Robert Smalls (5 April 1839-23 February 1915) was a member of the US House of Representatives (R-SC 5) from 4 March 1875 to 3 March 1879 (succeeding John D. Ashmore and preceding George D. Tillman) and from 19 July 1882 to 3 March 1883 (succeeding Tillman and preceding John J. Hemphill) and from SC-7 from 18 March 1884 to 3 March 1887 (succeeding Edmund W.M. Mackey and preceding William Elliott). He was best known for his 1862 escape from slavery aboard the commandeered Confederate ship CSS Planter, as well as for authoring a bill which created the first free and compulsory public school system in the United States.
Biography[]
Robert Smalls was born into slavery in Beaufort, South Carolina in 1839, the son of the African-American slave woman Lydia Polite and her master Henry McKee. He was favored over other slaves and allowed to work on the docks of Charleston, and he married hotel maid Hannah Jones in 1856 and attempted to save up enough money to buy the freedom of his wife and their daughter. During the American Civil War, he was assigned to steer the CSS Planter throughout Charleston harbor for various light tasks, but, on 13 May 1862, he commandeered the ship and took it to the Union-controlled enclave at Hilton Head, where it became a US Navy warship. President Abraham Lincoln was so inspired by Smalls' actions that he decided to accept African-American soldiers into the Union Army. After the war, he returned to Beaufort and became a Republican politician, serving in the state legislature and then in the US House of Representatives from 1875 to 1879, 1882 to 1883, and from 1884 to 1887. Smalls authored legislation which provided for his state to have the first free and compulsory public school system in the United States, and he was the last Republican to represent SC-5 until 2010. He died in 1915 at the age of 75.