Annie White

Annie White made her daring escape from slavery to freedom aboard the Confederate steamer, The Planter in the early hours of May 13, 1862.

Commandeered by members of the enslaved crew led by pilot Robert Smalls, Annie was one of sixteen men, women and children who slipped past Fort Sumter under the cover of darkness and into the safety of the Union Navy blockading Charleston Harbor.¹

In August 1862, Congress authorized the distribution of cash prizes for the capture of The Planter. While the men received between $384 and $1,500, with Robert Smalls receiving the lion’s share, their wives received nothing because they “derive benefit through their various relationships to the men”. Annie White and Lavinia Wilson, described as “unprotected women of the party” were awarded $100 each since “these two have no such connection, and are destitute and unprovided for.”²

Who was Annie White?

Tracing the lives of women in the nineteenth century, particularly women of color, is notoriously difficult. If they are visible in the historical record, it is because the men in their lives were considered important enough to remember and managed to leave behind records detailing their lives. For a female freedom seeker like Annie, the records of her life as an enslaved woman will be few, if they can be found. If documents of Annie’s enslavement survive, they will record her existence as the property of her enslaver, not as a daughter, wife, mother, or sister. For Annie, her enslaver has not been conclusively identified, therefore, it is current impossible to search their records for any mention of Annie and her family before she “appears” in May 1862.

In the flurry of newspaper articles describing the dramatic escape on The Planter, Annie is sometimes mentioned by name, sometimes misspelled as “Arina” or “Anny” White but she is never identified as a family member of the crew. The May 18, 1862, New York Herald lists the women as the wife of Robert Smalls, the wife and sister of John Small and “the balance without families.” This is the first grain of evidence which indicates that Annie just might be the sister of John Small, the first engineer of The Planter.

In the summer of 1869, Annie White was living in Beaufort, South Carolina next door to John Small. This is the most credible mention of Annie White in the historical record. Living on her own, next door to John Small indicates that she could have some kinship connection to him as his sister or sister-in-law but that is something the surviving historical record does not reveal to us.³

On July 26, 1870, Annie White was again living near John Small and family, although now they moved to Ward 3, Charleston. Making her home just one dwelling away, Annie was 38 and living with her two daughters; “Eliz.”, aged three and “S”, aged one. Annie worked as a laundress from her home, one of the few professions open to a single or widowed woman in the Nineteenth century.⁴

Four years later in the 1874, Anna White was still living in Ward 3 and working as a laundress but had moved to 3 Queen Street.⁵ It was about a ten minutes’ walk from John Small’s address in 1871 but now she was living with a man named Jones Small, who worked as a butler. Jones Small reappears in the historical record only once more, in the 1888 Charleston City Directory, still working as a butler but his relationship to John Small, Robert Smalls or Annie White remains undetermined.⁶

Is Anna White the same Annie White who escaped to freedom on board The Planter? Sadly, it is impossible to know for certain. There are no other Anny, Annie, or Anna Whites in the previous or subsequent Charleston City Directories but the circumstantial evidence, that she lived next door to John Small in Beaufort and again in Charleston strengthens the supposition.

Annie White reappears twice more in the 1870s but without any information to connect her to John Small or the “previous” Annie White. On August 1, 1873, “Anny” White completed Freedman’s Bank Account application no. 5698. She was then a resident of Beaufort but, frustratingly, she did not provide any other identifying information.⁷

It was in the Summer of 1875 when a potential Annie White makes her last appearance, this time on St. Helena Island, Beaufort County, South Carolina. This “Anna White” was over the age of 41 and the head of household, living with a boy aged between one and six and a girl aged between six and sixteen.⁸ The Beaufort County census only lists the names of head of household and counts the people living in that household by age, sex and race so we have no idea if Anna White is working as a laundress. The Annie White of The Planter could have married and so cannot be found because she took her husband’s name or, sadly, she passed away after being named in the 1874 Charleston City Directory.

It is one of the frustrating aspects of searching for the lives of women of color; we catch a glimpse of them before they disappear into the shadows.

Resources

1. There are many contemporary sources available in newspaper archives. See: The New York Herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]), 18 May 1862. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030313/1862-05-18/ed-1/seq-1/; “A Strike for Freedom” by Alfred Gourdine, Detroit Free Press (Detroit, Michigan), 17 December 1893, o. 30, Newspapers.com Dec 17, 1893, page 30 - Detroit Free Press at Newspapers.comFor books, see: Cate Lineberry, Be Free or Die. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2017.
2. United States Naval War Records Office, Official records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Washington : U.S. G.P.O., 1894, 824-825.
3. "South Carolina, State and Territorial Censuses, 1869," South Carolina, Beaufort, image 1 of 390, South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia.
4. US Census, 1870, Charleston Ward 3, Charleston, South Carolina. Roll M593, Roll 1386, page 141.
5. Charleston, South Carolina, City Directory, 1874., p. 278. No. 3 Queen Street is now 5 Queen Street.
6. Charleston, South Carolina, City Directory, 1884., p. 499.
7. "South Carolina, State and Territorial Censuses, 1829-1920", FamilySearch, Entry for “Anny White”, Beaufort, South Carolina, Original images from the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia.
8. "South Carolina, State and Territorial Censuses, 1875-1920," FamilySearch, Entry for “Anna White”, St Helena, Beaufort, Original scans from South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia.