Robert Smalls Legacy Foundation
WHo is Robert Smalls?
Robert Smalls is the epitome of what it means to look beyond one’s current circumstances and envision and achieve a better today and tomorrow. Robert Smalls was born into slavery, yet that did not stop him from educating himself and doing what was necessary to transcend state sponsored racism. Smalls was able to define freedom and the pursuit of happiness for himself on his own terms.
HISTORY
In 1839, Robert Smalls was born to an enslaved single mother on a plantation in the coastal inlet town of Beaufort, South Carolina. Early in his life, Robert witnessed the stark disparity in treatment and opportunity even between the enslaved in the American South. With this awareness, he began to enhance his skill sets from his teenage years to his early twenties. He was able to increase his chances of making more money by learning a trade, though he couldn’t read or write. Robert proved to his “Master” that he was industrious and wise beyond his years, thereby contradicting the narrative that black people weren’t intelligent or couldn’t be self-sufficient. He resisted the defeatist’s mindset and embraced the sense of optimism, and the will to thrive regardless of the obstacles stacked up against him.
Before the American Civil War, The Emancipation Proclamation, and the 13th Amendment, Robert Smalls was already planning to gain freedom and start a better life for himself and his family. Though a slave, Smalls amassed about $100 in savings as a skilled laborer to purchase his wife’s and child’s freedom. Saving that amount of money required a remarkable level of self-discipline and self- sacrifice while also living in an overtly oppressive society.
His display of high intelligence, strategy, courage, and discipline gave him a fighting chance at succeeding. Robert Smalls monitored the comings and goings of the Planter’s Captain and other white crew members. He planned to take command of the Planter as a make-believe Captain and steer it with the help of other black crew members he trusted, while their families were stowaways on the boat. This was a life-or-death situation as Robert, his wife, and the crew members made a pact to blow up the ship should their plan to get to the blockade fail. They would rather die in the pursuit of freedom than become a public spectacle and an example of what happens when black people think of a life beyond enslavement. Smalls’ impersonation was flawless. He knew all the proper signal flags to fly and the channels to navigate to keep away from cannon fire. Robert expertly navigated through the confederate-controlled waterways even though he wasn’t formally trained. Once out of firing range of the Confederate, his wife, Hannah, raised a white flag and waved it at the union forces to signal they approached in peace. Upon reaching the Blockade, the Union forces were astonished and bewildered to see that Robert Smalls and his Black Crew had managed to outsmart some members of the Confederacy. Soon, the news of Smalls’ exploits reached the North, and he became a national hero and celebrity. But this was only the beginning.
On August 20th, 1866, when the Civil war was over, and the “Reconstruction” of the south was being instituted by the victorious North, Robert Smalls became a free man with the right to vote. He ran for Congress in South Carolina and won multiple times. Smalls’ legislative legacy influences our society today as regards sponsoring state-backed education. A man who practiced what he preached, Robert Smalls learned how to read and write with the help of tutors. He also acquired enough money to purchase the plantation in Beaufort where he was born. However, before the turn of the century, White southerners regained complete control over the South and instituted Jim Crow laws that severely restricted black people from living their lives and infringed upon their civil rights. Despite the unjust social and political setbacks, Robert Smalls continued to strive to show love or all of mankind until the day he passed away on February twenty third, 1915.