Benjamin Banneker was an African American mathematician, astronomer, compiler of almanacs, inventor, and writer who helped survey Washington, D.C. He was born on November 9, 1731, in Baltimore County, Maryland to Mary Banneky, a free black woman and Robert, a freed slave from Guinea who died in 1759. Unlike most black children in America at the time, Benjamin was born a free man. He grew up on his family’s farm and worked hard there from childhood. He helped grow tobacco, chopped firewood, and did all sorts of chores on the farm.
The colour of the skin is in no way connected with strength of the mind or intellectual powers.
Benjamin Banneker
Banneker was largely self-educated and did much of his learning through the voracious reading of borrowed books. Early on he demonstrated a particular faculty for mathematics. While still a young man (probably about age 20), he built a wooden clock that kept precise time. As an essayist and pamphleteer, Banneker opposed slavery and advocated for civil rights. In 1791 he sent Thomas Jefferson, then U.S. secretary of state, a letter asking Jefferson’s aid in bringing about better conditions for African Americans. With the letter, Banneker also sent a handwritten copy of the manuscript for his 1792 Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia Almanack and Ephemeris.
Presumption should never make us neglect that which appears easy to us, nor despair make us lose courage at the sight of difficulties.
Benjamin Banneker
Benjamin Banneker invented many things including an irrigation system to control water flow to the crops from nearby springs. In 1753, he built one of the first watches made in America, a wooden pocket watch. Twenty years later, Banneker began making astronomical calculations that enabled him to successfully forecast a 1789 solar eclipse. His estimate, made well in advance of the celestial event, contradicted predictions of better-known mathematicians and astronomers. Banneker’s knowledge of astronomy helped him author a commercially successful series of almanacs.
- Benjamin Banneker – Wikipedia
- Benjamin Banneker – Biography, Mathematician, Astronomer
- Benjamin Banneker | Letter to Jefferson, Clock, Almanac, & Facts | Britannica
- Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine
- Benjamin Banneker | Lemelson (mit.edu)