From 1780 to 1810, the number of slaves freed in the Upper South had grown markedly, as some slaveholders were inspired to free slaves by the American Revolution and its ideals. Methodists and Quakers especially worked to convince slaveholders to manumit slaves. The percentage of free blacks as part of the black population rose from less than 1 percent in 1782 to more than 10 percent by 1810. By that time, Virginia's free blacks numbered 30,466 or 7.2 percent of the total black population. By 1810 nearly three-quarters of Delaware's blacks were free.