BANNEKER, BENJAMIN

(b. Baltimore County, Maryland, 9 November 1731; d. Baltimore County, 9 October 1806)

observational astronomy, ephemerides, almanacs.

A tobacco farmer, and amateur astronomer, Benjamin Banneker was an inspiration for his mathematical achievements. He is frequently described as the first African American man of science.

Early Life. Banneker was born free in Baltimore County, Maryland, on 9 November 1731. He was the son of a freed slave from Guinea named Robert and of Mary Banneky, daughter of a formerly indentured English servant named Molly Welsh and her husband, Bannka, a slave whom she freed and who claimed to be the son of a Gold Coast tribal chief.

Banneker’s early years were spent with his family, including three sisters, growing tobacco on his parents’ 100-acre farm near the banks of the Patapsco River. In his early years he had been trained to read and write by his grandmother by means of a Bible she had purchased from England, but his only formal schooling was attendance for a week or two in a nearby Quaker one-room schoolhouse. Benjamin became a voracious reader, borrowing books from wherever he could, and developed considerable skill in mathematics. He enjoyed devising mathematical puzzles and solving those brought to him by others. At about the age of twenty-one he constructed a striking wall clock, without ever having seen one. It is said that it was based on his recollections of the mechanism of a pocket watch. Apparently, he visualized it as a mathematical puzzle, relating the numerous toothed wheels and gears, carving each carefully from seasoned hardwood with a pocket knife. For a bell, he utilized either part of a glass bottle or metal container. The timepiece appears to have been the first clock in the region and brought those who had heard about it to his cabin to observe it and listen to it strike. The clock continued to function successfully for more than fifty years, until his death.

Inheriting the family farm at his father’s death, Banneker lived with his mother until her demise. Then living alone, he continued to grow and sell tobacco until about the age of fifty-nine, when rheumatism forced him to retire. His farm made him virtually self-sufficient, with a productive vegetable garden, thriving fruit orchards, and several hives of bees that he maintained. Banneker and his family had been among the first clients of the newly established Ellicott Store, in nearby Ellicott’s Lower Mills, and during his leisure he continued to visit it frequently, purchasing small items he required, perusing the wealth of imported merchandise, occasionally purchasing an inexpensive book for his own small library. Most of all he enjoyed the opportunity to read newspapers from other cities that the store sold and that provided him with a link to the outer world.

Now, with the freedom of retirement from work, Banneker turned with new vigor to his astronomical studies, often whiling away the hours until dawn scanning the night skies with his telescope and recording notations for an ephemeris for an almanac he was compiling for the following year.

Work in Observational Astronomy. It was just at this time that fate sought him out for an important role to play in the nation’s history. The surveyor Andrew Ellicott had recently been appointed by President George Washington to produce a survey of selected lands on which to establish a national capital. Ellicott urgently required an assistant with some knowledge of astronomy to work in the field observation tent during the night hours. He traveled to Ellicott’s Lower Mills hoping to hire his cousin George Ellicott, Banneker’s neighbor, who was an amateur astronomer. However, his cousin, being unable to leave his own work, instead recommended Banneker, whom he felt had become sufficiently informed on the subject to fulfill the position. Banneker was hired and, overwhelmed by the opportunity, he traveled together with Andrew Ellicott to the site that was to become the national capital, arriving early in the new year of 1791.

Banneker worked in the observatory tent for more than four months, from the beginning of February until the end of April 1791. It was grueling work, for he was forced to spend the long hours of the night lying on his back in order to use an instrument called a zenith sector. His assignment was to observe through the instrument’s telescope as stars transited over the zenith, noting the exact moment of each star’s transit and recording it for Ellicott’s use when he arrived the next morning.

It was extremely tiring work for a man of Banneker’s advanced years, but despite the discomfort, he derived considerable pleasure and pride from the knowledge that he was contributing to such an important project. Also, after taking a nap during the early daylight hours, Banneker had the privilege of using Ellicott’s astronomical textbooks, which were maintained in the observatory tent. This enabled him to complete the ephemeris he was compiling for an almanac for the following year, 1792. For his participation on the survey, including travel, Banneker was paid a total of $60.

Correspondence with Jefferson. Soon after returning home, Banneker sent a handwritten copy of his completed ephemeris to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson because, as he wrote, Jefferson was considered to be “measurably friendly and well disposed towards us,” referring to the African American race, “who have long laboured under the abuse and censure of the world. … And have long been looked upon with an eye of contempt, and … long have been considered rather as brutish than human, and scarcely able of mental endowments (1792).”

Submitting his calculations as evidence to the contrary, Banneker urged Jefferson to work toward bringing an end to slavery. Jefferson answered promptly:

No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given our black brethren, talents equal to those of other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owed merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & in America. … No body wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition of both their body & mind to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecility of their present existence, and other circumstances which cannot be neglected, will admit. (Payne, 1862, pp. 168–171)

Jefferson was so impressed with Banneker’s calculations that he sent a copy to the Marquis de Condorcet, secretary of the French Academy of Sciences in Paris, with an enthusiastic cover letter. No reply was forthcoming from Condorcet, however, because at just the time of the arrival of Jefferson’s letter, the French diplomat had been forced to go into hiding for opposing the monarchy and for having supported a republican form of government. During the following year, the two letters, the one from Banneker to Jefferson and the statesman’s reply, were published in the United States in a widely distributed pamphlet and in at least one periodical.

