Robert Smalls (5 April 1839 – 23 Februari 1915) adalah seorang pengusaha, penerbit dan politikus asal Amerika Serikat. Lahir dalam perbudakan di Beaufort, Carolina Selatan, ia membebaskan dirinya sendiri, krunya dan keluarganya pada Perang Saudara Amerika dengan mengkomandani kapal angkut Konfederasi, CSS Planter, di pelabuhan Charleston, pada 13 Mei 1862, dan berlabuh dari perairan yang dikuasai Konfederasi ke blokade AS yang berada di dekatnya. Ia kemudian mengarahkan kapal tersebut ke enklave yang dikuasai pasukan Uni di kawasan Beaufort-Port Royal-Hilton Head, dimana kapal tersebut dijadikan kapal perang pasukan Uni. Contoh dan keberaniannya membantu mendorong Presiden Abraham Lincoln untuk menerima para prajurit Afrika-Amerika dalam Union Army.
Bacaan tambahan
Coker, P. C., III. Charleston's Maritime Heritage, 1670–1865: An Illustrated History. Charleston, S.C.: Coker-Craft, 1987. 314 pp.
Downing, David C. A South Divided: Portraits of Dissent in the Confederacy, Nashville: Cumberland House, 2007. ISBN978-1-58182-587-9
Foner, Eric ed., Freedom's Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders During Reconstruction Revised Edition. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996). ISBN0-8071-2082-0. Between 1865 and 1876, about 2,000 blacks (including men of color or mixed race) held elective and appointive offices in the South. A few are relatively well-known, but most became obscure because official state histories prepared after Reconstruction omitted them; whites dominated state governments and suppressed the black population and its history. Foner profiles more than 1,500 black legislators, state officials, sheriffs, justices of the peace, and constables in this volume.
Gabridge, Patrick, Steering to Freedom (Penmore Press, 2015). ISBN1942756224. Novel about Robert Smalls' life.
In the episode "The Wheel"Diarsipkan 2020-06-29 di Wayback Machine. of the podcast The Memory Palace, published on February 10, 2016, Nate DiMeo tells the story of Robert Smalls.