EMNII

In 1862, an enslaved sailor seized a Confederate ship, sailed past enemy defenses, and carried his family to freedom. Less than two years later, he bought the house of the man who had enslaved him. On May 13, 1862, Robert Smalls was working aboard the Planter, a Confederate transport ship in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. When the ship's white officers went ashore, Smalls and the other enslaved crew members saw their chance. In the early hours of the morning, they started the engines, picked up their waiting families, and headed toward the open sea. Smalls knew the harbor's defenses and the signals needed to pass Confederate checkpoints. Wearing the captain's coat and hat, he helped guide the vessel past heavily armed positions, including Fort Sumter. The escape depended on the entire crew, including engineer John Small, who kept the ship's engines running. One wrong move could have meant death for everyone aboard. Instead, the Planter reached the Union blockade, carrying 16 people to freedom, including Smalls' wife Hannah and their children. But the most remarkable twist was still to come. In January 1864, Smalls used money awarded for the captured ship to purchase a house at a tax auction in Beaufort, South Carolina. It was the very property where he and his mother had once been enslaved by Henry McKee. The man who had once been treated as property now owned his former enslaver's home. Smalls went on to serve five terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming an important political leader during Reconstruction. But perhaps the most powerful symbol of his extraordinary journey was the house in Beaufort. He had spent his childhood there in slavery. He returned as its owner and lived there with his family until his death in 1915.