He founded the Republican Party of South Carolina. He authored state legislation providing for South Carolina to have the first free and compulsory public school system in the United States. His example and persuasion helped convince President Abraham Lincoln to accept African-American soldiers into the Union Army.Īfter the Civil War, Smalls returned to Beaufort and became a politician, winning election as a Republican to the South Carolina Legislature and the United States House of Representatives during the Reconstruction era. He then piloted the ship to the Union-controlled enclave in Beaufort–Port Royal–Hilton Head area, where it became a Union warship. Born into slavery in Beaufort, South Carolina, he freed himself, his crew and their families during the American Civil War by commandeering a Confederate transport ship, CSS Planter, in Charleston harbor, on May 13, 1862, and sailing it from the Confederate-controlled waters of the harbor to the U.S.
Robert Smalls (Ap– February 23, 1915) was an American politician, publisher, businessman and maritime pilot.
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