Publication of the Almanac. James McHenry, a senator from Maryland, had been so impressed with Banneker’s almanac manuscript that he wrote an endorsement for it that was published together with the almanac by the Baltimore printer Goddard & Angell. The almanac bore the title Benjamin Banneker’s Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia Almanack and Ephemeris for the Year of Our Lord 1792. In addition to its sales in Baltimore, the almanac was made available also by printers in Alexandria, Virginia, and in Philadelphia. It proved an immediate success, and Banneker’s lifestyle soon changed somewhat, as he became acknowledged by neighbors and occasionally by others visiting the region.

During the next five years, Banneker continued to calculate ephemerides, which he sold and which were published in almanacs bearing his name in the title. Promoted by the abolitionist societies of both Pennsylvania and Maryland, Banneker’s almanacs were published by several printers and sold widely in the United States and also in England. Twenty-eight separate editions of his almanacs are known to have been published.

Generally, in the production of an almanac, the astronomer provided only the ephemeris, and the remaining content was selected and furnished by the printer, who often selected random prose and poetry taken from the published press or journals. Frequently included were useful tables of weights and measures, coinages, interest rates and scales of depreciation, measurements of roads, and distances of cities from the place of publication, a calendar of meetings of courts of law holding sessions where the almanacs would be sold, and so forth.

The remainder of the pages of these inexpensive and poorly printed pamphlets generally were filled with moral elevating scriptural quotations, proverbs, allegorical stories, and puritanical essays. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, however, the almanac’s content changed distinctly in tone from its earlier religious bias to one of more practical considerations, with emphasis on education and literary and historical content. As a consequence, in time the almanac became more entertaining, with homely wisdom cast in contemporary language. By the end of the eighteenth century, the publication had become the most common printed item in the American republic, printed in every state, each vying with others in developing a new marketable item. In the period that Banneker was undertaking the preparation of an ephemeris, the century was drawing to a close and once more the almanac content was undergoing a change, with new emphasis on local causes and national events.

In a period when clocks and watches were luxuries and common timepieces consisted primarily of time glasses and sundials, information about the times of sunrise, noon, and sunset were of considerable importance to the prospective purchaser, as well as the phases of the moon, eclipses, and conjunction. Among the most desirable and useful features of Banneker’s almanacs proved to be a tide table for the Chesapeake Bay region, which made his almanacs particularly desirable for river pilots, fishermen, and others living near and making their living on the water. It listed times for high water or high tide at Cape Charles, Point Lookout, Annapolis, and Baltimore. Why Banneker’s competitors ignored this feature is hard to understand, because it was simple enough to calculate the high tide at Annapolis, for instance, which was two hours later than at Point Lookout, while at Baltimore and Head-of-the-Bay the high tide was five hours later than at Point Lookout. The tide table was simplified considerably in Banneker’s almanacs for the years 1795 and 1796, which provided data for determining tides in ports as distant north as Halifax and Boston. This feature was titled “Rule to find the Time of High Water in the following Places” and consisted simply of an additive for each of the places listed, to be combined with the day of the Moon’s age.

It was Banneker himself and not his printer who compiled the tide tables for his almanacs. It was a simple matter to acquire the data, and no mathematical

achievement was involved. The changing of the tides had been associated with the motion of the Moon for centuries. Once the time of the highest or spring tide was known at a particular point at the age of the full or new moon, it was a simple matter to derive a table for each day of the month at the same place. Banneker applied the standard daily retardation of forty-eight minutes, or four-fifths of an hour. This determination of the highest tide waters or spring tides on the days of the full or new moon was known as “the establishment of the port” and generally was marked on the charts for the port in question.

From data in his published almanacs, it is evident that Banneker made his observations from a point of latitude 39°30’ north and a longitude of 4 hours, 59 minutes west. In addition to recording in his manuscript astronomical journal the ephemerides for each of the years for which he calculated them, Banneker also included miscellaneous exercises in mathematics and astronomy.

In the pages of his manuscript astronomical journal as well as in his commonplace book, Banneker occasionally recorded miscellaneous items about unusual atmospheric phenomena he had observed. Typical of these random notes was an entry on the very first page of the journal, under the date of 23 December 1790. He noted, “About 3 o’clock A.M. I heard a Sound and felt the Shock like heavy thunder I went out but could not observe any Cloud above the Horizon. I therefore Conclude it must be a great Earth Quake in some part of the Globe.” Another item, recorded on 4 May 1792, described how “In a Squall from the N.W. I observed the Lower regions of the Clouds to move Swiftly before the wind, and the upper region Slowly against it.”

Even in his later years the weather continued to preoccupy him. On 2 February 1803, he noted,

in the morning part of the day, there arose a very dark Cloud, followed by Snow and haile a flash of lightning and loud thunder crack, and then the Storm abated untill after noon, when another cloud arose the Same point, viz, Northwest with a beautiful Shower of Snow but what beautyfyed the Snow was the brightness of the Sun, which was near Setting at the time.

A comparison of the contents of Banneker’s published ephemerides made with those calculated and published by his contemporaries Ellicott, William Waring, and Mary Katherine Goddard, has revealed that Banneker’s calculations consistently reflected an overall high degree of comparative accuracy. An error analysis of the astronomical data in Banneker’s almanacs revealed that his data compared very favorably with that published by his contemporaries. There was no significant difference between Banneker’s star data and that published by the two contemporary almanac makers. Although Banneker’s planetary data may have appeared to be somewhat less accurate than that of Ellicott or Goddard, it was still quite usable by the ordinary purchaser of the almanac. Considering that the length and complexity of the calculations involved in determining the rising and setting of certain stars and planets, and realizing that this was only a small segment of the mathematics required for one year’s almanac, one can have only the greatest respect for this self-taught man of science.

