Event
To Freedom and Back: The Nelson Hackett Case and its Legacy
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Free.Location:
This is a virtual event.Dates & Times
Date:
Time:
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Type of Event
This program will begin at 2:00pm EDT.
Description
2021 marks the 180th anniversary of Nelson Hackett’s escape from slavery on the Underground Railroad, an incident which helped secure Canada as a refuge for freedom seekers.
On or around July 16, 1841, Nelson Hackett fled Arkansas and slavery, taking with him a horse and saddle, gold watch and chain, and a beaver coat. His flight took him from the frontier town of Fayetteville, across Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, through parts of Ohio and Michigan, and into Canada at Detroit. His enslaver followed, had him arrested on charges of theft, and demanded his extradition back to Arkansas. In January 1842, Canada’s governor-general acceded to this demand, sending Hackett back to face changes and making him the first such fugitive returned to slavery.
Join Dr. Michael Pierce, the University of Arkansas, and Dr. Roy Finkenbine, University of Detroit Mercy, as they discuss Hackett’s flight and the successful campaign waged by abolitionists that ensured Hackett would be the last freedom seeker returned by Canada.
There will also be a brief demonstration of the University of Arkansas Humanities Center’s Nelson Hackett Project Database (https://nelsonhackettproject.uark.edu), a digital humanities program listed in the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Program.
Michael Pierce, Associate Professor of History at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, is the Director of the University of Arkansas Humanities Center’s Nelson Hackett Project. He is the author of Striking with the Ballot: Ohio Labor and the Populist Party, and his essays have appeared in the Journal of Southern History, Agricultural History, Arkansas Historical Quarterly, and several edited volumes.
Roy E. Finkenbine is Professor of History and Director of the Black Abolitionist Archive at the University of Detroit Mercy. He teaches courses in African American history, modern Africa, slave resistance, the Civil War era, and the Underground Railroad. He has served on the Michigan Freedom Trail Commission since 2009. He is also the author of Sources of the African American Past (1st ed., 1997; 2nd ed., 2004), as well as a dozen articles and book chapters on the black abolitionists and the Underground Railroad. He is currently working on a book entitled Freedom Seekers in Indian Country: Sanctuaries and Crossings of the Old Northwest.
This event is being co-sponsored by Michigan Freedom Trails Commission, the NPS National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Program, and the University of Arkansas Humanities Center.
Advanced registration is required.
Reservation or Registration: Yes
Image Gallery
NPS Photo
University of Detroit Mercy
Michigan Freedom Trail Commission
University of Arkansas
University of Arkansas