Many multitude who have a cash in one’s chips familiarity with Washington , D.C. have it away it was originally styled after famous European capitals by designer Pierre Charles L’Enfant , then completed by Andrew Ellicott after L’Enfant was given the boot in 1792 . Too few tourist andhistoryfans , however , know that our nation‘s capital might have been a very different place if not for the surveying oeuvre of Benjamin Banneker — a extremely accomplishedmathematician , astronomer , and scholar who challengedThomas Jeffersonand his peers to know African - American accomplishment when it was right-hand under their noses ( and feet ) .
Benjamin Banneker was born November 9 , 1731 , in Baltimore County , Maryland , to Robert and Mary Banneker . While scholars still deliberate almost all the specifics of his background and early life story , the most popular story suggests both sides of his fellowship were enslave . Although record book are scarce , it‘s said that Benjamin ’s maternal nan , a blank woman named Mollie Welsh , was incorrectly convicted of larceny in England and sentenced to indenture servitude in the settlement of Maryland ( not an uncommon practice at the clip ) . After earning her freedom , sherented landin Baltimore County and purchased two enslaved people to help farm it . Several years later , after the husbandry cognitive process was establish , she freed both men .
One of them , who is said to have beenabductedfrom a royal kin in Africa earlier in his life-time , expose a sharp stake in astronomy and other scientific subjects . He was visit Bannake or Bankka , and Mollie Welsh married him , violate a law that preclude marriage to enslave mass . by and by , their girl Mary and her hubby — a Guinean man who had been enslave , baptized with the name Robert , and then free — chose to adopt the surname Banneker at the time of their own marriage . Just a few year after find his freedom , records show that Robert was able to purchase a 100 - acre farm ( possibly the same one his mother - in - police rented ) , where his family would dwell out much of their lifetime and where his son ’s scholarship would bloom .
Banneker‘s Beginnings
Benjamin Banneker grew up as one of only 200 free African Americans among 13,000 whites and 4000 enslaved people in Baltimore County . His experience with formal program line was limited to a abbreviated stretch in a one - way Quaker school that instruct both bootleg and ashen students , but he was a cracking study from his earliest age . Perhaps with his doting grandmother Mollie ’s help , he learned to read and soon became specially concerned in maths and car-mechanic , often performing reckoning and experimentation on his own .
Once he was previous enough to work on the family farm , Banneker settled into a lifestyle that compound this work with scholarly accomplishment . After his father ’s end when Banneker was 27 , he cover running the farm with his mother and sisters . The horses , cows , garden , and multiple beehive he kept enabled a simple , comfortable lifetime for the family , grant to one19th - 100 accountpresented to the Maryland Historical Society . Using crop gyration and irrigation techniques that would n’t charm on in the U.S. for many decades , he also upraise profitable tobacco crop that were sold alongside his garden truck in the Ellicott family ’s depot . Taking paying attention offoodshortages during theRevolutionary War , Banneker also swapped tobacco out for wheat to help feed in American soldiers .
Throughout his life , biographerElizabeth Ross Hayneswrote in 1921 , Banneker “ establish time to study all the books which he could borrow . ” He became well - versify in topics throughout thesciencesand liberal arts . The19th - hundred accountpresented to the Maryland Historical Society remembered Banneker as “ an acute perceiver , whose active head was constantly receiving caprice from what was get hold of place around him . ”
For example , in a rather illustrative 1797 diary entry , Banneker wrote :
“ stand at my door I heard the discharge of a gun , and in four or five moment of time , after the discharge , the minuscule shot came rattling about me , one or two of which struck the house ; which plainly demonstrates that the velocity of sound is greater than that of a cannon bullet . ”
Some historian have speculated that Banneker ’s many childhood lessons with his grandmother Mollie , who may have realize a sophisticated savvy of astronomy from Bannake , could have further his picky expertness with the subject . However , it was his artistry with mathematics for which he first became celebrated throughout Baltimore County , according to a 1912article . As password spreading of his exceptional skill , far - away scholars start out sending Banneker complex mathematical problems , and they continued to do so throughout his lifespan . Banneker reportedly always puzzle out them , often respond in verse and with a fresh problem .
As a youthful valet de chambre , Banneker also win celebrity and appreciation for miles around due to one of his earliest screw mechanical feat : building a working clock almost solely out of wood from scratch . It may have been the first clock ever assemble completely from American parts , harmonize to Haynes ( although other historians have since disputed this ) . Banneker reportedly had only a borrow pocket watch to use for reference on clockwork mechanism , while his wooden variant contained serve , carved - to - scale constituent . The clock uphold bring until a few days after Banneker ’s decease , when a fire destroyed his cabin home and many of its content — clock include .
A Mind for Mechanisms
However , Banneker ’s realised scholarship rest mostly unknown outside the area until he encounter the Ellicott family unit . In 1772 , the Ellicotts buy the land next doorway to Banneker ’s and began building new gristmill installation there . Banneker ’s fascination with the mill ’s mechanics made him a frequent visitor to the website . In keeping with their Quaker traditions , the Ellicotts were intransigent proponents of racial equivalence , and they collaborate with Banneker as well as advance wider practical program of — and realisation for — his unique science .
