Background
He was born on April 5, 1839 at Beaufort, South Carolina, United States, the son of Robert and Lydia Smalls and a slave of the McKee family. He was kindly treated by his master.
He was born on April 5, 1839 at Beaufort, South Carolina, United States, the son of Robert and Lydia Smalls and a slave of the McKee family. He was kindly treated by his master.
He was allowed to acquire a limited education.
In 1851 he moved with his master to Charleston and became successively a hotel waiter, a hack driver, and a rigger.
In 1861 the Confederate authorities impressed him into service and made him a member of the crew of The Planter, a dispatch and transportation steamer doing service in Charleston Harbor. In the early morning of May 13, 1862, taking advantage of the absence of the white officers, with his wife, two children, and twelve others aboard, he carried The Planter beyond the Charleston forts into the lines of the blockading Federal squadron outside the harbor. This daring exploit gave him national fame.
He was made a pilot in the United States Navy and given a share of the prize-money. His knowledge of Charleston Harbor and its fortifications was of great service to the Federals. On December 1, 1863, when the commander of The Planter deserted his post under Confederate fire, Smalls took command of the steamer and led it out of danger. For this act he was promoted to the rank of captain and placed in command of The Planter, holding this post until September 1866, when his craft was put out of commission.
His rise to political importance in South Carolina during Reconstruction was inevitable. As early as May 1864, a meeting of negroes and northerners at Port Royal elected him a delegate to the National Union Convention. He was one of the less prominent delegates to the state constitutional convention of 1868.
From 1868 to 1870 he served in the state House of Representatives and in the latter year was elected to the state Senate, where he served through the session of 1874. From 1875 to 1887, except during 1880 and 1881, he served in Congress. His congressional career was not notable. His most important speeches were attacks on the election tactics of the South Carolina Democrats and in support of a bill to provide equal accommodations for the races on interstate conveyances. He made an unsuccessful attempt to have $30, 000 voted him as additional compensation for his part in The Planter escapade.
From 1865 to 1877 he served in the state militia, rising to the rank of major-general. In December 1889 he was appointed collector of the port of Beaufort, holding this position until 1913 except during Cleveland's second term. In 1877 he was convicted of accepting a bribe of $5, 000 while state senator and was sentenced to three years in prison, but while his case was under appeal he was pardoned by Gov. William Dunlap Simpson as part of the policy of amnesty which the state Democratic administration deemed wise.
His last conspicuous service was as one of the six negro members of the state constitutional convention of 1895. Before that body he made a vain but gallant attempt to prevent the practical disfranchisement of his race. The last twenty years of his life were spent quietly at Beaufort, where he enjoyed the confidence of both races, cooperating with white leaders in efforts to advance the material interests of the community.
Smalls was a loyal Republican. A thorough partisan, he opposed civil service reform and favored pension bills.
Quotations: 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. "
He was good-humored, intelligent, fluent, and self-possessed. His moderate views and kindness toward the family of his former master made him exceptional. His modesty and lack of education were the only circumstances which prevented him from becoming preeminent among the directors of the state during Reconstruction.
Quotes from others about the person
According to The Trip of the Steamer Oceanus to Fort Sumter and Charleston he was "the smartest cullud man in Souf Carolina" (1865).
In 1856 he married his first wife, Hannah, who died in 1883. On April 9, 1890, he was married a second time, to Annie E. Wigg, who bore him one son, William Robert Smalls (1892–1970).