1750 is quite late in the story of Native North Carolina history. During the contact period Tuscarora and Algonquins lived throughout the area, trading with periodic European visitors. By 1690 English settlers established permanent residences on Albemarle Sound. The area was a routine stop for ships from Virginia, as well as pirates drawn to the sheltered harbors of the Carolina coast. Coastal Algonquin groups and the Tuscarora persisted on the coast despite territory encroachment, slaving raids, and periodic epidemics. After the Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1696-1700 the influx of English settlers increased dramatically, further limiting access to hunting, fishing, and gathering territory around Palmico Sound. By 1709 the North Carolina surveyor general, John Lawson, stated "there is not the sixth Savage living within two hundred miles of all our Settlements, as there were fifty years ago." (quoted in Kelton)

Conditions continued to deteriorate further as German and Swiss settlers added their numbers to the influx of new colonists, in addition to the excess poor from Virginia who poured south in search of cheap land. Frustrations continued to build, leading to the 1711-1713 Tuscarora War. The Tuscarora, once a powerhouse in the Southeast, had declined in influence since 1650. To protect themselves from growing threats, the Cherokee and Siouans to the west and the European settlers to the east, they united with coastal Algonquin groups to attack North Carolina villages. 120 settlers were killed on the first day of the war. South Carolina, hoping to satiate it's appetite for native slaves, came to North Carolina's defense. The war ground on, with the associated increase in disease, hunger, territory displacement, and slaving raids working together to decrease indigenous resistance. By 1713 a combined force of English artillery and 760 native allies attacked the Tuscarora fortified town of Nohoroco. 900 individuals were either captured or killed in the attack. During the war the Tuscarora were forced to sign a treaty forfeiting their lands near Palmico Sound, and after the devastating loss of Nohoroco many Tuscarora fled north to join the Iroquois Confederacy in modern day New York. As Kelton states, "By the end of the year, coastal Carolina had been depopulated of its original Tuscarora and Algonquin inhabitants" (p 169).

For more information check out Kelton's Epidemics and Enslavement: Biological Catastrophe in the Native Southeast, 1492-1715