 Instead, Alberti adopted the heartless logical and legal realities created by slaveholders and their pro-slavery allies, namely that the condition of slavery followed the mother. Since Joel was the product of a runaway slave, Alberti reasoned that both he and his mother could be legally kidnapped and re-enslaved down south. And that's exactly what he did. Alberti brought them back to Maryland, where Thompson's former enslaver sold them further south, never to be heard from again.