Although Banneker continued to calculate ephemerides every year through the year 1802, those after 1797 remained unpublished, but were carefully recorded in his manuscript journal and commonplace book, which survive as unique records of an eighteenth-century almanac maker.

Character. Banneker espoused no particular religion, but as an early biographer noted, “His life was one of constant worship in the great temples of nature and science.” (Allen, 1921) As places of worship in his vicinity grew in number, Banneker visited each of them, but gave preference to the meetings of the Society of Friends, where “he presented a most dignified aspect as he leaned in quiet contemplation on a long staff, which he always carried after passing his seventieth year. And he worshipped, leaning on the top of his staff.” (Allen, 1921)

A description of Banneker was provided by Martha Tyson, daughter of George Ellicott, who had seen him when she was a young woman. “The countenance of Banneker,” she wrote,

had a most benign and thoughtful expression. A fine head of white hair surmounted his unusually broad and ample forehead, whilst the lower part of his face was slender and sloping towards the chin. His figure was perfectly erect, showing no inclination to stoop as he advanced in years. His rainment was always scrupulously neat; that for summer wear, being of unbleached linen, was beautifully washed and ironed by his sisters. … In cold weather he dressed in light colored cloth, a fine drab broadcloth constituting his attire when he designed appearing in his best style.

No known portrait of Banneker exists. Lacking such, an image frequently used is a woodcut portrait bust of a young black man, imaginary and not based on life, wearing the typical Quaker garb of the period. Purported to be of Banneker, this image illustrated the cover of a 1797 edition of one of his almanacs. The most accurate representation known may be found on a modern mural painting by the late William H. Smith of the survey of the federal territory. It hangs in the Maryland House on the John F. Kennedy Highway in Aberdeen, Maryland. In 1980 the U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp honoring Banneker based on imagined features.

On 9 October 1806, during a nap following his usual morning walk, Banneker quietly died in his sleep, just one month short of his seventy-fifth birthday. In accordance with instructions he had left, immediately following his death all the items that had been borrowed from his neighbor George Ellicott, including the worktable, instruments, and books, had been returned to him by Banneker’s nephew. Included also was Banneker’s astronomical journal.

Banneker was buried two days later, on Tuesday, 11 October, in the family burial ground within sight of his house, a few yards away. During the services, as his body was being lowered into his grave, the mourners were startled as they looked up to see his house, a wooden building, suddenly burst into flame. Before help could be summoned, the entire structure burned to the ground. All its contents were totally destroyed, including Banneker’s clothing and other personal possessions, a few bits of furniture, a sparse collection of books and printed copies of his almanacs, as well as the fabled well-worn striking clock. The only item known to have escaped destruction was his quarto Bible, which had been removed from his house after his death and before the funeral, probably by one of his sisters. The cause of the conflagration was never determined.

Banneker’s death did not pass totally unnoticed. An obituary announcement appeared in the Federal Gazette on 28 October 1806, almost three weeks after his death. It provided a description of Banneker’s way of life and concluded, “Mr. Banneker is a prominent instance to prove that a descendant of Africa is susceptible of as great mental improvement and deep knowledge into the mysteries of nature as that of any other nation.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY

WORK BY BANNEKER

Copy of a Letter from Benjamin Banneker to the Secretary of State, with His Answer. Philadelphia: Printed and Sold by Daniel Lawrence, 1792.

OTHER SOURCES

Allen, Will W. Banneker, the Afro-American Astronomer. Washington, DC, 1921.

Bedini, Silvio A. Early American Scientific Instruments and Their Makers. Washington, DC: U.S. Museum of History and Technology, Smithsonian Institution, 1964. See pages 22–25.

———.The Life of Benjamin Banneker: The First African-American Man of Science. 2nd ed., revised and expanded. Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1999.

Conway, Moncure D. “Benjamin Banneker, the Negro Astronomer.” Atlantic Monthly (January 1863): 79–84.

Kurtz, Benjamin. “The Learned Negro.” Lutheran Observer16, no. 31 (25 August 1848): 134–345.

Latrobe, John H. B. “Memoir of Benjamin Banneker: Read before the Historical Society of Maryland.” Maryland Colonization Journal, n.s., 2, no. 23 (May 1845): 353–364.

LePhillips, Phillip. “The Negro, Benjamin Banneker; Astronomer and Mathematician, Plea for Universal Peace.” Records of the Columbia Historical Society 20 (1917): 114–120.

McHenry, James. “Account of Benjamin Banneker, a Free Negro.” Universal Asylum (November 1791).

Payne, Daniel Alexander. “A Literary Curiosity—Letter from Benjamin Banneker to Hon. Thos. Jefferson.” Repository of Religion and Learning and of Science and Art4, no. 7 (July 1862): 168–171.

Tyson, Martha E. A Brief Account of the Settlement of Ellicott’s Mills, with Fragments of History therewith Connected, Written at the Request of Evan T Ellicott, Baltimore, 1865. Baltimore, MD: Printed by J. Murphy, 1871.

———.Banneker, the Afro-American Astronomer from the Posthumous Papers of Martha E. Tyson. Edited by Her Daughter. Philadelphia: Friends’ Book Association, 1884.

