admission have dark-skinned black students and faculty easily found in respectable numbers. Colorism through the centuries The offspring of African men and white women were often born into freedom because of their mothers' legal status of slave vs. free, regardless of color. A law established in Virginia and other colonies in the 17th century dictated that the legal status of these children would be determined by that of their mothers, rather than by their fathers, in opposition to the established precedent of common law. These free descendants became well-established, with descendants moving to frontier regions of Virginia, North Carolina and west as areas opened up. Some prominent Americans were descendants of these early free families, for instance, Ralph Bunche, who served as ambassador to the United Nations. As early as the 18th century, travelers remarked on the variety of color and features seen in slaves in Virginia, as European ancestry was obvious. Light-skinned slaves, some of whom were descendants of masters and their sons, were sometimes given domestic jobs inside the master's house, including as companions or maids to his legal children. Some of them were educated, or at least allowed to learn to read. Occasionally the master may have arranged for an apprenticeship for a mixed-race son and freed him upon its completion, especially in the first two decades after the American Revolution, when numerous slaves were freed in the Upper South. In this region, from the Revolution to 1810, the percentage of people of color who were free increased from 1 to more than 10 percent. By 1810, 75% of blacks in Delaware were free. Newly imported Africans and African Americans with less visible European ancestry were used in hard field labor, and abuse was more frequent in the fields. As tensions concerning slave uprisings rose in the 19th century, slave states imposed more restrictions, including prohibitions on educating slaves and on slaves' movements. These slaves could be punished for trying to learn to read and write. In Louisiana especially, Creoles of color had long comprised a third class during the years of slavery. They had achieved a high level of literacy and sophistication under the French and Spanish rule, becoming educated, taking the names of white fathers or lovers, and often receiving property from the white men involved with their families. Many became artisans, property owners, and sometimes slaveholders themselves. Unlike in the Upper South, where free