Robert Smalls (April 5, 1839 – February 23, 1915) was a slave who sailed his family to freedom during the Civil War. Smalls along with other black crew were left onboard the USS Planter steamer ship alone after the ship docked in Charleston. The black crew, with Robert Smalls acting as the ship captain and pilot, took off in the ship. Robert Smalls was an experienced deckhand and navigator. Smalls donned the captain’s coat and hat to hide his features to any onlookers from nearby ships. After stopping once to pick up his family and other occupants, he continued sailing. He sailed the ship and its occupants from Charleston through confederate blockades to freedom at the Union Navy ships ten miles away.
Robert Smalls was born into slavery in Beaufort, S.C. His mother was a house slave. Although his father isn’t known, it is believed his father was a white man. Some believe his father to be owner John McKee, or his son Henry McKee, or Patrick Smalls who was the plantation manager. As a child, Robert played with slave children and white children. Also, he ate cooked food in the kitchen where his mother worked and slept in a bed in a small house that was provided for her. Needless to say, he was allowed more consideration and freedom than other slave children. He occasionally ignored the curfew for blacks and was taken into custody. Henry McKee would pay the fines each time to retrieve him.
As a young man, Robert Smalls began working on the docks and wharves. He learned the skills to operate and run ships and eventually worked as a Wheelman. During this time, he met his first wife, Hannah Smalls who was an enslaved maid with two children. They were allowed to marry and he fathered two additional children with her. Robert wanted to purchase their freedom but could not afford the fee. Fearing separation of his family, he plotted their freedom. When the opportunity came, he took it.
What Robert Smalls accomplished was daring and brave. It was also strategic and intelligent, proving to Abraham Lincoln that blacks could fight in the Civil War as soldiers. Robert Smalls showed attributes that many whites thought blacks did not possess. Robert Smalls continued to fight in the Civil War for the Union. After the war, he served as a politician for South Carolina state assembly and senate. He served terms in the U.S. House of Representatives before his state rolled back Reconstruction in a revised 1895 constitution that stripped blacks of their voting rights.
Robert Smalls is an example of what enslaved blacks were willing to do to free themselves and their families from slavery.