In the 1600s racial classification of mixed-race children was legally unsettled

Evidence

It was critical to the emerging racial order to identify their status. Should they be classified as white and free, like their fathers, or Black and enslaved, like their mothers? Today, most Americans would quickly identify these children born to Black women as Black—as if they were applying a universal rule of biological inheritance. But in the 1600s, the racial-classification rules had not yet been established. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 206

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: when exactly did the matrilineal rule become settled law in each colony, and what pre-classification status did mixed-race children hold?