Conference: 'To Freedom and Back: Flight, Extradition and Legacies of Nelson Hackett'

Joelle Storet

A detail from the painting "Nelson Leaves" by Joelle Storet.

The U of A Humanities Center's Nelson Hackett Project will host an academic conference Sept. 5 and 6 examining Hackett's 1841 flight from slavery, his extradition from Canada and his many legacies. Sponsored by the Diane D. Blair Center for Southern Politics and Society at the U of A, the conference is open to students, teachers and everyone interested in the history of slavery and freedom in Northwest Arkansas, the United States and broader Atlantic world.

In July 1841, Nelson Hackett fled Fayetteville and slavery. Atop his master's fastest horse, he made his way 360 miles through the slave states of Arkansas and Missouri and another 600 miles through the free states of the North before crossing into Canada at Detroit.

Setting foot in British Canada, Hackett thought he was a free man, but that would not be the case. 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 back the Arkansas to face charges for those thefts. When Canada's governor-general sent the fugitive back to the United States, Hackett became the first enslaved person that Canada sent back to bondage. He would also be the last. His extradition provoked an outcry from abolitionists — Black and white, American, Canadian and British — who successfully pressured the British government to make it practically impossible to extradite fugitives back to slavery.

The conference will kick off on the evening of Thursday, Sept. 6, with the keynote address "Taking Leave: Fugitive Slaves and the Politics of Slavery" by professor Richard Blackett in Giffels Auditorium on the second floor of the U of A's Old Main. Blackett, the 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 Captive's Quest for Freedom: Fugitive Slaves, the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law and the Politics of Slavery (2018) and Samuel Ringgold Ward: A Life of Struggle (2023). Blackett is currently the president of the Southern Historical Association.

On Friday, Sept. 7, at the Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, 15 scholars from across North America will present papers that explore various aspects of Hackett's life and legacy. Some of the presentations will focus on Hackett in Fayetteville, but others will examine fugitivity, the Underground Railroad, Black abolitionism, historical memory and the difficulty of locating fugitives in the archives. The Pryor Center is at 1 E. Center St. on the Fayetteville Square.