Silvio A. Bedini

Benjamin Banneker

Born November 9, 1731 (Baltimore County, Maryland)

Died October 9, 1806 (Baltimore County, Maryland)

Mathematician, astronomer

Benjamin Banneker was an accomplished self-taught mathematician and astronomer. He is considered America's first black scientist. Banneker calculated the daily position of celestial bodies (visible stars and planets in the night sky) and printed this information in charts, which he published in yearly almanacs. His almanacs also featured calendars, times of sunrise and sunset, phases of the moon, and other useful information. Banneker's almanacs for the years 1792 to 1797 were widely published. They brought international attention to Banneker, in large part because it was an unparalleled achievement for a black American to publish at all at that time in history.

"I suppose it is a truth too well attested to you, to need a proof here, that we are a race of beings who have long laboured under the abuse and censure of the world."

Benjamin Banneker, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson

In 1791, Banneker assisted in the land survey of the future site of Washington, D.C. Perhaps Banneker's greatest accomplishment was his plea for civil rights in his correspondence with then-U.S. secretary of state Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826; see entry in volume 1). Banneker called for the abolition (prohibition) of slavery and challenged Jefferson to work for the ideals he had promoted for all citizens in the 1776 Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence was the historic document announcing that the American colonies had rejected British rule and were forming a new nation, the United States of America.

The New World

Benjamin Banneker was a free black (non-slave) born in the British colony of Maryland in 1731. At the time, thirteen colonies made up the new land of America. Banneker's birthplace was on the family farm near the Patapsco River, in the area that eventually became known as Oella, Maryland.

Banneker's grandmother was a white woman named Molly Welsh. Accused of a crime in England, she was pardoned on the condition that she leave the country and settle in the American colonies. She arrived in Maryland in 1683 aboard a ship filled with other laborers headed for the New World. After working to pay off the money she owed for her transportation to America, Welsh established a small tobacco farm on the Patapsco River. Tobacco was an important crop in Maryland, where the weather and soil provided perfect growing conditions. Because she needed help on the farm, Welsh purchased two slaves who had just arrived from Africa and put them to work. She married one of them, a man named Banna Ka. People called him Bannaky, although over time the spelling was altered to Banneky. The couple had four children together.

In 1730, the Bannekys' eldest daughter, Mary, married a freed black slave named Robert, and he took her last name, Banneky, as his own. Benjamin was the first child born to Robert and Mary Banneky. (The family name was later changed to Banneker.) He was soon joined by three sisters. The entire family lived in Molly Welsh's cabin, and all of them did their part to make the farm successful. Few black families owned farms at that time, because most blacks were slaves, but the Bannekys made a good living raising tobacco. Grandmother Molly taught Benjamin and his sisters to read and write by having them study the Bible she had brought with her from England, the only book the family owned.

A land for life

By 1737, Robert and Mary Banneky had saved enough money to buy an additional 100 acres on a tract of land called Stout. Although Benjamin was only six years old, his father added the boy's name to the deed of ownership. The land was located near the Chesapeake Bay. The Bannekys built a log cabin there, and Benjamin would live in that cabin for the rest of his life.

Benjamin enjoyed learning and attended a one-room country school for several years during the winter months, when work on the farm slowed down. For the rest of the year, he taught himself literature, history, and religion with books he borrowed. He was especially gifted in mathematics and showed a talent for creating and solving mathematical puzzles. It was around this time that the spelling of Benjamin's family name changed to Banneker.

On time

The demands of the farm soon ended young Banneker's formal education, but his love of learning continued. Along with mathematics, he was particularly interested in studying machines. When Banneker was twenty-one years old, he was given a pocket watch to examine. Always interested in a mathematical challenge, he took the watch apart and drew pictures of what he saw. He then calculated the ratio of the gears and wheels in order to build a clock for himself. He carved each piece from wood with a pocketknife and, with a few necessary metal pieces, built a clock that kept perfect time for the rest of his life.

The clock was a rare sight in rural eighteenth-century America and became the subject of considerable interest throughout the region (see box). Banneker was soon quite famous in his community, as word spread rapidly about his fascinating timepiece. People who lived in the county may not have heard of Benjamin Banneker the farmer, but they soon began talking about Benjamin Banneker the clock maker. They came from all over the valley to visit his farmhouse and see the clock with the brass bell that chimed on the hour.

In 1763, Banneker purchased his first book, a Bible, in which he recorded the date of his own birth as well as the date of his father's death, July 10, 1759. His sisters married and moved to their own homes nearby, while Banneker and his mother continued to work the farm until her death in 1775. Banneker bought a flute and a violin and learned to play them by practicing after his regular work-day was over. Occasionally, neighbors or relatives would stop by to enjoy the music he played each evening on his front porch.

Astronomy's pull

In 1771, Banneker turned forty. That same year, he had new neighbors—the Ellicott family—who purchased large tracts of land next to his farm. The Ellicotts built flour mills, sawmills, and a general store, which together invigorated the area's economy. Once the flour mills opened, local farmers were able to produce crops other than tobacco for a profit.

Banneker's relationship with the Ellicotts began with a contract to supply food for the many workers they employed, but he soon became friends with the family. Even though it was less expensive to buy slaves than to hire workers at the time, the Ellicotts chose not to own slaves. They belonged to a Christian church called the Society of Friends, whose members were called Quakers. Quakers opposed slavery and believed that all people should be treated with equal respect.

