Robert Smalls
In Beaufort, South Carolina a family plot in the churchyard of Tabernacle Baptist Church rests the remains of Robert Smalls. In his honor is a monument with the inscription that was spoken by Smalls to the South Carolina legislature in 1895:
"My race needs no special defense, for the past history of them in this country proves them to be the equal of any people anywhere. All they need is an equal chance in the battle of life."
Courage on the High Seas
Little is known of Robert Smalls in mainstream American History, however what he contributed to history and this country, specifically black history should be duly noted because what is not known is he was the founder of the South Carolina Republican Party, among other significant contributions he made throughout his lifetime.
Robert Smalls was born in a cabin on April 5, 1839, his mother Lydia Polite was a slave to Henry McKee in Beaufort, South Carolina. Smalls worked as a house slave until the age of 12. His owner John McKee sent him to Charleston, South Carolina to work as a waiter, ship rigger and sailor. All his earnings were to go to McKee, this arrangement continued until he was 18 and negotiated to keep all but $15 of his monthly pay. This allowed Smalls to save his money.
A year earlier on December 24, 1856 Smalls married, Hannah Jones, a slave owned by the Kingman family, she was five years his senior and already had two children. With their owner's permission they settled into an apartment together and soon Hannah gave birth to two children, Elizabeth Lydia on February 1858 and Robert Jr three years later. Smalls tried to purchase his family and Kingman agreed for $800, he only had $100. As slaves there was no guarantee they could remain together as a family, at any time they could be sold off or worst, this led Smalls to incorporate a plan.
In 1861, Robert Smalls, a 22-year-old mulatto slave who’s been sailing these waters since he was a teenager: intelligent and resourceful, defiant with compassion, and an expert navigator was hired as a deckhand on the confederate transport steamer Planter and eventually worked his way up to become a wheel-man, more or less a pilot, though slaves were not honored by that title.
As a result, he was very knowledgeable about Charleston Harbor.
The Planter was under the command of Commander Brigadier General Roswell Ripley, the commander of the Second Military District of South Carolina. The transport steamer was commissioned to deliver military weapons to the Confederate forts, meanwhile Union ships were blocking the harbors, this was an avenue that meant freedom for many slaves if they were able to reach the Union ships. The Navy commanders were accepting runaway slaves as contraband.
Smalls told his wife to be prepared when the time came.
With the civil war now in its second year, the Union Navy had blockades around most of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, the Confederates were defending Charleston, South Carolina and its coasts. It was the evening of May 12, 1862 and the 140 foot Steamship Planter docked for the night. It was heavily armed for the next morning, there were two hundred rounds of ammunition, a 32 pound pivot gun, a 24 pound howitzer and four hundred other guns. The three white officers, Captain Relay, pilot Samuel H. Smith and engineer Zerich Pitcher decided to leave the ship for the night leaving the eight slaves on the ship alone. Smalls revealed to the other slaves his plans to commandeer the ship, completely aware of the dangerous plight they were about to undertake they agreed with the understanding if caught they would not be taken alive. They were willing to sink the ship with explosives they had planted in the hull of the ship.
Smalls was often jokingly teased that he looked like Captain Relay, even displaying some of his mannerism. He decided to use it to his advantage and put on Relay's straw hat and naval jacket. At 2:00 am on May 13, Robert Smalls orders his crew to put up the boiler and hoist the South Carolina and Confederate flags as decoys and eased out of the dock. The ship came into view of Ripley's headquarters, they stopped at the West Atlantic wharf to pick up Small's wife, children, four women, three men and another child. At 3:25 am, the Planter furthers her journey. Smalls blows the ship's whistle from the pilot house while passing Confederate Forts Johnson and later at 4:15 am Fort Sumpter. Smalls passed through a total of five Confederate harbor forts along the coast to his final destination using the proper signals at each checkpoint. His familiarity with Navy signals and the mannerism of Captain Relay leads him convincingly to pass as a white commander of the ship in the pre dawn hours. As the Planter entered Union waters, the rebel alarm sounded, but it was too late to intercept Smalls and his crew members. The Planter approached the Union blockade and Smalls orders his crew to replace the Palmetto and Rebel flags with a white bed sheet signaling their surrender.
Acting Volunteer Lt. J. Frederick Nickels of the U.S.S. Onward orders his sailors to “open her ports.”
As the steamer came near, and under the stern of the Onward, one of the Colored men stepped forward, and taking off his hat, shouted, ‘Good morning, sir! I’ve brought you some of the old United States guns, sir!’ That man is Robert Smalls, and he and his family and the entire slave crew of the Planter are now free."
