Robert Smalls — People — Black-History.com

Before dawn on 13 May 1862, Robert Smalls, an enslaved wheelman, took command of the Confederate steamer Planter in Charleston Harbor and delivered sixteen people, including his wife and children, to the Union blockade. He went on to pilot for the U.S. Navy, help write South Carolina’s Reconstruction constitution, and serve five terms in Congress — and in 1895 he stood among the last Black delegates resisting the disfranchisement of his state’s Black voters.

At a Glance

Born: 5 April 1839, Beaufort, South Carolina
Died: 23 February 1915, Beaufort, South Carolina
Known for: Seizure of the Planter (13 May 1862); five terms in the U.S. House of Representatives; South Carolina’s 1868 constitution and public schools
Fields: Politics · Military
Era: 19th Century

Early Life

Smalls was born on 5 April 1839 in Beaufort, South Carolina, to Lydia Polite, who was enslaved in the household of the McKee family. The identity of his father is not documented; the U.S. House historian notes that it may have been John McKee, his mother’s owner. He grew up in the McKee house on Prince Street in Beaufort, a town at the center of the Sea Island cotton economy.

At about age twelve Smalls was sent to Charleston to be hired out, with his wages paid to his owner. He worked on the city’s wharves and ships and became a skilled sailor and harbor pilot, learning the channels, shoals, and fortifications of Charleston Harbor. In Charleston he married Hannah, who was also enslaved; by 1862 the couple had children, including Elizabeth and Robert Jr., who, like Hannah, could be sold at their owner’s will. The knowledge of the harbor he gained in these years, and the fear of separation from his family, shaped the plan he carried out in 1862.

Life and Work

By 1862 Smalls was the wheelman on the Planter, a side-wheel steamer used by the Confederate army to carry guns and supplies around Charleston Harbor. On the night of 12–13 May 1862 the vessel’s three white officers went ashore. At about 3:00 a.m. Smalls and the enslaved crew got up steam, stopped at a nearby wharf to take aboard their families, and steamed past Castle Pinckney, Fort Johnson, and Fort Sumter, giving the proper whistle signals while Smalls wore the captain’s straw hat. Once out of range, they raised a white bedsheet and surrendered the ship to the USS Onward of the Union blockade. Sixteen people gained their freedom, and the Union gained a ship, its guns, and a pilot who knew the harbor’s defenses.

The escape made Smalls a national figure and strengthened the case for enlisting Black men in Union service. He served the rest of the war as a pilot for the U.S. Navy and the army, taking part in at least twelve engagements, including service aboard the ironclad Keokuk, and later commanding the Planter itself. Congress awarded him and his crew prize money for the vessel. With his share he bought the McKee house in Beaufort at a tax sale in 1863, the house in which he and his mother had been enslaved. On 14 April 1865 he piloted the Planter back to Fort Sumter for the ceremony raising the U.S. flag over the fort.

During Reconstruction Smalls became a leading Republican in the Sea Islands. He was a delegate to the 1868 South Carolina constitutional convention, where he backed provisions establishing a statewide system of free public schools. He served in the state house of representatives from 1868 to 1870 and in the state senate from 1870 to 1874. In 1874 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and served from 1875 to 1879. In 1877, after Democrats regained control of the state, he was convicted of having taken a $5,000 bribe as a state senator; he maintained his innocence, and Governor William Simpson pardoned him on 29 April 1879.

Smalls lost his seat in the 1878 election, marked by intimidation of Black voters, and lost again in 1880. He successfully contested the 1880 result and was seated in July 1882. He returned to the House in March 1884 and served through March 1887, when he left Congress for the last time. In Congress he pressed for federal protection of Black voters and for federal investment in the port of Beaufort. In 1889 President Benjamin Harrison appointed him collector of customs for the port of Beaufort, a post he held, apart from Grover Cleveland’s second term, until 1913.

In 1895 Smalls was one of six Black delegates to the South Carolina constitutional convention called by Benjamin Tillman’s allies to strip Black citizens of the vote. He spoke against the proposed suffrage restrictions, but the white majority adopted a constitution that imposed literacy and property tests that removed most Black South Carolinians from the electorate for more than half a century.

Legacy

Smalls died at his home in Beaufort on 23 February 1915 and is buried in the churchyard of the Tabernacle Baptist Church. His house on Prince Street, the same house in which he had been born into slavery and which he later owned, remains a private residence and is part of the National Park Service’s Reconstruction Era National Historic Network.

His life links the two halves of the struggle over emancipation: the wartime act of self-liberation that helped push the Union toward Black enlistment, and the Reconstruction effort to secure schools, offices, and ballots for freedpeople. His 1895 stand against disfranchisement marks the end of that effort in South Carolina, and historians now read his career as a measure of how much was won after 1865 and how deliberately it was taken away.

For Educators

Robert Smalls’s life links an act of wartime self-liberation to the Reconstruction effort to secure schools, offices, and ballots for freedpeople, and to the deliberate campaign that took the ballot away. Open the classroom lesson →

Key Dates

5 April 1839 Born enslaved in Beaufort, South Carolina.
c. 1851 Sent to Charleston to be hired out; becomes a sailor and harbor pilot.
13 May 1862 Seizes the Confederate steamer Planter and delivers sixteen people to the Union blockade.
1863 Buys the McKee house in Beaufort, where he had been enslaved, at a tax sale.
14 April 1865 Pilots the Planter to the flag-raising ceremony at Fort Sumter.
1868 Delegate to the South Carolina constitutional convention; elected to the state house.
4 March 1875 Begins the first of five terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.
1889 Appointed collector of customs for the port of Beaufort.
1895 Opposes Black disfranchisement at the South Carolina constitutional convention.
23 February 1915 Dies at his home in Beaufort.

Sources and Further Reading

U.S. House of Representatives, History, Art & Archives, “SMALLS, Robert.” Link
National Park Service, “The Planter.” Link
University of South Carolina, Presidential Commission on University History, “Robert Smalls.” Link
South Carolina Encyclopedia, “Smalls, Robert.” Link
Edward A. Miller Jr., Gullah Statesman: Robert Smalls from Slavery to Congress, 1839–1915 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995).

Related on Black-History.com

Cite this page

MLA: “Robert Smalls.” Black-History.com, 30 Sept. 2026, https://black-history.com/people/robert-smalls/.
APA: Black-History.com Editors. (2026, September 30). Robert Smalls. Black-History.com. https://black-history.com/people/robert-smalls/
Chicago: Black-History.com Editors. “Robert Smalls.” Black-History.com. September 30, 2026. https://black-history.com/people/robert-smalls/.

Editorial Note

By the Black-History.com editors. Last reviewed 30 September 2026. To suggest a primary source or a correction, write to editors@black-history.com or use our corrections form.