Robert Smalls, was a Civil War hero, a member of the U.S House of Representatives, and one of the most influential Black figures during the Reconstruction Era. He was a slave that helped the Union cause and gained freedom for himself and family by a daring deed. Smalls was born into slavery in Beaufort, South Carolina on April 5th 1839 to Lydia Polite, and John McKee, her enslaver. Though the McKee and Smalls families enjoyed a close relationship, Lydia seemed to have instilled a resistance to slavery in her young son, as she asked for him to work in the fields. For the first twelve years of his life, Smalls bore witness to the horrors of slavery on and around land owned by the McKee family. Lydia took Robert to the Beaufort jail yard to watch the public beating of slaves and to witness slave auctions. When John McKee died in 1834, his 23 year-old son Henry inherited the Prince Street house, his plantations and 60 enslaved people.
As Henry McKee’s favorite slave, Robert Smalls cared for his master’s horses, carried the bow when his owner engaged in archery and rowed McKee’s boat on day trips. In 1851, McKee bought Cob Call Plantation near Charleston and brought Smalls to live with him. In a number of key ways, Robert and his mother benefitted from special treatment bestowed by their owners. Lydia had been transferred from the fields to become a house slave. Robert was allowed to stay with her for most of his childhood. They learned to speak standard English and how to comply with standards of acceptable behavior within White society. At the age of twelve, the McKees sent him to Charleston as a rented or “hired out” enslaved laborer for a set commission of $15 a month. He took up boating and learned the local waters around Charleston as a teenager. Smalls worked as a waiter at the Planter Hotel, as a lamplighter for the city, as a stevedore on the docks, and, in time, as a laborer on a commercial ship docked in Charleston. Henry let Robert keep some of the money for himself.
A short man, Smalls was a sturdy fellow suited for working at the docks. Access to currency and knowledge of the waterways would come in quite handy for Smalls during the Civil War. In December 1858, 17 year-old Smalls married his first wife, Hannah Jones, who was five years older than he was, plus she already had two daughters. As enslaved people, their marriage was not legally recognized by the state of South Carolina. Because children born to an enslaved mother were also considered the property of the mother’s owner, shortly after their child Elizabeth Lydia Smalls was born, Kingman agreed to sell Hannah and Elizabeth to Robert for $800. He had managed to save up only $100. Smalls’ intent was to purchase their freedom but the onset of the Civil War changed his plans.
In April 1861, the Civil War began with the Battle of Fort Sumter, and Charleston was smack-dab in the middle of it. During the Civil War, Smalls’ enslavers forced him to work as a pilot on the CSS Planter, a Confederate steamboat that transported arms and ammunition. The Planter was a 147 foot-long steamer capable of holding 1400 bales of cotton. John Ferguson owned The Planter and leased it to the Confederacy. John Ferguson paid Smalls $16 a month for his services of which $15 went to Henry McKee. He was able to earn extra money moonlighting for others. He was known as an expert pilot, and had studied the maps and sea charts of South Carolina and Georgia to do his job. In the process Smalls began to think about how this knowledge could free him and others. From Charleston harbor, Smalls and the Planter's crew could see the line of federal blockade ships in the outer harbor, seven miles away.
In early May 1862, The Planter had had two hard weeks of ferrying supplies, guns, and ammunition from Coles Island and James Island. On the evening of May 12, The Planter was docked as usual at the wharf below General Ripley's headquarters The entire White crew of The Planter went ashore on unauthorized leave, trusting in the loyalty of the Black crewmen to ready the steamer for work the next day. When the crew of the CSS Planter went ashore, Smalls knew the time had come. As soon as the white men were out of sight, Smalls and his crew left the dock, which was directly below Brigadier General Roswell S. Ripley’s house and office, on their daring dash to freedom. Just before dawn on the morning of May 13, 1862, Smalls and a crew composed of fellow slaves slipped "The Planter" off of the dock. Following a plan, they picked up family members at a rendezvous point then slowly navigated their way through the harbor. The women and children were hidden in the hold of The Planter while each of the crew took his assigned post. Then, Smalls navigated past four checkpoints. To avoid detection, Smalls put on the captain's uniform and wore a straw hat, to disguised himself as the captain while everyone else hid in the shadows.