Du Pont so impressed with the daring action of Smalls expressed in his letter to the Navy secretary in Washington:
“Robert, the intelligent slave and pilot of the boat, who performed this bold feet so skillfully, informed me of [the capture of the Sumter gun], presuming it would be a matter of interest.” He “is superior to any who have come into our lines — intelligent as many of them have been.”
Smalls own extensive knowledge of the Charleston region's waterways and military configurations proved highly valuable. At Port Royal he gave detailed information about Charleston's defenses to Admiral Samuel Dupont, commander of the blockading fleet. This intelligence allowed Union forces to capture Coles Island and its string of batteries without a fight on May 20, a week after Smalls' escape. The Union would hold the Stono inlet as a base of operations for the three-year duration of the war.
While Du Pont sends the families to Beaufort, he takes care of the Planter’screw personally while having its captured flags mailed to Washington via the Adams Express, the same private carrier that had delivered Box Brown to freedom in 1849. In the North, Smalls was feted as a hero and personally lobbied the Secretary of War Edwin Stanton to begin enlisting black soldiers. After President Lincoln acted a few months later, Smalls was said to have recruited 5,000 soldiers by himself.
In October of 1862, Smalls returned to the planter as a pilot, he was part of Admiral Dupont's South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. He was engaged on approximately 17 military actions including the April 7, 1863 assault on Fort Sumpter and the attack at Folly island Creek, South Carolina. In two months, he assumed command of the Planter during extreme hostile fire, the white captain, James Nickerson in a cowardly act hid in the coal bunker. Smalls refused to surrender, fearing that the black crewmen would not be treated as prisoners of war and might be summarily killed. Smalls entered the pilot house and took command of the boat and piloted her to safety.
For his valor, Smalls was promoted to the rank of captain. He earned $150 a month making him the highest paid black soldier in the war. When the war was over in 1865, Robert Smalls was on board the Planter during the ceremony in Charleston Harbor.
Immediately following the war, Smalls returned to his native Beaufort, where he purchased his former master's house at 511 Prince St, which had been seized in 1863 by the Union tax authorities for refusal to pay taxes. Later, the former owner sued to regain the property. Smalls retained ownership in the court case, a case which became an important precedent in other similar cases. His mother, Lydia, lived with him for the remainder of her life. He allowed his former master's wife, the elderly Jane Bond McKee, to move into her former home prior to her death.
Smalls continued his service to the country as a first generation black politician, serving in the South Carolina state assembly and senate. For five non consecutive terms in the U. S. House of Representatives (1874-1886). In 1895, Smalls witness a roll back of Reconstruction in his state of South Carolina as the revision in the constitution stripped blacks of their voting rights.
As a politician, Smalls authored state legislation providing for South Carolina to have the first free and compulsory public school system in the United States. He also founded the Republican Party of South Carolina. Due to the state's white Democrats disfranchising most blacks (who made up much of the Republican Party), Smalls was the last Republican to represent South Carolina's 5th congressional district until 2010. Similar constitutions across the South for some time passed challenges that reached the US Supreme Court, resulting in the exclusion of African Americans from politics across the South and crippling of the Republican Party in the region.
A few of the many honors of Robert Smalls:
Fort Robert Smalls was named in his honor; it was built by free blacks in 1863 on McGuire's Hill on the South Side of Pittsburgh during the American Civil War. It survived until the 1940s.
*I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, this is a fact I never knew. I was taught about the Fort Pitt block house in Point State Park and I went to Fort Pitt Elementary School. I was taught about the donations and achievements of the wealthy Carnegie's. But never about Fort Robert Smalls, built by free slaves in honor of this courageous man. Not one school I went to mentioned this!
This is extremely important:
If you do not seek out the knowledge of your true history, you will rob yourself of the knowledge and pride to be a part of a talented and resourceful people. You will never know the greatness, the extraordinary accomplishments and the persistent fortitude of a people who is deserving of the accolades and gratitude that "truly" made this country great!
The desk that Smalls used as Collector of Customs is on display at the Verdier House museum in Beaufort, South Carolina.
Robert Smalls died of malaria and diabetes on February 23, 1915 at the age of 75.
Robert Smalls died of malaria and diabetes on February 23, 1915 at the age of 75.
All praise to The Most High, Yah for without Him we are nothing!
wikipedia, black pst.org, pbs.org
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