Working on the underground railroad to help escaped slaves was one thing, but it was quite another to be a slave, abscond with a Confederate army steamboat, the Planter, and turn it over to Union forces during the Civil War.
Yet that's what Robert Smalls (1839 - 1915) did, winning national acclaim, a $1,500 reward, and command of Planter, which he captained in 17 battles. His act was notorious. He had patiently awaited for the white crew to go ashore before gathering up his family and other slaves and navigating through mine-infested waters to surrender his booty to U.S. forces.
Many couldn't imagine a slave acting with such resolve, foresight, and cunning. His ingenuity and valor had considerable military and symbolic value at that time -- May, 1862.
Smalls, like so many great men and women, was self-motivated and highly goal-oriented. He secretly taught himself to read and write and fought diligently throughout his life for the advancement of education of the poor and disenfranchised. He reportedly bought schools -- plural -- for freedmen.
Next we see this man, who was born a slave near Beaufort, South Carolina, after the Civil War returning to his home state during Reconstruction and holding several political positions as a member of the Republican Party. He served in both houses of the state legislature and in the U.S. House of Representatives for five terms, before losing to the 'viciously racist "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman in 1884,' when Democrats, using violence and crooked elections, regained political power in many areas of the South after the federal government seemingly lost interest in the freedmen and no longer maintained programs vital to their causes.
But before Smalls was on the outs, he was in -- in big. He attended the 1864 Republican National Convention, participated in drafting the 1868 state constitution, and held the position of major general in the state militia. Even after his defeat, however, party loyalty guaranteed him patronage jobs, the most significant of which was acting as Beaufort's customs collector for a 23-year period until 1913.
Here was a man whose life and accomplishments were no certainly 'small' task.
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Fred W. Apelquist, III, M.Ed.
Approximately 355 words.
© 1997