Conference: “To Freedom and Back: Escape, Extradition and the Legacy of Nelson Hackett”

The Nelson Hackett Project of the University of Arkansas Humanities Center is hosting a scholarly conference on September 5 and 6 that will examine Hackett's escape from slavery in 1841, his extradition from Canada, and his diverse legacy. The conference is sponsored by the University of Arkansas Diane D. Blair Center for Southern Politics and Society and is open to students, teachers, and anyone interested in the history of slavery and freedom in Northwest Arkansas, the United States, and the wider Atlantic world.

In July 1841, Nelson Hackett escaped from Fayetteville and slavery. On his master's fastest horse, he rode 360 ​​miles through the slave states of Arkansas and Missouri and another 600 miles through the free states of the North before crossing the border into Canada at Detroit.

When Hackett entered British Canada, he thought he was a free man, but he was not. His “owner,” a man named Alfred Wallace, followed him, had him arrested for stealing the horse, a saddle, and a coat, and demanded his extradition to Arkansas to face charges for those thefts. When Canada's governor general sent the fugitive back to the United States, Hackett became the first slave Canada sent back to slavery. He would also be the last. His extradition sparked an outcry from abolitionists—black and white, American, Canadian, and British—who successfully pressured the British government to make extradition of fugitives to slavery virtually impossible.

The conference begins on the evening of September 6 with the keynote address “Taking Leave: Fugitive Slaves and the Politics of Slavery” by Professor Richard Blackett in the Giffels Auditorium on the second floor of Old Main at the University of Arizona. Blackett, Andrew Jackson Professor of History at Vanderbilt University, is a historian of the abolitionist movement in the United States and particularly its transatlantic connections. He is the author of eight books, most recently The Prisoner's Struggle for Freedom: Escaped Slaves, the Escaped Slave Act of 1850, and the Politics of Slavery (2018) and Samuel Ringgold Ward: A life of struggle (2023). Blackett is currently president of the Southern Historical Association.

On Friday, September 7, the Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History will host 15 scholars from across North America presenting lectures examining various aspects of Hackett's life and legacy. Some of the lectures will focus on Hackett in Fayetteville, while others will explore fugitiveness, the Underground Railroad, black abolitionism, historical memory and the difficulty of finding fugitives in the archives. The Pryor Center is located at 1 E. Center St. in Fayetteville Square.

Conference schedule

Thursday, September 5
Giffels Auditorium, Old Main, University of Arkansas Campus

6pm Keynote
Richard Blackett of Vanderbilt University, “Saying Goodbye: Escaped Slaves and the Politics of Slavery”

Friday, September 6

Pryor Center, 1 E. Center St., Fayetteville Square

9am — Welcome
• John Davis, Director, Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History
• Brian Raines, dean, Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences

9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. – Hackett’s Fayetteville
• Michael Pierce, U of A, “Nelson Hackett’s Journey: An Introduction”
• Lisa Childs, U of A, “Nelson Hackett’s Fayetteville: Slave Traders and Their Goods on the Highland Frontier”
• Panel Chair: Tricia Starks, U of A

10:30-11:30 am — Escape
• Cooper Wingert, Georgetown University, “Underground Railroad in Northeast Missouri and Southern Illinois”
• Megan Jeffreys, Cornell University/Freedom on the Move, “Fragmented Freedoms: Exploring Escape in the Digital Age”
• Chair of the panel: Brian McGowan, U of A

11:30 to 12:30 — Refugees at the border
• Amanda McGee, U of A, “Policing Freedom's Borders: Nelson Hackett's Extradition and the Prigg v. Pennsylvania Verdict”
• Roy Finkenbine, University of Detroit Mercy, “The Colored Vigilant Committee of Detroit: A Legacy of the Nelson Hackett Case”
• Chair of the panel: Karynecia Conner, U of A

LUNCH BREAK

1:30pm-2:30pm – Black Chatham
• Keith Griffler, University of Buffalo, “The Legacy of Nelson Hackett for Black Transnational Abolitionism: The View from Canada's 'Black Mecca'”
• Nina Maroney-Reid, University of Western Ontario/Huron, “The Afterlife of Nelson Hackett: History of Black Abolitionists in Chatham, Western Canada”
• Chair of the panel: Matthew Stanley, U of A

2:30–3:30 p.m. – Hackett in context
• Susan Marren, U of A, “Nelson Hackett’s Unfinished Story: Slave Narratives and Inconclusive Endings”
• Vivien Tejada, UCLA, “Indian Territory, Canada, and the Legal Frontiers of Freedom, 1841-1854”
• Chair of the committee: Patrick Williams, U of A

3:30-4:30 – Fleeting according to Hackett
• Kelly Houston Jones, Arkansas Tech University, “Searching for the Kidnappers: The Escaped Slave Law in Indian Territory”
• Danyelle Valentine, Vanderbilt University, “An Alternative Diaspora: African American Emigration to Trinidad and the British West Indies, 1783–1865”
• Chair of the committee: Justin Gage, U of A

4:30 p.m.–5:30 p.m. – In Search of Hackett
• Valandra, U of A, and Roanne Elliott, Washington County Remembrance Project, “Claiming Freedom, Geography, and Personhood: Nelson Hackett as a Model of Resistance”
• Caree Banton, U of A, “The Fugitive’s Archive: The Silence of the Archives in the Nelson Hackett Case”
• Chair of the panel: Candace Cunningham, U of A