The meaning of the name Pamlico is unknown.

The Pamlico belonged to the Algonquian linguistic stock.

This group lived primarily on the Pamlico River in present-day North Carolina.

The Pamlico are mentioned by the Roanoke colonists in 1585-86 under the name Pomouik.

In 1696, they were almost destroyed by smallpox.

In 1701, Lawson recorded a vocabulary from them which shows their affiliations to have been as given above.

In 1710, they lived in a single small village.

They took part in the Tuscarora war, and at its close that part of the Tuscarora under treaty with the English agreed to destroy them. A remnant of the Pamlico was probably incorporated by the Tuscarora as slaves.

The Pamlico are estimated by Mooney (1928), together with "Bear River" Indians, as 1,000 in 1600.

In 1710 they numbered about seventy-five.

The Pamlico have given their name to or shared it with the largest sound in North Carolina and a North Carolina county. They are also noteworthy as having been almost, if not quite, the most southerly Algonquian tribe on the Atlantic seaboard, and the most southerly one from which a vocabulary has been collected.