In the eighteenth-century Chesapeake, race took on greater importance over time, and whites increasingly considered free blacks dangerous and undesirable.

Over time, laws and social norms in the Chesapeake region became more focused on racial categorization and hierarchy, and free blacks were seen as a threat to the slave-based economy and social order. By the end of the eighteenth century, laws restricting the rights and mobility of free blacks were widespread in the Chesapeake.