My understanding of racial politics during the era when slavery existed was that the one drop rule applied, i.e. someone could be of predominantly white ancestry and still be enslaved. I just recently read that Sally Jennings (edit: Hemings) Thomas Jefferson’s mistress, was fully three quarters of European ancestry, and yet she was obviously a slave. What I’m curious about is how far this actually went in practice and how this rule was actually enforced. For example, did anyone ever sued for their freedom on the basis of their ancestry (to the extent that that was even provable)? Or, did social taboos begin to kick in if someone born into slavery was only 1/16th of African ancestry? Or 1/32nd or 1/64th? I also know that in post-slavery but still extremely racist America it was common slander among whites to insinuate that someone had African ancestry, even if that wasn’t immediately noticeable based on physical traits, and I’m curious how this was handled in the extremely race-conscious society of the antebellum South.