See also: Swiss and Palatine Settlers ; Settlement of the
Mountains, 1775-1838 (from Tar Heel Junior Historian);
Settlement of the Piedmont (from Tar Heel Junior Historian);
Moravians ; Salem  German settlers first came to what is now
North Carolina as part of the second expedition sent to the
Roanoke area by Sir Walter Raleigh  in the 1580s. The largest
influx of German people to North Carolina, however, occurred in
the eighteenth century, beginning with a joint effort between a
Swiss land company and the British Crown to settle 100 families
of German Palatines  in the town of New Bern  on the Neuse  and
Trent Rivers in 1710. The colony flourished and prospered for 18
months, but in 1711 the colony was virtually destroyed after
suffering an attack by Tuscarora Indians . Despite such
setbacks, German settlers continued to come to North Carolina
throughout the eighteenth century. As unoccupied land became
harder to find in the populous Pennsylvania region where they
had originally settled, many Germans migrat