Sometime in the middle of July 1841, Nelson Hackett fled both Arkansas and slavery, setting off an international dispute that would ensure that Canada remained a safe refuge for those escaping bondage in the United States.
There are conflicting accounts of Hackett’s departure. Alfred Wallace, who claimed to own him, accused Hackett of leaving Fayetteville while Wallace was away and of stealing a race horse, saddle, coat, 100 £ ($500) in silver and gold coin, and a neighbor’s watch on the way out of town. Abolitionists later disputed Wallace’s version of Hackett’s escape. What is not in dispute, though, is that Hackett’s flight took him across the state of Missouri, through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan, across the Detroit River, and into Canada West (now the Province of Ontario), where the last remnants of slavery had been abolished in 1834.
Arriving in Canada West, part of the recently restructured Province of Canada, on September 1, Hackett thought that he had found freedom. But Wallace had put a man on his trail and, after finding Hackett’s destination, personally travelled to Canada. Wallace found Hackett in the town of Chatham on September 6, beat him, had him imprisoned, and demanded his extradition back to Arkansas on charges of theft. The state of Arkansas and supporters of slavery insisted that he be returned to face trial, while black and white abolitionists throughout the Atlantic world called on Canada to give Hackett his freedom. The conflict was settled by the governor general of the Province of Canada, who declared that the fugitive’s guilt and the need to discourage such men from putting down roots in the province required him to return Hackett to Arkansas.
In February 1842, Nelson Hackett became the first and only fugitive from slavery that Canada sent back to the United States, making abolitionists fearful that slave owners would fabricate claims of theft to secure the return of runaways. When Hackett arrived back in Fayetteville in June 1842, reports indicate that Wallace had him publicly flogged and then sold him to traders. Hackett’s fate, though, remains unknown. Some accounts suggest that he was taken to Texas to be worked to death, but others leave open the possibility of another escape.
Abolitionists—both in the United States and the British Empire—refused to let Hackett’s extradition set a precedent. Led by Lewis Tappan and Gerrit Smith, white American abolitionists met with Lord Ashburton, the British diplomat who had recently negotiated the Webster-Ashburton Treaty to regulate relations between the United States and Canada. They were especially concerned with the treaty’s Article 10, which would allow extraditions of fugitives on the charges of theft, and used Hackett’s case to plead for a revision. Lord Ashburton assured Tappan and Smith that the British would take care to interpret Article 10 in such a way as to prevent the future return of fugitives like Hackett. Although some abolitionists were satisfied by Ashburton’s assurances, others, especially those within the British Empire like Charles Stuart and Thomas Clarkson, were not. They too invoked the Hackett case to gain allies in Parliament and secured policies from the foreign and colonial ministries that made similar extraditions extremely difficult. Thus, Nelson Hackett’s flight and return helped ensure that Canada would remain the Promised Land for slavery’s fugitives.
The Nelson Hackett Project presents Hackett’s story not only to document a single man’s incredible struggle but also to explore how that one man activated a trans-Atlantic and biracial network of activists working to undermine the institution of slavery.
The Nelson Hackett Project presents Hackett’s story not only to document a single man’s incredible struggle but also to explore how that one man activated a trans-Atlantic and biracial network of activists working to undermine the institution of slavery. Hackett’s struggle demonstrates how the actions of enslaved individuals forced officials throughout the entire Atlantic world to confront the very thing that most of them wanted to ignore—the institution of chattel slavery. Thus, fugitives like Hackett played critical roles in the century-long process of abolition and emancipation. The Project’s map allows students and scholars to follow Hackett’s flight, the activities of those working on his behalf, and the flow of people and ideas. At each stop, there is a brief account of the activities of Hackett, his supporters, and/or those seeking his re-enslavement, followed by primary documents. The site is intended to be an on-going project, with the addition of new materials and interpretations as research progresses.
A primary problem in trying to reconstruct Hackett’s flight is that there are few records of his words and thoughts. This problem is rooted in the racism that undergirded chattel slavery and created most of its archival record. Hackett’s flight is therefore reconstructed using other voices, including abolitionists (both white and black), journalists, colonial and elected officials, and slave owners and their apologists. This process, though, makes Hackett into someone who is acted upon and judged rather than the center of his own story and thus obscures much of his humanity. Only Hackett’s actions themselves—his flight from Arkansas, journey to Canada, and possible escape upon his return to Fayetteville—tell us about his motivations and desires, offering an alternative to the written record and deeper insight into his full story.
Primary Sources
Secondary Works on Hackett
Elizabeth Abbott-Namphy, “Nelson Hackett,” Canadian Dictionary of Biography, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio.php?BioId=37541.
Alexander L. Murray, “The Extradition of Fugitive Slaves from Canada: A Re-evaluation,” Canadian Historical Review 43 (December 1962): 298-314.
“Nelson Hackett” CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas, https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/nelson-hackett-4910/.
Bryan Prince, “The Illusion of Safety: Attempts to Extradite Fugitive Slaves from Canada,” in A Fluid Frontier: Slavery, Resistance, and the Underground Railroad in the Detroit River Borderland, ed. Karolyn Smardz Frost and Veta Smith Tucker (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2016 ), 67-79.
Roman J. Zorn, “An Arkansas Fugitive Slave Incident and Its International Repercussions,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 16 (Summer 1957): 139-149.
Secondary Workers on abolition and fugitivity
Richard Blackett, The Captive’s Quest for Freedom: Fugitive Slaves, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, and the Politics of Slavery (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018).
Andrew Delbanco, The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America’s Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War (New York: Penguin, 2018).
Manisha Sinha, The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017).
About the Project
The Nelson Hackett Project is part of Arkansas Stories of Place and Belonging, an innovative public scholarship and engagement series based at the University of Arkansas Humanities Center and funded by a Chancellor’s Innovation Grant. Arkansas Stories of Place and Belonging is directed by Kathryn Sloan (ksloan@uark.edu), and the Nelson Hackett Project is directed by Michael Pierce (mpierce@uark.edu). The Nelson Hackett Project website is designed by Red Rooster Design (redroosterdesign.com) and the content produced by Michael Pierce. Visit the University of Arkansas Humanities Center’s website” for more information on Arkansas Stories of Place and Belonging and Arkansas Humanities Center events.
Several individuals have provided invaluable assistance for the Nelson Hackett Project: P. J. Carfoote of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto; Samantha Meredith of the Chatham-Kent Black Historical Society; Daniel Thacker of the South Texas Archive, Texas A&M Kingsville; Geoffery Stark and Joshua Youngblood of Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries; Caree Banton, Lisa Childs, James Cooke, James Gigantino, Amanda McGee, Ren Pepitone, Tricia Starks, Elliott West, Patrick Williams, and Randall Woods of the Department of History, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville; Benjamin Pierce; and Roane Elliott, Jerry Hogan, and Sharon Killian of Washington County Community Remembrance Project. The University of Arkansas’s Department of History funded the graduate students who transcribed the documents.