This paper discusses the dynamic and complex transnational linkages among mid-nineteenth-century African American midwesterners, Canada, Australia, and the Atlantic and Pacific worlds, through the global life and journeys of John Hatfield of Cincinnati, Ohio, an internationally prominent abolitionist and McDuffie’s great-great-great-grandfather. A fierce opponent of slavery and a champion of African American freedom, Hatfield made his way from Cincinnati to Canada to Melbourne, Australia, where he passed away in 1861. Tracing Hatfield’s global journey uncovers new histories of the United States, Canada, Australia, and the African world.

Erik S. McDuffie, an award-winning scholar, is a professor of African American Studies and History, and the Director of the Center for African Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (USA). His research and teaching interests include Black movements, Black feminisms, Black (inter)nationalism, the Midwest, gender, sexualities, urban history, and Global Africa. He is the author of the prize-winning monographs The Second Battle for Africa: Garveyism, the US Heartland, and Global Black Freedom (Duke University Press, 2024) and Sojourning for Freedom: Black Women, American Communism, and the Making of Black Left Feminism (Duke University Press, 2011). Currently, he is working on a book, tentatively titled Freedom-Seeking: The Global Life and Journeys of Black Ohio Abolitionist John Hatfield. The book uncovers the dynamic and complex transnational linkages among mid-nineteenth-century African American midwesterners, Canada, Australia, and the Atlantic and Pacific worlds, through John Hatfield of Cincinnati, Ohio, an internationally prominent abolitionist and McDuffie’s great-great-great-grandfather. McDuffie earned his PhD in History from New York University. Originally from Detroit, Michigan, McDuffie is a sixth-generation midwesterner whose family hails from the United States, Canada, St. Kitts, and Australia.

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