>> I seem to remember hearing awhile ago that generations after they disappeared, a native tribe from that area had many members with blue eyes and various traits that would indicate a bi~racial heritage. <<
That would be the Lumbee people of Robeson County NC. Visit those folks today, and you’ll see many who look like pure Caucasians, many who look like they’re about 1/8 African, and a few who look so Amerindian that you could think they just crossed the Bering Strait from Siberia.
Moreover, their Southern accents are as deep as you’ll find anywhere, and their cookin’ is pure “South country style” — something you can sample at Fuller’s Buffet just off I-95 (Exit 20) in Lumberton NC.
Lumbees of today are an alphabet soup of races. The swamps and lowlands of SE NC were one of the last areas of the colonial east coast to be settled and became a haven for runaway slaves, indentured servants and criminals.
The Natives in the region during later colonial days were an amalgamated tribe, the remnants of several other small tribes from across the state that melded together in the early decades of the 1700’s as smallpox decimated and erased their prior local existence.
The Lumbee have native genetics with a seasoning of European and African flavors. There’s no way to tell how old the European strain is.
If I’m not mistaken some of the English surnames common among the Lumbee would appear to indicate a tie to the colonists.
My niece by marriage is a Lumbee. At the wedding, her side of the family ranged in shade from light to dark, with varied hair as well. Her mother spoke in the slowest drawl I have ever heard.