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tv   [untitled]    July 6, 2012 11:30pm-12:00am EDT

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he is currently the senior cure rate for of culture at the smithsonian museum of african-american history and culture. prior to beginning her work, she worked as a cure ate or of the the south carolina state museum. the cultural expressions gallery will focus on adornment, religion and literary and performing arts. in 2005, he was instrumental in collecting the robert small parlor furniture for the museum. elaine has a m.a. degree in public service archaeology and an ma in social administration in planning from case western united states. ms. nick comes is also a professional storyteller. please join me in welcoming ms. nicholls. so we have a wonderful panel and i'm excited to turn it over to -- go ahead.
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>> thank you, michael, i'm so glad to be here this evening, with my distinguished colleagues on this very auspicious occasion. and let me start by just saying that the name robert smalls of course became legion in south carolina and in many other places around the country during the civil war and after the civil war. robert smalls was a war hero, he would become a political leader with national influence. his life was indeed the stuff of legend. the story is told down in buford, example, where smalls was born that on one occasion, two african-american men were walking down the road and they were discussing great men and what constituted great men and who great men were. and the one man asserted that robert smalls is probably the greatest man on earth.
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the man that he was talking to said that smalls was certainly great, but he wasn't the greatest man on effort aarth and he knew someone even greater. and the first man asked the question, incredulously, well, who on earth could possibly be greater than robert smalls? the second man then offered jesus christ as the greatest man that ever walked on the earth. the first man was forced to concede, but he reminded man number two, that robert smalls was still young. now i think that we should become familiar with robert smalls for a variety of different reasons. first, in his life, we can see most of the overarching themes that african-american history revolves around. for example, we see slavery,
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emancipation, enfranchisement and political empowerment, the rise of white supremacy and finally while smalls dies in 1915, some of the work that he did actually laid the ground work for the second reconstruction. another term used to describe the american civil rights movement. secondly, smalls' life is a consummately american story. a story of triumph over adversity, success against the odds, and of course what better place to talk about such an american life than in charleston, smalls' second home and indeed a city unique in its contributions to americana and
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those things that would become afro americana. i want to talk about smalls' later life. i want to talk about his experiences in beaufort, but mainly in charleston as a way of understanding how these environments prepared him for his later achievements in life. now robert smalls is born in 1839 in beaufort, he's the son of lydia polite, who was the son of -- mckee was a planter and he owned approximately 60 different people who he used mainly in the country side. but lydia and robert comprised the main part of his domestic labor force at his beaufort home. know domestic service had its
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positive aspects and it's disadvantages for example. domestics were on call around the clock to attend to their owners' various needs. that obviously was a down side, and a negative. and then unlike field hands, they had no place to hide, no place to get away from their owners, and that proximity could be discomforting to them and indeed it could even be dangerous. on the other hand, there were typically closed better than the field hands. and typically they were fed better than the field hands also. domestics were also privy to important information that might prove essential and valuable because of their proximity to their owners and also to the people who came and visited their owners. so domestics were frequently in a privileged position, but henry mckee apparently wasn't
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especially indulgent slave master. he frequently had robert accompany him in his carriage around town on horse back to his various plantation properties. mckee taught smalls how to ride horses to swim, to handle boats, to hunt with a gun and other kinds of things. equally significant is the fact that henry mckee allowed robert to remain with his mother until he was almost 12 years old. and at that point, his life would change. but in an unanticipated and crucial way, for his future. now before taking up this point, on the eve of mother's day, let me say something else about lydia, robert's mother. and i want to say two things, first, she understood the extraordinary privileges her son enjoyed.
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but she wanted him to always remember the routine and even casual brutality that characterized the system of slavery. and experienced by so many other people around them. and so for example, on one occasion, she took him downtown to the jail where slaves were being whipped and she had him look at these scenes. and these scenes made a terribly important impression, and a deep impression on robert smalls. lydia was indeed exposing him to what we might call the politics of every day life. and she was exposing him to the naked power relationships that characterized the system of slavery so that he would always keep those images present in the forefront of his mind and understand how blessed and how lucky he was.
