Robert Smalls: Slave, Sea Captain, Congressman, Cousin.

Slave and “Pampered Pet”

Robert Smalls (1839-1915) was born into slavery in Beaufort, South Carolina. His owner was Henry McKee (1811-1875), a sea island cotton planter whose Ashdale Plantation was on nearby Ladies Island. Robert’s mother Lydia Polite (1796? -1883) grew up as a field hand on the plantation, but by the time of Robert’s birth was a trusted house servant in their owner’s Beaufort town home. Most histories agree that Robert’s father and master were likely one and the same as evidenced by Lydia’s greatly improved status and the fact that Robert was “growing up as a pampered pet” in their master’s house. In order to impress upon the young man the harsh realities of slave life, “Lydia forced her son to watch a slave being whipped in the yard of the Beaufort Jail. Then young Robert went himself to stay for a time at the Ashdale plantation.“¹ There he witnessed the lives of the field slaves, and apparently Robert grew slightly defiant. For his safety, his mother arranged for the 12 or 13 year-old Robert to be sent to Charleston to be hired out as a laborer.

Sea Captain and Civil War hero

By the time Smalls turned 19, he had tried his hand at a number of city jobs and was allowed to keep one dollar of his wages a week (his owner took the rest). Far more valuable was the education he received on the water; few knew Charleston harbor better than Robert Smalls.²

While Robert labored in Charleston, he received permission to marry Hannah Jones, a fellow slave with whom he started a family. Robert offered to buy the freedom of his family, but the asking price was too high. Robert was 22 years old and the trusted and competent pilot of the lightly armed steamship Planter when the Civil War began in Charleston in April 1861. Following the Rebels’ decisive victory at Fort Sumter, the Planter was assigned to the fledgling Confederate Navy. According to Wikipedia, “Planter‘s duties were to deliver dispatches, troops and supplies, to survey waterways, and to lay mines. Smalls piloted the Planter throughout Charleston harbor and beyond, on area rivers and along the South Carolina, Georgia and Florida coasts.” As he performed his duties, Robert eyed the Federal blockade a few miles off the coast and decided that if he couldn’t buy his family’s freedom, he would plan to gain their freedom in a more daring way. His chance came the night of May 12, 1862 when the three white officers disembarked to spend the night in town. Robert donned the uniform and straw hat of the captain, picked up his family and those of a few other men, and gave the appropriate signals at all the checkpoints on his way to the open sea, where he delivered the ship and its guns to the Union Navy off the coast of Charleston. The exploits of Robert Smalls were splashed across the northern press. He was a Civil War hero, traveled to Washington D.C. to meet with President Lincoln‘s cabinet, and was instrumental in the decision to recruit and train black troops to fight for the Union.  Later in the war, Robert reportedly served as Captain of the Planter. The slave had become the master.

The “King” of Beaufort County

Following the war, Robert Smalls returned to Beaufort, where he purchased his former master’s Prince Street home at public auction and became heavily involved in politics. Robert served as a convention delegate, a South Carolina State Representative, a militia officer (rising to Major General), and a U.S. Congressman. “To the Negro electorate, Smalls was a hero, the brave skipper of the Planter, and ‘the smartest cullud man in Souf Car’lina.’ …Smalls, self-educated, had become a self-possessed speaker; He was a man of undoubted intelligence and ready wit. …To the Sea Islanders, it was thrilling to have a leader who spoke to them in their own Gullah dialect, a powerful man who was known… as the ‘King’ of Beaufort County.”¹

Cousin

John Bell (1792-1864), our third great-grandfather, was like his town neighbor Henry McKee a sea island cotton planter in the Old Beaufort Judicial District of South Carolina. John’s youngest child was Julius Bythewood Bell (1834-1897), the grandfather of our beloved grandmother Mary Bell Grayson (1909-2001).

Henry McKee’s paternal grandfather was David McKee (1730-1775). John Bell’s maternal grandfather was the very same David McKee, thus also our 5th great-grandfather. It is a little confusing, but our ancestor John Bell not only knew Henry McKee, but John’s first wife was Henry’s sister Henrietta. Both were his first cousins. When Henrietta died ca. 1825, John married our ancestor Margaret Bythewood Bell (1810-?).

Thus If Henry McKee is indeed the father of Robert Smalls, this makes the former slave, Civil War hero, and “King” of Beaufort County our second cousin, four generations removed.

¹Rehearsal for Reconstruction, The Port Royal Experiment by Willie Lee Rose © 1964 Oxford University Press pg 131, 390-391

² “Which Slave Sailed Himself to Freedom?” by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/which-slave-sailed-himself-to-freedom/

Images from Harper’s Weekly courtesy of Wikimedia Commons