READ TOGETHER
Who was Robert Smalls?
Robert Smalls was born enslaved in Beaufort, South Carolina, in 1839. Enslavement meant people were treated as property and denied freedom. While working on the Charleston waterfront, Smalls learned skills that would help him and others escape. He became a pilot aboard the Planter, a transport ship used by Confederate forces during the Civil War. [1]
Early on May 13, 1862, Smalls and fellow freedom seekers put a plan into action after the ship’s white officers went ashore. The crew prepared the ship, collected waiting family members, and traveled through Charleston Harbor. Their knowledge of the water and the signals used at Confederate forts helped them pass the defenses. This was a group effort: operating a steamer required people to steer, work the engines and boilers, and carry out the plan together. [2]
After passing Fort Sumter, they raised a white flag and reached the United States Navy’s blockade. Sixteen people gained their freedom. The Navy also received the ship, its weapons and information about the harbor. [3]
Smalls later worked for public education and represented South Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives for five terms between 1875 and 1887. His life connects the struggle for freedom with the work of building a voice in public life. He died in 1915. [1]
Words to know
- Pilot
- A person with the knowledge to guide a ship through particular waters.
- Enslavement
- A system that treated human beings as property, forced them to work and denied their freedom. It was wrong.
- Blockade
- Ships or other forces positioned to stop movement into or out of an area.
- Evidence
- Information from a source that helps support or question an explanation.
30-MINUTE TEACHING PLAN
What can knowledge make possible?
Learning goals: retell the escape in order, explain two ways knowledge or cooperation helped, and support an answer with a detail from a source.
Materials: this page, paper and a pencil. Optional: colored pencils and the linked NPS route map.
Before you begin: read the biography yourself. Keep the discussion focused on people, decisions and evidence. Do not turn enslavement into a role-play or ask a learner to pretend to be enslaved.
0 to 5 minutes: open the question
Ask, “What can someone learn by doing a job every day?” Explain the words pilot and enslavement. Introduce Charleston Harbor as the setting.
5 to 12 minutes: read and retell
Read the biography together. Pause to name who helped. Put three events in order: prepare the ship, collect families, reach the Union Navy. Ask for a detail that belongs between the last two steps.
12 to 22 minutes: draw the sequence
Use the activity below. Add labels, arrows and one sentence explaining where knowledge mattered. Your drawing can be simple.
22 to 27 minutes: discuss
Use the three questions below. Invite more than one answer when it is supported by the reading.
27 to 30 minutes: check and reflect
Ask your learner to name the year, one useful skill and one way people worked together. Finish with “A question I still have is...”
Activity: trace the journey
Draw three connected boxes: Charleston waterfront → harbor defenses, including Fort Sumter → Union ships outside the harbor. This is a sequence diagram, not a scale map. In the first box, add the family pickup. In the middle box, write “signals and local knowledge.” In the last, add the white flag.
Then turn the sequence into a simple map using the NPS Planter route map. Add a title, arrows and a key. Mark your sketch “not to scale.” If you cannot open the map, the three-box diagram still completes the core activity.
Ask: “Which label on your drawing helps explain how the plan worked?” Your learner should connect a label to a fact in the biography.
Talk about it
- How did Smalls’s experience on the waterfront help with the escape?
- Why is it incomplete to tell this as a story about one person working alone?
- What can a route map help us understand? What can it not tell us?
Choose a response level
- Ages 7 to 9: retell the three steps aloud and draw one skill the crew used.
- Ages 10 to 12: write three or four sentences explaining how two details helped the plan.
- Ages 13 to 15: compare the biography with an NPS account. Write a claim, support it with two details, and name something neither source establishes.
Answer guidance for grown-ups
- Knowledge: Smalls knew the harbor and the signals expected at the Confederate defenses. Look for an explanation of how a skill helped, not just the word “brave.”
- Cooperation: the crew had to prepare and operate the steamer, collect families, and carry out the escape. Smalls was a leader within that shared effort.
- Maps and limits: a map can show places, routes and obstacles. It cannot, by itself, prove what a person felt or why every decision was made.
Exit check: the escape took place on May 13, 1862. Accept a relevant skill and a concrete example of cooperation. If a response needs evidence, return to the second paragraph together.
Sources and further reading
This original BLL summary draws on the National Park Service accounts below. These are later historical interpretations, not eyewitness documents. The route map is a modern reconstruction. Use that distinction when discussing sources with older learners.
- NPS: Robert Smalls. Birth, work, escape and later public service.
- NPS: The Planter. Crew, planning, family pickup and harbor signals.
- NPS: The Underground Railroad and Fort Sumter. Harbor defenses, the white flag and the arrival at the Union blockade.
- NPS: The Planter, A Strike for Freedom. Route map and the wider group of freedom seekers.
Prepared by Black Legacy League. Sources reviewed October 19, 2026.