The Civil War escape that made Robert Smalls a national leader

The Civil War escape that made Robert Smalls a national leader

A deeper look at the Civil War hero whose self-liberation rewrote American history and reshaped Black political power in the South. Robert Smalls’ path from enslavement to statesman began in 1839 in Beaufort, South Carolina, where he was born into slavery under the McKee family. His mother, Lydia Polite, worked in the McKee household, but she endured the brutalities of field labor from childhood. Fearing her son might grow up insulated by the re…