THE ULTIMATE
On this day, May 13th 1862, at the height of the US Civil War, Robert Smalls, a Southern slave led an audacious bid for freedom by a group of slaves.
Smalls was a slave in South Carolina and he was assigned to steer a ship, the Planter, on duties in Charleston harbor, for the military of the Southern States, the Confederacy. He told the other slaves aboard of his plan, apart from one he didn't trust, and on May 13th 1862, they carried it out. As the white commanders went ashore on leave, he took command of the Planter, sailing the steamship carrying newly picked up artillery guns, and picking up family members of the slaves as he went, who were ready on another ship. Smalls knew that out beyond the harbour, was a naval blockade of the Northern United States navy. He was stealing the ship from the Confederacy, and aiming to take it across the Northern forces, where he and his fellow slaves would be free. Smalls, knew the harbour well, he knew the depths of the sea floor, he knew the defences surrounding the harbour, and he knew where mines had been placed - as he had been made to set the mines to thwart the Northern US navy. He also knew that if suspicion wasaroused other ships could give chase and the harbour guns could be turned on the Planter. He went to the extent of wearing a straw hat as the white commander did, and copying his mannerisms, so as not to arouse the suspicions of onlookers from the shore or other ships. He managed to sail the ship out of the harbour towards the Northern naval blockade, which meant further danger for his ship would be seen as a possible attack by the South. As they neared the Northern ships, they began to take aim, Smalls had the Planter's confederate flag run down, and replaced with a white sheet, that the family members had brought along. As they readied to fire the the Northern ships spotted the white flag, and waited. Robert Smalls had delivered his ship to the US Navy, he and the other slaves were free. In effect he had become the first African-American to command a US navy ship, the USS Planter. Smalls received a share of the 'prize' money for the capture of the ship, though even later in his life the amount he received was questioned as to whether it was really in line with the value of the ship. He went on to serve in the US Navy and Army, in the remainder of the Civil War, providing his knowledge of Charleston harbour and its defences to the North - so that within days they could launch a successful attack on an island at the harbour mouth. He encouraged the acceptance of African-Americans into the Northern military. Though, he served in a civilian capacity for the Northen Navy, he believed he had been commissioned as an officer, and late in life was awarded a pension equivalent to that of a captain. After the Civil War, he became a businessman, and entered politics, and in the era after the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Civil War Constitutional Amendments, but before the racist Jim Crow Laws took effect, he was elected to South Carolina's State Legislature (South Caroina's Parliament) and thence to the House of Representatives in the US Congress (equivalent to the UK's Parliament).
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