Keeping Time

Clocks were rarely seen in rural America in the eighteenth century, because few people needed to keep precise track of time. Most people told time by watching the position of the sun in the sky. Farmers in particular began their workday when the sun came up, ate lunch when the sun was high overhead, and ended the workday when the sun went down. In a society where most people were farmers, the position of the sun was far more important than the position of hour and minute hands on a clock.

Rural America tended to view timepieces as a novelty. Church bells rang on the hour and were often used to announce celebrations or emergencies. However, most people lived on farms and plantations, too far from settlements to hear them ringing. The boom of a cannon was substituted for the ringing of a bell when time came to announce important events such as the arrival of a supply ship at the docks in tidewater Maryland.

Banneker continued working his farm and devoted more acres to grain that would be sold to the Ellicotts. In 1775, the American Revolution (1775–83) began. Free blacks like Banneker were not required to join the army, and none of the battles took place within Maryland's borders; therefore, Banneker's life remained much the same as it had always been. By the late 1780s, Banneker had developed a special friendship with George Ellicott (1760–1832), largely based on their common interest in the sciences. Ellicott, nearly thirty years younger than Banneker, was a skilled surveyor and astronomer. He loaned Banneker a telescope, several astronomy books, and a sturdy wooden table on which to use them. Banneker studied the books and the skies for hours each night. He faithfully recorded the movements of the stars and planets he observed. Banneker taught himself so well that he was able to predict the solar eclipse of April 14, 1789, which even well-known scientists had not expected.

Banneker spent most of 1789 observing the sky every night in order to calculate information for a 1790 almanac he hoped to produce. Armed with all the necessary astronomical calculations, Banneker contacted several different publishing houses, but he was unable to get his work published. Members of abolitionist societies (organizations opposed to slavery) in Maryland and Pennsylvania heard of his accomplishments and rallied to try to help Banneker find a publisher. They knew that if an almanac authored by a free black was published, it would serve as valuable proof of the intellectual abilities of all blacks; this, in turn, would help them in the fight against slavery. Their efforts to find a publisher came too late for the 1791 almanac, so Banneker began work on calculations for 1792.

Building the nation's capital

Although America had finally won its independence in 1783, the new country did not yet have a capital city. In 1790, U.S. president George Washington (1732–1799; served 1789–97; see entry in volume 2) appointed a famous French architect named Pierre-Charles L'Enfant (1754–1825; see entry in volume 2) to design a new city that would be the nation's capital. It was to be located on the Potomac River (which separated parts of Maryland and Virginia). Washington also appointed a land surveyor, Major Andrew Ellicott (1754–1820), who was George Ellicott's cousin. Major Ellicott needed an assistant to make astronomical calculations for the survey; he naturally recommended Banneker. George Ellicott's wife, Elizabeth, helped Benjamin pick out new clothes for the trip, anticipating that he would meet many important people while working on the survey.

In January 1791, Banneker left his farm in the care of his sisters and joined the team assigned to build the capital of the United States. It was his first trip away from his cabin in Maryland. By the end of April, his work completed, Banneker returned to his farm and resumed his calculations for a 1792 almanac.

A plea for freedom

With the support of George Ellicott and the Pennsylvania and Maryland abolition societies that had previously shown an interest in his work, Banneker's 1792 almanac was published in late 1791. A few months before publication, Banneker sent a manuscript copy to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson; Banneker enclosed a letter urging the abolition of slavery. Jefferson wrote back quickly, thanking him for the almanac. In his response, Jefferson expressed a desire "for raising the condition" of slaves and stated that Banneker's book could prove the intellect of blacks. Otherwise, he largely avoided the issue of freedom for blacks in his brief letter.

The correspondence between Banneker and Jefferson was published as a pamphlet and distributed at the same time that the almanac appeared. The almanac's first edition came out in December 1791. It sold out immediately, so a second edition was required. The following year, Banneker's almanac included the letter he had written to Jefferson and Jefferson's reply. In 1795, the almanac added a new feature, a portrait of Banneker on the cover. Banneker published an almanac every year until 1797, when sales declined. Competition had increased from publishers of other almanacs (see box). In addition, interest in the abolition movement, which had promoted Banneker's almanac as proof of black Americans' potential, was dwindling. Banneker continued with his annual calculations until 1804, but none of them were ever published. He simply continued the practice for his own enjoyment.

The financial success of his early almanacs allowed Banneker to spend less time farming. He sold most of his land and pursued a variety of interests, although his health was declining. He continued to live in his own home until his death on October 9, 1806, just one month short of his seventy-fifth birthday. Prior to Banneker's funeral, at Banneker's request, a nephew had collected all the borrowed texts and instruments from his uncle's cabin in order to return them to George Ellicott. All of Banneker's other possessions were destroyed when his cabin caught fire; this occurred at the same hour that his relatives were burying him in the family graveyard. Everything was lost, including his clock and most of his personal papers. Benjamin Banneker did not live to see the end of slavery, which would not occur for nearly sixty years. However, Banneker's accomplishments helped shape America by providing inspiration for others in the quest for freedom.

Almanac: An Important Reference Book

In colonial times, most people owned an almanac. It contained a yearly calendar that determined when holy days and festivals were celebrated. It also told people when they could expect an eclipse (when Earth blocks the Sun's light on the Moon or the Moon blocks the Sun's light on Earth). If a person did not own a clock, an almanac could report on the time of day. It listed the times of sunrise and sunset. Farmers used their almanacs to gauge when to plant their crops and to find predictions about weather changes from season to season. Sailors referred to the almanac's charts of the stars to determine their position on the seas.