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but secondly, as i said, his life would change dramatically in 1851, because he was sent to work in charleston. now, andrew billingsley, a small's biographer asserts that it was lydia, robert's mother that persuaded henry mckee to send him to charleston and she suggested this as a way of perhaps protecting her son, looking out for him, thinking that he would probably do better in a charleston environment than had he been sent out to work on one of mr. mckee's plantations. and so in 1851, robert smalls does indeed go to charleston and this was a transformative experience that shaped his adult fortunes. because slavery in the city was quite different than slavery in the countryside. with an 1850 population of
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almost 43,000, charleston, the state's major port was really the big city. and in addition to the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the city and the anonymity of life in a major urban area, and charleston's other characteristics proved to be equally significant. now for most of its history, this city, like the state had a black majority. and in 1860, one-third of all of the state's free black population resided in charleston. so the experience of seeing a large number of people who looked like robert smallings and were also freed must have heightened his aspiration for freedom. the blacks had a highly organized life -- mutual aid
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societies and organizations for intellectual improvement. now domestic -- unlike on the plantations, the city afforded a much more diversified occupational structure, which ensured -- which ensured that the free blacks and slaves would be employed in a wide range of different occupations, some of which required considerable skill. free black men were concentra d concentrateded in the building trade and many free women practiced needle craft. in addition to the foregoing examples, they worked as blacksmiths as barrel makers in brick yards, rice mills and for the railroad just to give you some examples and based on their skills and sometimes their
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business enterprises, free blacks became property owners and sometimes very unusual situations could arise. for example those that owned real estate sometimes rented their homes and apartments to whites. and robert smalls probably knew of such potentially subversive relationships. now one of the hallmarks of urban slavery was the hiring system in which masters hired their slaves out to other people. and slaves were sometimes allowed to hire themselves out, seeking out their own jobs and negotiating for wages. even though both of these things were illegal. robert undoubtedly knew of this open secret and probably participated in it also. now while enslaved in charleston, robert smalls had many experiences that were an
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threat kl to his status as a legal slave. while there he interacted with free blacks, he even belonged to even at least seven different organizations where methods were discussed in these organizations for assisting slaves to obtain their freedom. it was illegal for slaves to become literate, but it was more difficult to enforce this policy in the city, because there were signs all around, there were newspapers around, books available, and all kinds of literary materials that slaves had access to. robert smalls undoubtedly interacted with literate slaves, and these interactions again probably further stimulated his passion for literacy. now robert smalls must have learned about charleston's revolutionary heritage also. in the 1850s, there were black and white people in the area who were refugees from the haitian
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revolution in the 1790s and the early years of the 19th century. and others were familiar with stories about this singular new world slave unsure recollection -- closer to home, smauls surely knew about how they unfolded in connection with an effort to create an african methodist church in the city and the dire consequences of his failure. more than anything else, work shaped robert smalls' life. he was employed in different jobs during his first two years in charleston, for example as a lamp lighter, and as a waiter, but he wanted to work on the water front and this is where he found his greatest opportunity for employment and education. this indeed was the most cosmopolitan part of the city also. it must have been exciting to
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witness the arrival and the departure of ships and perhaps interacting with crewmembers from far away places and smalls would begin as a wharf hand loading and unloading ships, but he was able to move on to more skilled and responsible positions over time. he learned to rig the sails on ships, he became a sailor and eventually a pilot making coastal voyages for his employer as far south as northern florida. and during his travels, smalls also showed his own flair for entrepreneur ship. and he sometimes secured trade goods from the places he visited, brought them back to charleston and then sold them at a profit. robert eventually met hanna, an enslaved woman that married in 1856 and had an extraordinary arrangement with their owners.
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they lived in their own apartment, which was illegal. and the only way that they could have afforded this was for hanna to hire herself out, hire her time out as a domestic, which she did at the mills house and robert took on additional work himself. now if what i have described to you thus far is not unusual enough, the final, the final and the most surprising turn of events in what was clearly an extraordinary life, was that robert made arrangements to purchase his wife and children from their owner, once they had owned -- once they had earned the requisite money. understand what i'm saying here, a slave was making arrangements to purchase other slaves. now we don't know how this was to be achieved legally.