After successfully passing three checkpoints, they started toward the largest and most dangerous: Ft. Sumter. No ships challenged The Planter on its way to Fort Sumter. Some crew members begged for a change of course, while urging him to stay as far away as possible. Smalls bravely decided not to change course and arouse suspicion. Smalls steered The Planter directly beneath the walls of Fort Sumter. He kept to the shadows inside the pilothouse, hiding his face under the brim of the captain’s hat. Nervously, he gave a signal. After a few tense moments, they got the signal to proceed. They had successfully approached Union lines in a Confederate transport ship, in a Charleston Harbor and sailed it from Confederate-controlled waters of the harbor to the U.S. blockade that surrounded it. He then piloted the ship to the Union-controlled enclave in Beaufort–Port Royal–Hilton Head area, where it became a Union warship.
Smalls became the first Black man to become a pilot in the United States Navy. He also volunteered his knowledge of Charleston’s defenses, leading to the capture of Coles Island a week after his escape. Smalls’ exploits in Charleston made national news! Having just turned 23, he was received up and down the East Coast as a hero or his daring exploit – with parades and receptions in many of the major cities there. Rear Admiral Samuel Francis DuPont wrote that Robert “is superior to any who have come into our lines — intelligent as many of them have been. His information has been most interesting, and portions of it of utmost importance. … I shall continue to employ Robert as a pilot on board The Planter for inland waters”. The Navy received both The Planter and the slaves as contraband property of war. Harper’s Weekly devoted an illustrated feature article to Robert Smalls and the capture of The Planter on June 14, 1862.
Smalls would travel along with Rev. Mansfield French, a Methodist minister who had helped found Wilberforce University in Ohio to meet with President Abraham Lincoln, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, and Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton while in Washington, DC in August 1862. He wanted to persuade Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton to permit Black men to fight for the Union. Stanton soon signed an order permitting up to 5,000 African Americans to enlist in the Union forces at Port Royal. Those who did were organized as the 1st and 2nd South Carolina Regiments (Colored). Robert Smalls worked as a pilot on the U.S.S. Wabash for a short time before traveling to New York for a speaking tour to boost support of the Union cause and Mansfield French’s hope for earning support for the Port Royal Experiment. During his tour, he proposed a colony of freed slaves in Port Royal, Beaufort County.
On December 1, 1863, Smalls was piloting "The Planter", now Federal naval ship under Captain James Nickerson on Folly Island Creek when Confederate batteries opened fire. Nickerson ordered the ship beached and fled the pilot house for the coal-bunker. Robert Smalls refused to surrender, fearing that the Black crewmen would not be treated as prisoners of war and instead be summarily killed. Smalls entered the pilothouse and took command of the boat and piloted it to safety. For his bravery and cool-headedness, he was promoted to the rank of captain and made acting captain of the USS Planter. The first Black Navy captain during the Civil War. As the captain, Smalls fought in 17 battles during the Civil War. For most of 1864, The Planter was docked in Philadelphia for repairs. Smalls and The Planter crew remained with the steamer in the city for seven months, while availing himself of some formal education.
At the outset of the Civil War, Smalls could not read or write. His mastery of reading and writing advanced to a basic level of competency as a result of a minimal level of instruction. In Philadelphia, he supported what was known as the Port Royal Experiment, an effort to raise money to support the education and development of formerly enslaved people. In May 1864, Robert Smalls was voted an unofficial delegate to the Republican National Convention in Baltimore. During 1866, Smalls received belated prize money for the capture of The Planter. Smalls got $1500 and each of the other crew received $500 each. Despite his heroics, when he was traveling in Philadelphia with a White colleague a streetcar conductor tried to force him to the back of the car because he was not White. Rather than ride in the segregated car, he walked across the city in the rain. This incident of humiliating a heroic veteran made headlines and helped propel the fight for passing a bill for public transportation integration in the city and statewide, which finally happened in 1867.