Many publishers produced almanacs each year, but perhaps the most popular ever produced was Poor Richard's Almanac, created by statesman and scientist Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790; see entry in volume 1). First published in 1732, it became the model for other almanacs to follow.

For More Information

Books

Bedini, Silvio A. The Life of Benjamin Banneker. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1999.

Cerami, Charles A. Benjamin Banneker: Surveyor, Astronomer, Publisher, Patriot. New York: J. Wiley, 2002.

Conley, Kevin. Benjamin Banneker. New York: Chelsea House, 1989.

Logan, Rayford W., and Michael R. Winston, eds. Dictionary of American Negro Biography. New York: W. W. Norton, 1982.

Web Sites

"Benjamin Banneker 1731–1806." Mathematicians of the African Diaspora.http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/special/banneker-benjamin.html (accessed on August 11, 2005).

"Who Was Benjamin Banneker?" The Banneker Center for Economic Justice.http://www.progress.org/banneker/bb.html (accessed on August 11, 2005).

Banneker, Benjamin

November 9, 1731
October 9, 1806

Benjamin Banneker was an amateur astronomer and the first African-American man of science. He was born free in Baltimore County, Maryland, the son of a freed slave from Guinea named Robert and Mary Banneky, the daughter of a formerly indentured English servant named Molly Welsh and her husband Bannka, a freed slave who claimed to be the son of a Gold Coast tribal chieftain.

Raised with three sisters in a log house built by his father on his 100-acre farm near the banks of the Patapsco River, Banneker received no formal schooling except for several weeks' attendance at a nearby Quaker one-room schoolhouse. Taught to read and write from a Bible by his white grandmother, he became a voracious reader, borrowing books when he could. He was skillful in mathematics and enjoyed creating mathematical puzzles and solving others presented to him. At about the age of twenty-two he successfully constructed a wooden striking clock without ever having seen one. Banneker approached the project as a mathematical problem, working out relationships between toothed wheels and gears and painstakingly carving each from seasoned wood with a pocketknife. The clock continued telling and striking the hours until his death. Banneker cultivated tobacco, first with his parents and then alone until about the age of fifty-nine, when rheumatism forced his retirement. He was virtually self-sufficient, growing vegetables and cultivating orchards and bees. Banneker espoused no particular religion or creed, but he was a very religious man, attending the services and meetings of various denominations held in the region, although he preferred those of the Society of Friends.

It was during his retirement that Banneker became interested in astronomy, after witnessing a neighbor observing the stars with a telescope. With borrowed instruments and texts and without any assistance from others, Banneker taught himself sufficient mathematics and astronomy to make observations and to be able to calculate an ephemeris for an almanac. His efforts to sell his calculations for 1791 to a printer were not successful, but he continued his celestial studies nonetheless.

Banneker's opportunity to apply what he had learned came in February 1791, when President George Washington commissioned the survey of an area 10 miles square in Virginia and Maryland in which to establish the national capital. Unable on such short notice to find an assistant capable of using the sophisticated instruments required, the surveyor Andrew Ellicott selected Banneker to assist him until others became available. During the first three months of the survey, Banneker occupied the field observatory tent, maintaining and correcting the regulator clock each day, and each night making observations of the transit of stars with the zenith sector, recording his nightly observations for Ellicott's use on the next day's surveying. During his leisure time, he completed calculations for an ephemeris for 1792. Banneker was employed on the survey site from early February until late April 1791 and then returned to his home in Baltimore County. Records of the survey state that he was paid $60 for his participation and the costs of his travel.

Shortly after his return home, Banneker sent a handwritten copy of his ephemeris for 1792 to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, because, he wrote, Jefferson was considered "measurably friendly and well disposed towards us," the African-American race, "who have long laboured under the abuse and censure of the world … have long been looked upon with an eye of contempt, and … have long been considered rather as brutish than human, and scarcely capable of mental endowments" (Jefferson-Coolidge Papers, I.38–43, Massachusetts Historical Society). Banneker submitted his calculations as evidence to the contrary and urged that Jefferson work toward bringing an end to slavery. Jefferson responded promptly: "No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of other colours of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America…. no body wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition of both their body & mind to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecillity of their present existence, and other circumstances which cannot be neglected, will admit" (Thomas Jefferson Papers, f.11481, Library of Congress).

Excerpt of Benjamin Banneker's Letter to Thomas

…. Sir,…I hope you cannot but acknowledge that it is the indispensable duty of those, who maintain for themselves the rights of human nature, and who possess the obligations of Christianity, to extend their power and influence to the relief of every part of the human race, from whatever burden or oppression they may unjustly labor under…. Sir, I have long been convinced, that if your love for yourselves, and for those inestimable laws, which preserved to you the rights of human nature, was founded on sincerity, you could not but be solicitous, that every individual, of whatever rank or distinction, might with you equally enjoy the blessings thereof; neither could you rest satisfied short of the most active effusion of your exertions, in order to their promotion from any state of degradation, to which the unjustifiable cruelty and barbarism of men may have reduced them.

Sir, suffer me to recall to your mind that time, in which the arms and tyranny of the British crown were exerted, with every powerful effort, in order to reduce you to a state of servitude: … reflect on that time, in which every human aid appeared unavailable, and in which even hope and fortitude wore the aspect of inability to the conflict, and you cannot but be led to a serious and grateful sense of your miraculous and providential preservation….