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we don't know that. but hanna's owner agreed to the arrangement and it was indeed a singular arrangement. now the fact that robert and hanna were allowed to do these things says much about their aspirations, it says much about their owners, and also about the place where they lived. now the civil war began with the firing on ft. sumpter in charleston harbor in 1961, and those shots would usher in the next phases of robert small's biography and the other panelists are going to discuss those themes and those faces with you now, i appreciate your attention. [ applause ] >> well moving right along, i
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would like just a little musing before i get into talking about robert smalls and the civil war, very remarkable man, obviously as dr. powers mentioned, influenced by his mother. he is going to be able to take advantage of situations and for him, you can say it's a little bit of luck, just happens to fall into the right place with the right free people, he is going to be able to really expand upon his position within the low country, within south carolina, and eventually within the nation. he is going to be part of, at the start of the civil war of a massive workforce that the confederacy counted on to sustain their new nation and its military. this workforce made up of free blacks, but primarily made up of slaves would do everything from grow crops, provide manual labor, serve as teamsters,
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firemen, and in robert small's case pilots of ships. the leaders of the confederacy were very suspicious and wary of such a workforce and had to depend upon them, but could never really trust them. as mentioned and as we all know, smalls is a very remarkable individual, but he also again will find himself in a situation with some very special people to help him along his way. during his time on the sea islands, when we look back and study what's going on in the sea islands, there were other black leaders who you can argue at least for a moment might rival robert small, for example like prince rivers or robert sutton, these were nco's in south carolina. but smalls will have more flexibility, will interact with more individuals and by the end which we'll hear about in reconstruction will come out as
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really the leader of at least the low country, and you could very well argue the blacks within south carolina. he was part, as dr. powers mentioned, working on the planter, is going to be part of a evolving maritime economy that had been going on since the 1820s, charlestonians don't like to hear about this, beginning the 1920s, 1830s and 1840s, charleston is no longer a major. boston, philadelphia and new york has taken over the overseas trade. charleston is not that great of a harbor. good supplies, cotton mainly is shipped up to boston, new york and philadelphia for shipment overseas. so owe you see the maritime trade along the coast becoming more localized, and becoming more localized, you see more slaves and free blacks being used on these smaller packets, smaller steam ships operating along the coast. and robert smalls will be part
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of this system that is created at this time. they are especially trained to work on these packets. smalls himself will be referred to as a wheel man, it was said that the term pilot could only be reserved for whites. so he was called a wheel man, instead of a pilot. at the start of the civil war, the vessel he's working on, the planter will be hired -- she will be found anywhere between early jacksonville, florida, all the way up to georgia, carrying supplies for the confederate military, he'll be part of the planter's crew when they destroyed the light house at hunting island. sort of wipe out the navigational aides for any union vessels off the coast. shortly after the firing on ft. sumpt never, to stop the
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importation of goods from new york and stop the exportation of cotton that would will used to buy-charleston will be one of these ports that will find union warships beginning quite soon after the firing of ft. sumpter--the problem was as we begin with the civil war, is to have an effective blockade, you have to use steam warships. and if you have steam warships, you need to have places where these vessels can find coal, you need coaling stations. so in order to create a stronger blockade, the north would have to begin seizing harbors along the confederate port line.