After the Civil War, Smalls returned to his native Beaufort. He opened a store for freed slaves before becoming involved with the local Republican Party. Smalls became an advocate for public education, including for himself. In 1868, he served as a delegate to the South Carolina House of Representatives state convention that wrote a new state constitution, the state's first Black member. Smalls lobbied for public education to be a key component of the new document. Smalls was elected to the state Senate in 1872. He won the 1872 election against William J. Whipper. In the Senate, he was considered a very good speaker and debater. He served on the Finance Committee and was chairman of the Public Printing Committee. While serving as a Representative Smalls helped secure funding to improve the Port Royal Harbor and secured appropriations from the government for its use of The Citadel. In 1873, Smalls was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the Third Regiment, South Carolina State Militia. He was later promoted to brigadier-general of the Second Brigade, South Carolina Militia, and to major-general of the Second Division, South Carolina State Militia. He held this position until 1877, when Democrats took control of the state government.
In 1874, as most areas of the South were falling back under White Democratic control, the citizens of Beaufort elected Robert Smalls to serve in the United States Congress. Following his reelection in 1876, the Democratic South Carolina state government charged him with accepting bribes, a trumped up charge to remove him from office, while his defeated opponent sued claiming that the Federal Troops present in the state hindered voting. He triumphed over those difficulties only to be unseated in 1878 due to violence at the polls. In 1882 after significant gerrymandering by the Democrats, there was only one district in the state where the election of a Black candidate was possible. Smalls ended up winning that seat, returning to the House in 1884. In this session, he pushed an amendment that would have integrated restaurants in Washington, D.C.; however, after passing the House it died in the Senate. Smalls left Congress in 1887.
He eventually served five terms in the United States House of Representatives between 1875 - 1887. Smalls backed progressive causes, like equal travel accommodations for African Americans, redistribution of land confiscated by the Federal government and full legal protection for children of mixed race. He resisted Jim Crow legislation that would greatly reduce the legal rights of Black South Carolinians for decades to come. Smalls vehemently oppose segregation of the U.S Armed Forces, railroads and restaurants. He wrote legislation to create the public school system in the state: the first, free, compulsory, statewide, public school system in America. Robert Smalls also foresaw the need to put up telegraph lines in many of the rural areas of South Carolina. After Washington, Smalls returned to Beaufort where President William McKinley appointed him as Collector of Customs of Beaufort in 1889. He served in that post until 1913 when President Woodrow Wilson segregated Federal government positions. With fellow representatives Joseph Rainey, Alonzo Ransier and others, he formed the Enterprise Railroad, an 18-mile horse-drawn railway line that carried cargo and passengers between the Charleston wharves and inland depots.
Back in Beaufort, Smalls gathered an impressive amount of property. During Reconstruction, Smalls purchased the McKee Home in Beaufort. Smalls and his family lived in the home for almost a century after the purchase. In an act of graciousness, Smalls allowed his former enslaver, Mrs. McKee, to remain in his home after she fell ill. During the 1890s, Smalls petitioned the Federal government for a pension based upon his wartime service. Though neither the Army nor the Navy record offices could find official documentation of his service, the Federal government approved his application and granted him a military pension beginning December of 1892. One of his more famous quotes is, “My race needs no special defense, for the past history of them in this country proves them to be equal of anyone. All they need is an equal chance in the battle of life.” His example and persuasion helped convince President Abraham Lincoln to accept Black soldiers into the Union Army. He survived slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction and the beginnings of Jim Crow. He died in 1915, the same year Hollywood’s racist epic film, “Birth of a Nation”, was released, and when Tuskegee president and Civil Rights activist Booker T. Washington passed away.