Talk:William J. Anderson
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Under law, a child was free, or enslaved, according to the status of his mother, not his father. If William J. Anderson's mother, as stated in the article, was free, then William J. Anderson was born a freeman, not a slave.
The article also states William J. Anderson's mother, Susan Anderson, sold him after the Civil War. Quite apart from the unliklihood of a free woman selling her own child into slavery, she couldn't have; slavery had been abolished.
It appears the person who wrote this article was careless, and made a number of major errors. For example, The biography of William J. Anderson, published in 1858, has him saying himself, his mother, a widow, "bound him out", meaning she had him apprenticed to be supported and taught a trade. He was then kidnapped, and sold into slavery, but a court later found him to be a free man. This was before the Civil War.