Robert Smalls was a very lucky man.
Or he was just lucky enough -- and more gutsy and passionate and a lot more just plain smart.
But I am getting ahead of myself. Maybe I should start over -- after all, Robert Smalls was born into slavery. How could he be lucky?
(Language may offend some. Don't read this if racial epithets could get you in trouble.)
I have taken dramatic license with some of the parts of Robert Smalls' life. I hope anyone who prefers complete accuracy will bear in mind the artistic intent of this effort and value it over the parts I conflate or embellish.
Supporting documents withheld to allow the sense of drama for those who want to sustain it. The story's known; how do you want to learn about it?
Robert Smalls was born into slavery in 1839. For the average person born into slavery, even in the 1830s or 1840s, being lucky means your master is nice and you live on land near what will become the Union.
He lived in Beaufort, South Carolina, which is on the southern coastal part of the state. Not close to the Union -- but remember he's on the coast.
Smalls' master was nice:
He was taken around town by Henry McKee and had opportunities to play with children in the neighborhood, both black and white.
Even if we assume that McKee was Smalls' father (which would explain the kindness, though this kindness was certainly not afforded to every slave son of a slaveowner), that is scarcely believable -- but there it is.
But reality set in. Whatever had caused McKee to treat Robert differently from nearly every other slave of the time, his mother, Lydia, was not interested in a sheltered life for her son.
And so, on a trip to see family, did a cot become the ground.
Not the cold wooden floor -- the ground. Dirt. Nature's floor, and Robert's bed.
And after a night sleeping on dirt, Robert woke up to a day of work.
And by a day, I mean from when you can see to when you can't see.
Imagine yourself as a preteen. Your mama wakes you up when it is dark. You can see her, and the filth of the slave house makes ... breathing difficult.
She grabs you up off the cold, hard dirt and points you to a pile of ... something.
Mama, what is that? you ask groggily.
"Clothes." The voice is cold.
You look at them, struggling to figure out where they begin or end. All you see is a pile.
"Put them on." The voice is even less kind now.
You struggle to see anything in the barely nascent light. Finally, your mother shoves your face into --
THAT SMELLS LIKE POOP!
"Put. Them. On."
You fumble around and grab part of the fabric and pick it up. It's raw and coarse and sort of slimy and something dry is coming off on your thumbs as they instinctively rub it, trying to identify ... something.
"Put the shirt on."
You lift the shift and start looking for the neck hole or an arm hole or anything else --
Hands reach out above you and tear the shirt from your hands.
"Arms up."
You lift your arms up.
The hands shove the shirt down on you.
The stench of blood and old poop fill your nostrils. You can scarcely breathe. Something itches horribly, but scratching only makes it worse, filling your nails with grime and rubbing something awful all over your tummy.
"Turn around."
"Step forward."
She pulls something up around your waist, then puts something around your waist. You feel a cinch on your hips.
Pants?
You feel around your waist and find a knot and some coarse fibers.
A rope?
"Do you want your pants to fall down?"
No, mama.
Your mama starts to lead you out of the cabin.
shoes, you suggest in the softest voice you can find.
"We're already late," she says at you. "Massah Johnson, the boy is late." She hangs on the L in late.
You just stand there. Something is happening, but you still can't see much.
"The boy ... is late," she says again.
What hint of light was in front of you is replaced by something dark and ... a different kind of smelly.
Something moves, and then --
SMACK
Your head turns instinctively. A tear threatens to drop down the left side of your face.
"Say you're sorry you're late to Massah Johnson."
I'm sorry, you manage to say to the man you assume just hit you in the face.
You're sorry to who, you little nigger?
You, sir, you guess.
What did your nigger mother call me?
Massah Johnson, you remember out of fear. I'm sorry I'm late, Massah Johnson.
"We best get out there. It's light enough to pick cotton."
Every rock you ever threw in a game with your friends finds your feet on the walk out to the cotton.
You almost collapsed twice in the heat and sun and filth. Only the nervousness from trying to sing unfamiliar noise of spirituals you had only heard as faint, faraway murmurs spared you from what you can only imagine would have been the severe wrath of Massah Johnson. His job is to get the most work out of you possible.
Falling -- stopping at all -- would inconvenience you. It would draw no pity, only harm. You looked toward your mother once, early, begging for a compassionate glance.
Instead, your other cheek was turned by that man.
Kids around you are working harder, knowing if they do nothing but work (and sing, which makes them work harder), all they'll face is more work.
