Robert Smalls Part 2: The Statesman
The escape was just the beginning...
When 22-year-old Ona Judge escaped George Washington’s plantation, one of the things that kept him from recapturing her was his unshakable belief that an imaginary “Frenchman” had aided in her escape. He couldn’t comprehend that Ona had the intelligence, desire and/or agency to escape by herself.
This type of hubris was common among enslavers. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that once Robert Smalls and his crew of now formerly enslaved people freed themselves, stealing The CSS Planter along the way, the Confederacy couldn’t believe they’d done it on their own. A story was concocted that imaginary white people had been responsible for their escape. The Confederacy was humiliated, court-martialed several of their soldiers and put a $4,000 bounty on Robert’s head.
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