 In the early years, the line between white indentured servants and African laborers was vague, as some Africans also arrived under an indenture, before more were transported as slaves.Some Africans were allowed to earn their freedom before slavery became a lifelong racial caste.Most of the free colored families found in North Carolina in the censuses of 1790-1810 were descended from unions or marriages between free white women and enslaved or free African or African-American men in colonial Virginia.