Robert Smalls

• Born: April 5, 1839
• Birthplace: Beaufort, South Carolina
• Died: February 23, 1915
• Place of death: Beaufort, South Carolina

Politician

Smalls stirred the hopes of African Americans when he liberated the steamship Planter from the Confederacy in a daring escape off the South Carolina coast. He served heroically during the Civil War, and his political service at both the state and national levels solidified his role in American history as an important leader.

Areas of achievement: Government and politics; Military

Early Life

Robert Smalls was born into slavery in Beaufort, South Carolina, on April 5, 1839. His mother, Lydia, was a house slave owned by John McKee. Growing up in the McKee household, Smalls had a relatively comfortable life for a slave. To keep him from becoming too complacent because of his seemingly comfortable circumstances, his mother took him to see slaves whipped in the yard of the Beaufort jail and to slave auctions at the arsenal.

After McKee died, his holdings fell to his son Henry. Henry sold the Beaufort home and purchased the Cobcall plantation in Charleston, South Carolina. There, McKee hired Smalls out to work in the city. In 1857, seeking to achieve some independence, Smalls negotiated an arrangement with McKee to pay a fee of fifteen dollars per month in exchange for securing his own employment. Smalls worked in a variety of occupations, eventually finding his way to the docks, where he learned to pilot the boats that traded in Charleston Harbor.

In 1856, Smalls married Hannah Jones, a slave owned by Samuel Kingman. Their daughter, Elizabeth Lydia, was born in February, 1858. Smalls negotiated a price of eight hundred dollars for the purchase of his wife and daughter from Kingman. By 1861, he had saved seven hundred. Hannah died in July, 1883. In 1890, Smalls married Anna Wigg, a schoolteacher several years his junior. In 1892, she gave birth to his last child, William Robert Smalls.

Life’s Work

John Ferguson hired Smalls to work as a pilot aboard the cotton steamer Planter in the summer of 1861. Smalls learned to navigate the coastal waters around South Carolina and Georgia; when the Confederacy chartered the ship in 1861, he became privy to military operations, signals for passage, and locations of mines placed by the Confederate military. Within months, the African American crewmen aboard the Planter began discussing the possibility of using the ship to escape. Opportunity came late on May 12, 1862. The white crew had disembarked, leaving the black crewmen alone. With a cargo of guns and ammunition to surrender to the Union forces, the crew of Smalls, John Smalls (no relation), Alfred Gradine, Samuel Chisholm, Abraham Jackson, Abraham Allston, Gabriel Turno, and William Morrison and their families sailed for the Union blockade.

Smalls’s experience navigating the coastal waters and knowledge of the signals used for safe passage allowed the ship to sail past Confederate fortifications to reach the Union position off the coast. Smalls eventually enlisted in the Union Army. As a second lieutenant in Company B, Thirty-third Regiment in the United States Colored Troops, he was assigned to the Navy as a pilot aboard the Planter. His knowledge of Confederate activities and his experience piloting ships along the coast made him a tremendous asset to the Union Navy.

After the war, Smalls returned to Beaufort and helped to establish the South Carolina Republican Party. He became active in the political process. In 1868, voters selected him as a delegate to the all-black state Colored People’s Constitutional Convention. On July 9, he was seated as a member of the South Carolina General Assembly. In 1870, voters selected him to fill the unexpired term of Jonathan J. Wright. After being elected to the state Senate in 1872, he left in 1874 to begin his first of five terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. His congressional service spanned the years 1875-1879, 1882-1883, and 1884-1887. In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison appointed him collector of customs at the Port of Beaufort. With only a short break from 1894 to 1898, Smalls remained in this post until 1913. He died two years later, in 1915.

Significance

Smalls’s escape from slavery and service to the Union during the Civil War launched his political career. His daring escape aboard the Planter, his prominence in battle, and his political determination to ensure equality, education, and economic opportunity for African Americans made him a hero to his people. In political service, he worked to ensure fairness to all, winning him political support from many South Carolina whites as well. In honor of his service, on April 21, 2004, the U.S. Navy christened a logistics support vessel the Major General Robert Smalls.

Bibliography

Billingsley, Andrew. Yearning to Breathe Free: Robert Smalls of South Carolina and His Families. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2007. In addition to chronicling the life and career of Smalls, Billingsley provides an intimate look at Smalls’s families and descendants from both his marriages.

Henig, Gerald S. “The Unstoppable Robert Smalls.” America’s Civil War 20, no. 1 (March, 2007): 40-49. Provides detailed descriptions of Smalls’s military service during the Civil War.

Miller, Edward A., Jr. Gullah Statesman: Robert Smalls from Slavery to Congress, 1839-1915. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Discusses Smalls’s military and political careers, concluding that he was a strong, visionary leader rather than a revolutionary figure.

Uya, Okon Edet. From Slavery to Public Service: Robert Smalls, 1839-1915. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971. Traces the early life and political service of Smalls, including Civil War service and congressional activism.