The Hamburg Massacre of 1876 — in which white rifle clubs attacked and killed Black militiamen in Hamburg, South Carolina, as part of a Democratic campaign of terror to suppress Republican voting — Smalls actively sought a congressional inquiry and grand jury investigation. Both efforts were ultimately unsuccessful in producing accountability.
He was nominated as a candidate for the United States Senate in December 1884 but lost to Wade Hampton III, the Confederate general turned Democratic political leader who had become the face of white conservative resistance to Reconstruction in South Carolina.
## The Conviction and Its Context
In 1877, Robert Smalls was convicted by a South Carolina court of accepting a bribe in connection with a printing contract during his time in the state Senate. He denied the charge. He received a three-year sentence.
What followed illustrates the specific character of Reconstruction justice — or its absence. The governor of South Carolina, as part of a negotiated political arrangement, pardoned Smalls. The pardon was connected to an agreement in which charges against Democrats accused of election fraud — fraud that had been used to suppress Black voting — were dropped. Smalls’s pardon and the dropped fraud charges were exchanged as part of a settlement that served the interests of Democratic political consolidation rather than the interests of justice on either side.
Multiple historical accounts note the political context in which the conviction occurred: Reconstruction was collapsing, Democratic “Redeemers” were using violence, fraud, and the courts to regain control of Southern state governments, and Black officeholders were systematically targeted through a range of methods that included both physical intimidation and legal proceedings that did not meet standards of impartiality. The essential Civil War Curriculum and other scholarly sources note that Smalls denied the bribery charge and that the conviction occurred in this context.