As the light fades, you get a chance to see how much cotton the other ... slaves ... have collected.
Just then, your mama grabs you by the arm and takes you away.
You feel your feet moving, but you don't feel them landing. Thank the good Lord they're numb now. But small comfort.
Is Massah Johnson going to hurt me for not picking enough cotton?
"Worse."
You bite your lip. WORSE?
This has already been the worst day of your life. Your mama doesn't love you anymore. Why?
Nobody will tell you anything.
And now your clothes are about pasted on, and you're getting cold from all the sweat all over you, and you can't feel your feet anymore, and your hands are bloody and cramped from opening cotton bolls, and --
crack
You ... have heard this before. Farther away, though.
Crack!
m--, you start, but know better than to finish.
You start to get ready. You start breathing all calm.
You won't cry. You'll take it like a man.
On Mama leads you.
CRACK!
Now you can feel the earth vibrate from your toenails up to your your drenched shirt. You start to try to walk so your feet won't hit the dirt and grass as the whip hits the slave, but
it ...
doesn't ...
matter.
This is torture.
Just start it here, you say softly.
"Start what," Mama says.
The whipping.
"This is the whipping. You got to watch as it happens."
And you keep CRACKvibrate-echo walking toward CRACKvibrate-echo the whipping CRACKvibrate-echo.
When you're close enough, you get a look at the slave.
Who is he? you ask.
"A slave," Mama says.
What's his name? you press.
"Slave," Mama says.
What did he do? you ask.
"Broke the rules," Mama says.
Which rule?
"Don't matter. He's lucky, too. Stories I could tell you 'bout other slaves."
"You ever gonna forget today?"
You shake your head.
"Ever gonna take anything for granted?"
You shake your head.
And you're never going to rest until you can make some of this right.
Soon after the horrors he witnessed, various accounts tell of the trouble Robert got into while agitating for his rights and freedom. One notes that his mother asked Henry McKee to send him to Charleston so he would have less time for trouble because he would be working as much as possible.
McKee sold Robert for $15 a month, and Robert worked every job he could find, in the process becoming quite good at navigating boats. In the process, he met a woman roughly twice his age (accounts differ on if he was 17 or 19, but his wife was in her early 30s). She was working in a hotel. He was working everywhere. They had two children, and they were all four of them slaves.
He wanted them all to be free. Accounts differ on how successful he was in buying their freedom, but those accounts also agree on what happened next.
By now, the Civil War was upon the country. With his experience handling a cotton steamer, Robert was working as a hired-out slave aboard the vessel, which had been turned into a Confederate arms supply ship.
About two and a half months, by one account, after Robert was named pilot of the ship, he and the other slaves (one account says three; another says eight, with seven accompanying Smalls; a third says 12 slaves were onboard; a fourth tells the story differently still) who served aboard it decided the time was right to escape:
1) Every account that mentions this says unequivocally that the whole of the ship's white crew was ashore, trusting the black Confederates (slaves, all) to stay where they were.
2) Union ships were blockading the port, meaning that the slaves had only to get to the point where they could surrender to the Union.
But escaping was not enough for Robert. He had a family. The other slaves had families. Freedom and being without their families were incompatible thoughts. Two options existed: enslavement with their families or freedom with their families.
Accounts do not indicate how the slaves got their families onboard the ship, and they differ on when they boarded the ship, but there they were as Robert began the journey.
Robert knew the area as well as anyone.
He also knew the dangers as well as anyone. Deserting, treason, anything like that -- combined with the fact that he was a slave -- would mean, at absolute best, a long and painful death.
Anything worse was beyond what he wanted to imagine. An impossibly cruel example would be made of him. Would a slave be left alone again for the duration of the war?
But would he, and his family, and the other slaves, and their families ever get this chance again? Not taking the chance was not an option.
So early May 13, 1862, Robert started to guide the supply ship, called the Planter, out of harbor and toward the first gun battery.
He had to get the ship out of the harbor without arousing suspicions.
He had to get past each of five gun batteries without allowing his face to be seen, while giving the correct signal to guarantee the ship would not be stopped.
He had to be lucky enough for some small thing to not foul the whole thing up.
And the lives of every person on that boat would be changed for the best if he succeeded and the worst if he failed.
And no matter how he fared, he knew every other black Confederate -- and probably most slaves, period -- would feel retribution regardless of the outcome.
To be continued tomorrow, if I have time.