Banneker, Benjamin

By: Frank Towers

Source:

 Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass

Banneker, Benjamin

Sex:  Male

Born:  Near Elkridge Landing, Baltimore County, Maryland, United States
9 November 1731

Died:  Baltimore County, Maryland, United States
19 October 1806

Activity/Profession:  Astronomer, Farmer

(b. 9 November 1731; d. 9 October 1806),
African American scientist and advocate for racial equality.

Benjamin Banneker was born on a farm near Elkridge Landing, Maryland, on the Patapsco River, ten miles southwest of Baltimore. His mother, Mary Banneky, was a freeborn African American. Her parents were Molly Welsh, an English indentured servant, and Bannaka, a Dogon nobleman captured in the slave trade and bought by Molly Welsh. In 1700 Welsh freed Bannaka, and they married. Benjamin's father, was born in Africa and transported to America as a slave, where he was known as Robert. In Maryland, Robert purchased his freedom and married Bannaka and Molly's daughter, Mary Banneky, whose surname he adopted and later changed to Banneker. Robert's success in tobacco farming enabled him to buy enough land (seventy-two acres) to support his son and three younger daughters.

Benjamin Banneker was intellectually curious, especially about mathematics and science, but he had little formal education. (Scholars disagree about claims that he attended school for two years.) He learned to read with help from his parents and his grandmother. As a child, he studied the Bible and books given to him by a Quaker teacher. White Quakers befriended Banneker several times in his life. In 1753 William Qualls, a Quaker merchant from Baltimore, introduced Banneker to a European trader, who, after discussing the science of time with him, loaned Banneker his pocket watch. Banneker disassembled the watch, learned its inner workings, and then built a clock, entirely from wood parts, that kept precise time.

Although he was gifted in science, Banneker farmed for a living. His father taught Benjamin that farming and land ownership were keys to self-sufficiency. In 1759 Robert Banneker died, leaving Benjamin in charge of the family land. Childhood encounters with racist violence, including witnessing slave catchers kidnap a friend, reinforced Banneker's decision to stick close to his land, where he was known as a free person of good character. Nonetheless, he found ways to pursue his intellectual interests. The Ellicotts, a family of antislavery Quaker manufacturers from Philadelphia, aided him in this effort. In 1772 a branch of the Ellicott family built a flour mill near Banneker's land. The Ellicotts treated African Americans with respect and shared Banneker's interests in science. Banneker forged a close friendship with George Ellicott, nephew of Andrew Ellicott III, one of the mill's founders. The Ellicotts' mill served as a community gathering place where Banneker could learn the news and study mill machinery. Banneker also sold some of his farm produce to the Ellicotts.

In 1791 this friendship created the opportunity for Banneker to participate in the survey of the Federal District (later known as the District of Columbia). President George Washington named Andrew Ellicott III to a commission that would survey land for the new capital. Ellicott persuaded the president to appoint Banneker as his chief scientific adviser. Banneker had studied surveying and could apply the geometrical projections of the city planner Pierre Charles L'Enfant to the Potomac River swamplands where Washington, D.C., was to be built. Banneker acquitted himself well and earned high praise from his associates on the survey, although racial prejudice subtly affected his experience. He dined separately from his white colleagues, and President Washington, who often visited the surveyors, avoided contact with Banneker.

In his spare time Banneker studied the stars with astronomical tools and treatises that George Ellicott had given him. Banneker wrote commentaries on the treatises and crafted his own ephemeris, a chart of astrological movements during the year. Farmers used ephemerides, which were published in almanacs, as guides to seasonal weather variations. In 1789 Banneker demonstrated the accuracy of his calculations by predicting a solar eclipse. If published as an almanac, Banneker's ephemeris would earn him money and document the abolitionist argument that African Americans were capable of more than slave labor. Aware of this potential, abolition societies in Maryland and Pennsylvania helped Banneker publish his first almanac in 1792. Banneker continued publishing almanacs through 1797. The almanacs were popular with practical farmers and with opponents of slavery, one of whom presented a copy to the British Parliament.

Thomas Jefferson's letter to Benjamin Banneker, 30 August 1791. This is the response—polite but noncommittal—to Banneker's appeal of 19 August.

Library of Congress.

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While his first almanac was in press, Banneker broke with his reluctance to antagonize proslavery whites. On 19 August 1791 he sent Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson a copy of his almanac along with a letter that criticized Jefferson for owning slaves and asked him to advance the cause of racial equality and abolition. Impressed by the almanac, Jefferson forwarded it to the Academy of Science in Paris. Jefferson also sent Banneker a courteous reply, but he did not forthrightly endorse racial equality.

Banneker's challenge to Jefferson underscored the significance of his career for black freedom in the early Republic. His scientific achievements disproved claims made by whites like Jefferson who wanted to colonize free blacks in Africa. Colonizationists argued that free blacks must emigrate or be enslaved, because their alleged inferiority doomed them to failure in competition with whites. Banneker showed that free African Americans could match white accomplishments and live successfully in the United States. To publicize this point, Banneker included his correspondence with Jefferson in his 1793 almanac.

In 1792 Banneker sold his farm to the Ellicotts. In old age he supported full-time study with income from sales of almanacs and his land. An avid naturalist and beekeeper, Banneker determined in 1800 that locusts appeared in seventeen-year cycles. Although he was not a member of an organized church, Banneker was influenced by Quakerism. That influence manifested itself in an appeal for peace published in his 1793 almanac. Shy and retiring, Banneker never married. Some scholars speculate that he suffered from depression and alcohol abuse. He died in his family home, where he had lived after selling his land. During Banneker's funeral a fire burned his house and most of his scientific papers. Banneker had received anonymous threats from white racists after he became well known, and some scholars conjecture that racists set the fire. If so, they failed to destroy the legacy of African American achievement that Banneker left to the world.

See also Discrimination; Free African Americans to 1828; Jefferson, Thomas, on African Americans and Slavery; Science; Society of Friends (Quakers) and African Americans; and Washington, George, and African Americans.

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