Charles Stewart

The leaders of Detroit’s small free black community , also known as the Colored Vigilant Committee, asked Charles Henry Stewart, a white attorney who had been one of the founding officers of the Detroit Anti-Slavery Society, to investigate Hackett’s extradition to see if there were any legal avenues that might secure his release. Stewart obtained a writ from the Michigan Supreme Court that allowed him to speak with Hackett and examine the documents pertaining to Hackett’s case. Stewart and the black leaders concluded, in the words of the Colored Vigilant Committee, that the legal papers had been “correctly made out,” the extradition “had been legally done,” and that Hackett “was a felon.” They worried that associating with such a man would “bring a reproach upon the cause of emancipation” and initially declined to mobilize the community to help Hackett.

The Colored Vigilant Committee reconsidered, though. They considered Hackett’s extradition as threatening Canada’s status as a haven for fugitives and undermining the British Empire’s commitment to the abolitionist cause. If slaveholders could use charges of theft as pretexts for securing the return of fugitives, Canada would become like the free states of the North and “no longer be a safe asylum for our unfortunate brethren who are fleeing from bondage.” The Colored Vigilant Committee ordered that copies of the resolution be sent to abolitionist papers in an effort to make Hackett’s case known to the world. 

​The Anti-Slavery Society Convention, 1840 by Benjamin Robert Haydon. Stuart is close to the center in this painting.