunities. Named governor by the lords proprietors of Carolina in 1665 Yeamans spent the last two months of that year exploring Carolina intending to settle at Port Royal Sound. However two of their three vessels were wrecked and their plans were temporarily abandoned.

In 1669 another attempt was made. Three ships of settlers were sent to Port Royal from the British Isles calling first at Barbados. Instructed by the proprietors to name a governor Yeamans named himself and joined the expedition until it reached Bermuda. In Bermuda he appointed an aged William Sayle in his place and abruptly returned to Barbados. The expedition continued and successfully founded South Carolina's first permanent white settlement in April 1670.

Yeamans arrived in Carolina more than a year later expecting to be governor in place of Joseph West who had succeeded to the post on Sayle's death. The council did not permit him to assume the post until ordered to do so by the proprietors. Yeamans was appointed Governor of the British Province of Carolina 19 April 1672.

The proprietors quickly lost confidence in Yeamans noting his drive "to convert all things to his present private profitt". Joseph West was commissioned his successor on 18 April 1674 four months before Yeamans' death.

Before he became governor Yeamans brought 200 African slaves to South Carolina.^[1]

Lieutenant Colonel Josiah Martin, the last colonial governor of the Province of North Carolina was a member of the same West Indies Yeamans family

Sir John Yeamans was one of a large, often prominent, family named Yeamans or Yeomans of Bristol, England some of whom later became Quakers. A Sir Robert Yeamans was a High Sheriff and Mayor of Bristol.

During the civil war a Robert Yeamans^[2] who was no close relation of Sir John^[3], was commissioned by the King to raise troops in Bristol. A short time later the city was garrisoned by Parliamentary forces and Yeamans acting belatedly on his commission conceived a plan to betray the city into the hands of Prince Rupert. The plot was discovered and on 30 May 1643 Robert Yeamans was hanged, drawn, and quartered in front of his house on what is today known as Wine Street near Bristol Castle.

• South Carolina Legislature (PDF)
• Robert M. Weir, Yeamans, Sir John, first baronet (1611–1674), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004

• St. Nicholas Abbey