The population remained sparse for decades due to the lack of suitable land for farming, and timber and naval stores formed a crucial part of the early economy.

The narcotics trade fueled violence, social unrest, political tensions, and police corruption and caused the county's statewide reputation to suffer.

The county's economy was further damaged by significant declines in the tobacco and textile industries in the 1990s and early 2000s, which have now been supplanted by the supply of fossil fuels, poultry farming, biogas and bio-mass facilities, and logging.

[3] Archeological excavations in the area eventually encompassing Robeson County have uncovered glass beads—often used by Native Americans in trade, pottery, and clay pipes.

[5] The earliest written mention of Native Americans in the area is a 1725 map compiled by John Herbert, which identified four Siouan-speaking communities near Drowning Creek—later known as the Lumber River.

[6] The Native American/American Indian-descent people[a] in the Lumber River valley eventually coalesced into a series of farming communities collectively dubbed "Scuffletown" by whites but known by inhabitants as "the Settlement".

[19] Despite the increase in settlement, population levels in the Lumber River valley remained low for many years, as swamps and thick vegetation divided arable land and made transportation difficult.

[20] The production of timber and naval stores formed a key part of the area's early economy, with logs being floated down the river for sale in Georgetown, South Carolina, in the late 1700s.

[46] The Indians' aid to the Union escapees and their attempts to dodge labor conscription drew the attention of the Confederate Home Guard, a paramilitary force tasked with maintaining law and order in the South during the war.

[53] In 1864, during the latter stages of the Civil War, Confederate postmaster James P. Barnes accused some sons of Allen Lowry, a prominent Indian farmer, of stealing two of his hogs and butchering them to feed Union escapees.

[66] Local government in Robeson mostly continued as it had during the war, with rich white men of prominence dominating public offices, especially the justices of the peace who constituted the county court.

[77] Republican officials were reluctant to take any action concerning the lawlessness in Robeson since prosecuting former Home Guardsmen for their extrajudicial killings would harm their law and order campaign, while targeting the Lowry Gang would split their local base of support.

"[86] The board then voted to certify the elections without counting results from four Republican-majority precincts, giving the county's two Democratic delegate candidates a slim margin of victory.

[86] With Reconstruction thus ended, Democrats reasserted their dominance over politics in the South, but Republicans remained competitive in North Carolina, and the Indian population in Robeson continued to support them.

[87] Though Republicans still made up the majority of registered voters in Robeson, disagreements caused by the Lowry War prevented them from solidifying local control.

[89] Hamilton McMillan, a Robesonian member of the North Carolina House of Representatives and a Democrat, sought to switch the Indians' allegiance to solidify his party's control over the state.

[97] Due to the Indians' predominance in the community, the town lacked strict adherence to many Jim Crow norms common in the rest of the county and the wider South in the early-to-mid 20th century.

[106] Bouts of typhoid, hookworm, smallpox, and a high infant mortality rate led Robeson's government to organize the first county-level public health department in the United States in 1912.

[107] Following the passage of a state drainage law in 1909, many swamps in the county were drained to increase usable farmland, improve transportation,[108][109] and reduce malaria cases.

[124] In 1945, a group of Indians petitioned the governor to support the restoration of an elected municipal government in Pembroke, which had been swapped for an appointive system in 1917 at the behest of the community's white minority.

[101] In 1956, the United States Congress formally extended partial recognition to the Lumbee Tribe, affirming their existence as an Indigenous community but disallowing them from the use of federal funds and services available to other Native American groups.

[126] Other Indians rejected the Lumbee designation and identified themselves as Tuscarora—stressing a connection to the Tuscarora people who had populated North Carolina in the 1700s—intending to secure a better chance at full federal recognition.

The event, dubbed by the press as the "Battle of Hayes Pond", garnered national media attention and led Klan activity against the Lumbees to cease.

The prevalence of poverty enticed many Robesonians to sell moonshine to supplement their incomes, and the large number of isolated swamps and woods offered many places where stills could be concealed.

[145] The trade of marijuana eventually supplanted moonshine before being overtaken by cocaine trafficking in the 1980s, which was enabled by the county's midway location between Miami and New York City along Interstate 95.

Over a quarter of county residents lived below the poverty threshold, over half of adults over the age of 25 lacked a high school diploma, and the local unemployment rate was higher than the state average.

Their subsequent Operation Tarnished Badge became the largest police corruption investigation in state history and led to 22 officers, including the sheriff, being convicted for various crimes.

[158] Following the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1992, Robeson County lost thousands of manufacturing jobs, followed shortly by a knock-on loss of employment in other sectors.

[216] The local Republican Party grew in the early 21st century, fueled by prevailing religious conservatism in the county and discontent with the loss of manufacturing jobs.

[224][156] The Robeson County Office of Economic Development determined that the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement led to the closure of 32 manufacturing facilities and the loss of over 6,000 jobs between 1995 and 2005.