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samuel fran siz dupont, the largest fleet ever organized by the united states up to this time will seize port royal sound and in a short time the navy will establish a base in port royal sound and the army will establish a expeditionary force operating out of hilton head island. when the -- they not only will drive away the confederate army, but also the vast majority of the landowners and the planters within the sea islands. they will come ashore and find themselves in control of some 8,000 masterless slaves. though not initially prepared to deal with these abandoned 14r e slaves, the united states would employ a -- by the spring of 1861, the north had in place at port royal a very ambitious program operated by northerners
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who oversaw the growing of cotton and the running of schools. there are a number of individuals involved in establishing what becomes or what is going to be termed the port royal experiment. some of these individuals will play a very important role in the robert small story. mentioned samuel francis, another important individual being mansfield french, he will be a key player in the robert small story, he was a noted educator and abolishist. he had been among the founders of the port royal experiment and he made sure that women were part of the movement as well. another major player will be david hunter, the 59d-year-old west point graduate, one of the leading generals in the united states army. hunter was in command of the forces that occupied the sea islands. and in march of 1862, he received a directive from the
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war department to raise a black regiment, which he started to do. he had problems, he found out that a lot of the former slaves really weren't that interested in joining this regiment so he thought he needed to give them something to fight for. so he will issue on may 9, 1 1862--as far as we know, this general order did not influence robert smalls. it's fairly quickly turned over by president lincoln. but we do not believe that smalls may -- he may have heard of it, but he already was making plans to escape from charleston. smalls again is part of this massive slave workforce, that supported the confederate military in and around charleston. both slaves and free blacks you could argue were caught between two fires. they worked willingly, unwillingly for the south. some served as volunteer
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firemen, some served as stokers on warships. some served as teamsters--others manned army-navy sup pore -- confederate authorities knew that in order to defend charleston they had to depend upon this workforce. now the confederacy was having a hard time defending this large coastline, and they were finding also the federal navy could easily come in behind these islands cut off and capture their forts and their batteries. so they begin, shortly after the fall of port royal withdrawing fortifications, troops, artillery, from these exposed islands and bringing them back around charleston. and smalls would be part of this mission that's taking apart confederate batteries, fortifications, bringing the goods back to charleston. one of these fortifications
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that's being abandoned is a confederate fort on coals island at the mouth of the stone oak river. they would be going out there daily bringing supplies back to charleston, including the artillery from the works on cole's island. at the same time, because they were federal forces off of charleston, there are a number of slaves escaping from charleston in boats going out to the blockading squadron. shortly before smauls carries out his mission escaping, the -- rod well ripley, the crew of his private barge were rollout and turned themselves over to the federal fleet. which just makes it even tougher if you stop and think about it for smalls to try to escape because the confederates were watching more closely what's
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going on in charleston. but they hadn't reckoned with the determination of robert smalls. he's going to make his plan, i'm not going to go into great detail of the escape, but on the night of may 12, while the vessel's white officers against standing orders went ashore for the night. smalls and his come patriots went -- the palmetto and con fed rasheed walla rat -- slipped the morings and smalls guide the vessel from the cooper river across to a neighboring wharf. emerging came small's wife, daughter lebsz, lydia and son robert jr., the wife and sister of one of the planters crewmen and another lady and a child. while wearing the captain's coat and straw hat, smalls steered the planner pass obsessive lines
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of forts. as he neared ft. sempt fwher. he -- hoisted a white flag, towels, sheets that his wife had brought long. in the morning mist, steamed toward the morning warships, came alongside the vessel onward, the on ward was preparing for action, clearing their decks, readying for guns. the captain reported that passengers emerged on deck dancing, singing, whistling and some faced toward sumpter in us curses. he said good morning sir, i brought you some of old united states guns sir. some union sailors -- smalls guided her to beaufort. they have come out into the port royal sound, she is brought up to and long side of admiral
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dupo dupont's flagship the wabash and dupont sends for smalls and he was very impressed with small ises. he called him robert, always called him robert, said he was very pleasant looking, trimmed, fine teeth, a clean and nice linen checked coat, with a very fine linen shirt, possibly part of the wardrobe of the navy officer who commanded the boat, fitting him very well if they were. i asked him a few questions to check the narrative when he first took the notion, and what made him think he would be successful. he had been thinking of it for about a week or two. the boat was taken in the evening to the -- a steamer was on each side of him, he got his wife on board quietly and the crew were of one accord to try it and then steam was got up at 4:00, theylet go of their fast and stood down quietly on reaching the fort at daylight when he came up

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