This, Sir, was a time when you clearly saw into the injustice of a state of slavery, and in which you had just apprehensions of the horrors of its condition. It was now that your abhorrence thereof was so excited, that you publicly held forth this true and invaluable doctrine, which is worthy to be recorded and remembered in all succeeding ages: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." …but, Sir, how pitiable is it to reflect, that although you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of Mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of these rights and privileges, which he hath conferred upon them, that you should at the same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren, under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you should at the same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in others, with respect to yourselves.

…. And now, Sir, although my sympathy and affection for my brethren hath caused my enlargement thus far, I ardently hope, that your candor and generosity will plead with you in my behalf, when I make known to you, that it was not originally my design; but having taken up my pen in order to direct to you, as a present, a copy of an Almanac, which I have calculated for the succeeding year, I was unexpectedly and unavoidably led thereto….

And now, Sir, I shall conclude, and subscribe myself, with the most profound respect,

Your most obedient humble servant,

benjamin banneker

Jefferson sent Banneker's calculations to the Marquis de Condorcet, secretary of the French Academy of Sciences, with an enthusiastic cover letter. There was no reply from Condorcet because at the time of the letter's arrival he was in hiding for having opposed the monarchy and having supported a republican form of government. The two letters, that from Banneker to Jefferson and the statesman's reply, were published in a widely distributed pamphlet and in at least one periodical during the following year.

Banneker's ephemeris for 1792 was published by the Baltimore printer Goddard & Angell with the title Benjamin Banneker's Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia Almanack and Ephemeris for the Year of Our Lord 1792. It was also sold by printers in Philadelphia and Alexandria, Virginia. He continued to calculate ephemerides that were published in almanacs bearing his name for the next five years. Promoted by the abolitionist societies of Pennsylvania and Maryland, Banneker's almanacs were published by several printers and sold widely in the United States and England. Twenty-eight separate editions of his almanacs are known. A recent computerized analysis of Banneker's published ephemerides and those calculated by several contemporaries for the same years, including those by William Waring and Ellicott, has revealed that Banneker's calculations consistently reflect a high degree of comparative accuracy. Although he continued calculating ephemerides through the year 1802, they remained unpublished.

Banneker died in his sleep following a morning walk on October 9, 1806, one month short of his seventy-fifth birthday. He was buried several days later in the family graveyard within sight of his house. As his body was being lowered into the grave, his house burst into flames, and all of its contents were destroyed. The cause of the fire remains unknown. Fortunately, the books and table he had borrowed, his commonplace book, and the astronomical journal in which he had copied all of his ephemerides had been given to his neighbor immediately following his death and thus were preserved.

See also Science

Bibliography

Bedini, Silvio A. "Benjamin Banneker and the Survey of the District of Columbia." Records of the Columbia Historical Society 69–70 (1971): 120–127.

Bedini, Silvio A. The Life of Benjamin Banneker: The First African-American Man of Science. 2d ed., rev. and exp. Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1999.

Latrobe, John H. B. "Memoir of Benjamin Banneker." Maryland Colonization Journal, n.s., 2, no. 23 (1845): 353–364.

Litwin, Laura Baskes. Benjamin Banneker: Astronomer and Mathematician. Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Enslow, 1999.

Tyson, Martha E. "Banneker, the Afric-American Astronomer." From the Posthumous Papers of Martha E. Tyson. Edited by her daughter. Philadelphia: Friends' Book Association, 1884.

silvio a. bedini (1996)
Updated bibliography

Benjamin Banneker

Born: November 9, 1731
Baltimore County, Maryland
Died: October 9, 1806
Baltimore County, Maryland
African American scientist and inventor

From 1792 through 1797 Benjamin Banneker, an African American mathematician and amateur astronomer, calculated ephemerides (tables of the locations of stars and planets) for almanacs that were widely distributed and influential. Because of these works, Banneker became one of the most famous African Americans in early U.S. history.

Early life

On November 9, 1731, Benjamin Banneker was born in Baltimore County, Maryland. He was the son of an African slave named Robert, who had bought his own freedom, and of Mary Banneky, who was the daughter of an Englishwoman and a free African slave. Benjamin grew up on his father's farm with three sisters. After learning to read from his mother and grandmother, Benjamin read the bible to his family in the evening. He attended a nearby Quaker country school for several seasons, but this was the extent of his formal education. He later taught himself literature, history, and mathematics, and he enjoyed reading.

As he grew into an adult, Banneker inherited the farm left to him by his grandparents. He expanded the already successful farm, where he grew tobacco. In 1761, at the age of thirty, Banneker constructed a striking wooden clock without having ever seen a clock before (although he had examined a pocket watch). He painstakingly carved the toothed wheels and gears of the clock out of seasoned wood. The clock operated successfully until the time of his death.

Interest in astronomy

At the age of fifty-eight Banneker became interested in astronomy (the study of the universe) through the influence of a neighbor, George Ellicott, who lent him several books on the subject as well as a telescope and drafting instruments (tools used in astronomy). Without further guidance or assistance, Banneker taught himself the science of astronomy. He made projections for solar (of the Sun) and lunar (of the Moon) eclipses and computed ephemerides for an almanac. In 1791 Banneker was unable to sell his observations, but these rejections did not stop his studies.

