Macrora Scarborough was born in Pasquotank Precinct, North Carolina in 1693. In 1719 Scarbrough received a court summons because he had been accused of harboring Rose, an enslaved woman. If Scarborough was punished, he did not lose influence locally, as in 1724 he became a local justice of the peace. He represented Pasquotank in the North Carolina Colonial Assembly in 1725 and later represented Perquimans in the same body in 1731, from 1739 to 1740, and from 1744 to 1745. He died in Perquimans in 1752.