Ep 52: Sailing to Freedom

On this episode of #IDKMYDE B Daht explains how Robert Smalls stole a confederate ship and sailed to freedom undetected with his family and 16 others.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On today's episode. If I didn't know, maybe you didn't either.
I'll tell you the story of how an enslaved man
saved himself, his wife, his two kids, and twelve other
enslaved individuals by stealing a Confederate ship. I didn't know.
You didn't. I didn't know you. I didn't know. Maybe

(00:21):
you didn't. I didn't know. I didn't know. His name
Roberts Smalls, And in the early hours of May thirteenth,
eighteen sixty two, he did the unthinkable. He stole a
Confederate ship, the Planter. He had a wife named Hannah,
a four year old daughter named Elizabeth, and an infant
son named Robert Junior. Now this all happened in Charleston,

(00:44):
South Carolina. After the captain and his partners had docked
the Planter, they exit and go to land. Now were
they going to party or were they going to sleep
with their wives and family? Who knows? But they left
the Planter monitored only by Robert Smalls, and that's when
him and his partners took action. Now, this is very
difficult because they had to first start the Planter, which

(01:05):
is allowed steamboats, and they had to do it in
a way They wouldn't draw suspicion. Secondly, they would have
to maneuver the steamboat to the boat where his family
was and pick them up. After that checkpoint, they would
have to navigate through three Confederate checkpoints, including Fort Sumter,
just to try to get to the open waters and
meet up with the Union ships. Now, remember, Confederate ships

(01:29):
bad guys. Unionship good guys. Even if they were successful
enough to get through all of the Confederate checkpoints, who's
to say the Union ships wouldn't shoot them down because
they were driving a Confederate steamboat. So many many ways
to die, yet it was worth the risk. Not only
did Robert Smalls undocked the Planter from the Charleston Harbor,

(01:52):
but he made it to pick up his wife and kids.
Because he had taken so many trips, he knew the
codes for the Confederate checkpoints, whether it was a blow
up the whistle here, a tip of the cap there.
He successfully maneuvered in the early mornings threw the Charleston
Harbor into open water. Immediately him and his partners started
taking down the Confederate flags and the South Carolina flags

(02:14):
and putting up white sheets to show the Union ships. Hey,
we surrender and it worked. They said they were gonna
make a movie about it, but I ain't seen it yet.
Robert Smalls seized the Confederate ship and selled it, and
sixteen other enslaved individuals to freedom, and I didn't know.
Maybe you didn't either,