In February 1791 Major Andrew Ellicott (1754–1820), an American surveyor (one who maps out new lands for development), was appointed to survey the 10-mile square of the Federal Territory for a new national capital. Banneker worked in the field for several months as Ellicott's scientific assistant. After the base lines and boundaries had been established and Banneker had returned home, he prepared an ephemeris for the following year, which was published in Baltimore in Benjamin Banneker's Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia Almanack and Ephemeris, for the Year of Our Lord, 1792; Being Bissextile, or Leap-Year, and the Sixteenth Year of American Independence. Banneker's calculations would give the positions of the planets and stars for each day of the year, and his almanacs were published every year from 1792 until 1797.

Communications with Thomas Jefferson

Banneker forwarded a copy of his calculations to Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), then secretary of state, with a letter criticizing Jefferson for his proslavery views and urging the abolishment (ending) of slavery of African American people. He compared such slavery to the enslavement of the American colonies by the British crown. Jefferson acknowledged Banneker's letter and forwarded it to the Marquis de Condorcet, the secretary of the Académie des Sciences in Paris. The exchange of letters between Banneker and Jefferson was published as a separate pamphlet, and was given wide publicity at the time the first almanac was published. The two letters were reprinted in Banneker's almanac for 1793, which also included "A Plan for an Office of Peace," which was the work of Dr. Benjamin Rush (1745–1813). The abolition societies of Maryland and Pennsylvania were very helpful in the publication of Banneker's almanacs, which were widely distributed as an example of an African American's work and to demonstrate the equal mental abilities of the races.

The last known issue of Banneker's almanacs appeared for the year 1797, because of lessening interest in the antislavery movement. Nevertheless, he prepared ephemerides for each year until 1804. He also published a treatise (a formal writing) on bees and computed the cycle of the seventeen-year locust.

Banneker never married. He died on October 9, 1806, and was buried in the family burial ground near his house. Among the memorabilia preserved from his life were his commonplace book and the manuscript journal in which he had entered astronomical calculations and personal notations. Writers who described his achievements as that of the first African American scientist have kept Banneker's memory alive. Recent studies have proven Banneker's status as an extremely capable mathematician and amateur astronomer.

For More Information

Bedini, Silvio A. The Life of Benjamin Banneker. New York: Scribner, 1971.

Ferris, Jerri. What Are You Figuring Now? A Story About Benjamin Banneker. New York: Scholastic, 1988.

Pinckney, Andrea Davis. Dear Benjamin Banneker. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1994.

Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806)

Source

African american astronomer and mathematician

Young Math Genius. The son of a free mulatto mother and an African father who had purchased his freedom, Benjamin Banneker gained fame as a mathematician and astronomer. He was born in 1731 and was mostly self-taught, as might be expected of an African American on an isolated Maryland tobacco farm during that time period, but it was clear that he had a genius for math. He became a local celebrity when, at the age of twenty-one, he borrowed a neighbor’s pocket watch and re-created each gear out of wood, making a full-size clock—which continued to keep time for fifty years.

Astronomy. When Banneker was forty, a well-to-do Quaker family moved into the area. Despite differences in their status, age, and color, he became friendly with eighteen-year-old George Ellicott, who lent him books and a telescope and encouraged his lively interest in astronomy. Based on his own computations, Banneker created an almanac which calculated tides, phases of the moon, and the location of stars for each day of the year. His first attempt to get it published in 1791 was a failure, but it did come to the attention of George’s cousin, Maj. Andrew Ellicott, himself an amateur astronomer. Major Ellicott spoke of Banneker to the president of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, who saw an opportunity to help Banneker and to further the cause of antislavery. If a free black had the genius to create an almanac, these reformers reasoned, it might finally prove that blacks were in no way inferior to whites.

Surveying. At about the same time, President George Washington appointed a commission to survey the land that was to become the District of Columbia, and he chose Major Ellicott to direct the project. Through the Ellicotts, Banneker was asked to join the team. He accepted and in February 1791, at the age of sixty, left his home area for the first time and traveled to Alexandria and Georgetown. Physically he was unable to stand the rigors of fieldwork, but he handled all the astronomical observations and calculations for the team. After three months of living in a tent and being eager to get back to his almanac, he returned home in April. He continued to work on his almanac and, through an antislavery society, came to the attention of the famous mathematician David Rittenhouse, who verified the accuracy of Ban-neker’s astronomical calculations. “Every Instance of Genius amongst the Negroes is worthy of attention,” Rittenhouse wrote, “because their oppressors seem to lay great stress on their supposed inferior mental abilities.”

Correspondence with Jefferson. In 1791 Banneker sent a long and remarkable letter to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson appealing for his help in eradicating slavery in the United States. He used Jefferson’s own words from the Declaration of Independence to demonstrate that the same rights that Revolutionary patriots fought for were still denied to blacks in the United States. Jefferson’s reply was brief and ambiguous, but he did express his hope that Banneker’s example would prove that the appearance of black inferiority was merely a result of their degraded condition under slavery—a point that Jefferson’s own biases never overcame. Later that year Banneker’s almanac for 1792 was printed; it sold out quickly and went into various printings until 1802. Although later editions did not sell well, the almanac brought in enough money for him to quit farming and devote himself to his research and writing.

Symbolic Life. When Banneker died in 1806, his obituary in the Baltimore newspaper noted his accomplishments and the symbolism of his life’s work: “Mr. Banneker is a prominent instance to prove that a descendant of Africa is susceptible of as great mental improvement and deep knowledge into the mysteries of nature as that of any nation.” Thus Benjamin Banneker became a symbol of the antislavery movement.

Source

Kevin Conley, Benjamin Banneker (New York: Chelsea House, 1989).