[*This year marks the 100th anniversary since Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the “Father of Black History” founded Negro History Week in February 1926. Fifty years after that, President Gerald Ford officially recognized Black History Month. In 1986, Congress passed a law designating February as Black History Month across the U.S.]
Robert Smalls was the first Black man elected to U.S. Congress during Reconstruction, but of course his incredible story and accomplishments did not begin there. Smalls was born into slavey in 1839 in Beaufort, South Carolina and started his journey to national prominence by daring to escape slavery during the Civil War.
Smalls, like many other enslaved people, was made to work for the Confederate forces. Menial labor such as grave digging, cooking, digging trenches, etc. were the most common jobs, but some enslaved people were used in skilled labor positions. Smalls, who could navigate the waters in and around Charleston, was used to guide transport ships for the Confederate Navy.
On May 13, 1862, Smalls convinced several other enslaved people to help him commandeer a Confederate transport ship, the CSS Planter, in Charleston Harbor. Smalls, in a captain hat and using Confederate hand signals, sailed from Confederate-controlled waters to the U.S. Naval blockade. By doing so, Smalls gained freedom for himself, several other enslaved people and also for his family.
Smalls’ example of cunning and bravery helped convince President Abraham Lincoln to accept Black soldiers into the U.S. Army and Navy. Smalls became Captain of the same boat for the Union Navy and helped free enslaved peoples as he fought and outwitted the Confederate Navy several more times during the duration of the War.
Check out the PBS NewsHour video about this event:
After the South surrendered, Smalls returned to Beaufort, S.C. and purchased his enslaver’s house, which was seized by the Union in 1863. His enslaver sued to get it back, but lost in court to Smalls.
Smalls learned to read and write during this time, and after going into business to service the needs of freedmen, Smalls was elected to the State House of South Carolina. While there, Smalls authored state legislation to provide South Carolina with the first free and compulsory public school system in the United States. He also founded the Republican Party of South Carolina.
In 1874, Smalls was elected the first Black member of U.S. Congress. In backlash to his election, his opposers began gerrymandering across South Carolina to start tilting seats back to white men.
Conservative Southern Bourbon Democrats, who called themselves the Redeemers, also resorted to violence and election fraud to regain control of the South Carolina state legislature. As part of wide-ranging white efforts to reduce African-American political power, Smalls was charged and convicted of taking a bribe five years prior in connection with the awarding of a printing contract.
Smalls was pardoned as part of an agreement by which charges were also dropped against Democrats accused of election fraud. But the scandal took a political toll, and Smalls was defeated by Democrat George D. Tillman in the senate election in 1878, and again, narrowly, in 1880. Smalls successfully contested the 1880 result and regained the seat in 1882.
According to curators at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smalls’ family went on to be very successful, and there is a Robert Smalls lecture at the University of South Carolina every year.
The monument to Smalls in the churchyard is inscribed with a statement he made 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.
To learn more about Robert Smalls, check out Be Free or Die by Cate Lineberry or Gullah Statesman: Robert Smalls, From Slavery to Congress 1839 to 1915 by Edward A. Miller, Jr.