George Ellicott , a close friend of Banneker ’s for decennary , was himself a student of uranology and thirstily share both his resource and queries with his neighbor . Banneker took cracking reward of the borrowed peter and books in performing exquisite astronomic calculation , such as auspicate a solar eclipse nearly to the accurate consequence in 1789 . He also get down build the foundations for several atlases and technical treatises he ’d release in the decades before his decease . In 1791 , George ’s full cousin , Major Andrew Ellicott , break Banneker a national stage , after Andrew had move to George call for avail with a unexampled job . George , being otherwise busy , suggest Banneker‘s assistance . The business was surveying country along the Potomac River for what would presently be the land ’s capital , Washington , D.C.
The plansfor the metropolis were repose out by French architect and organize Pierre Charles L’Enfant , whovolunteered for servicein the American Revolution ’s Continental Army and was take for the project by George Washington in 1791 . Before long , however , tensions hop on over the direction and procession of the projection , and when L’Enfant was fired in 1792 , he took off with the design .
But , according to fable , the plan were n’t actually lost : Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L’Enfant and his plans while surveying the city ’s future internet site . Banneker had really committed the design to memory and could redraw the full pattern , down to the street storage-battery grid , major building , and undefendable spaces . Some historians argue , however , that Banneker had no involvement in this part of the survey at all , instead saying that Andrew and his blood brother were the ones who recreate L’Enfant ’s programme . It‘s an challenging myth , but it may only be that .
Sparring with Thomas Jefferson
Yet Banneker ’s valuable contributions to the projection drew care , and set the level for tardy correspondence with Thomas Jefferson . During the project , theGeorgetown Weekly Ledgermade public preeminence of Banneker as “ an Ethiopian , whose abilities , as a surveyor , and an astronomer , clearly try that Mr. Jefferson‘s concluding that race of men were null of mental endowments , was without base . ”
In 1791 , Banneker had finish his “ fastidiously calculated ephemeris , ” or mesa of the placement of celestial body , which he would release alongside chart , literature , and humanitarian and political essays in six almanacs with 28 edition in the observe six years . Upon its initial completion , he first sent a copy of the ephemeris to then - secretaire of state Thomas Jefferson , along with a famously direct , yet dead civil , letter of the alphabet challenging Jefferson ’s vox populi that African Americans bore an innate intellectual disadvantage compared to white Americans [ PDF ] . Among other things , Bannekerobserved :
“ I have long been convince , that if your love for yourselves and for those immeasurable laws , which preserved to you the right of human nature , was founded on earnestness , you could not but be solicitous that every someone … might with you as enjoy the blessings thereof , neither could you catch one’s breath satisfied [ brusque of ] their furtherance from any state of degradation , to which the unwarrantable harshness and barbarity of men may have reduced them .
Sir , I freely and cheerfully acknowledge that I am of the African race … and it is under a sense of the most unfathomed gratitude to the supreme ruler of the Universe , that I now profess to you , that I am not under the state of tyrannical thraldom , and insensate captivity to which many of my brethren are doom , but that I have extravagantly taste of the realization of those blessings , which proceed from that free and unequalled liberty , with which you are favour , and which , I hope you will willingly allow , you have received from the contiguous hand of that being … [ and ] that the present freedom and tranquillity which you delight , you have mercifully received , and that it is the peculiar thanksgiving of heaven . ”
Jefferson’sletter in responsewas importantly shorter than Banneker ’s , and not without ghost of the mindset Banneker sought to vote out . But it also documented the scholar ’s triumph in bring in some obedience for his accomplishments , and in helping to bump sure prejudices from the mind of the era ’s most larn men .
On August 30 , 1791 , Jefferson wrote :
“ SIR , I THANK you , sincerely , for your letter of the nineteenth trice , and for the Almanac it contained . No body wishes more than I do , to see such proof as you show , that nature has given to our black brethren talents adequate to those of the other colors of men ; and that the appearance of the want of them , is owing just to the fast condition of their beingness , both in Africa and America . I can contribute with truth , that no organic structure wishes more ardently to see a good system commence , for raising the condition , both of their trunk and mind , to what it ought to be , as far as the imbecility of their present cosmos , and other fate , which can not be neglected , will acknowledge .
I have taken the liberty of sending your farmer’s calendar to Monsieur de Condozett , Secretary of the Academy of Sciences at Paris , and Member of the Philanthropic Society , because I considered it as a papers , to which your whole color had a right hand for their justification , against the doubts which have been entertain of them .
I am with gravid respect , Sir , Your most obedient Humble Servant , THOMAS JEFFERSON . ”
The discrimination African Americans suffered from Jefferson and other bigwigs is well document , and Banneker ’s hardy , considered opposition to it abide forever among his many admirable achievements .
Records intimate that lower - visibility white Americans belittled and questioned his achievement as well . Despite the many pushbacks he withstood , however , Banneker remained singular and generous of spirit . concord toA Sketch of the Life of Benjamin Banneker , “ his equilibrium was rarely disturb by the petty jealousies and inequalities of temper of the ignorant people … with whom his place obliged him often to come up in contact . ”
Benjamin Ellicott , who prepare extensive notes on Banneker ’s life sentence for the Maryland Historical Society , remember himas such in a missive :
“ Although his manner of life history was veritable and exceedingly retired , exist alone , having never married,–cooking his own edible and washing his own clothes , and scarcely ever being lacking from home , yet there was nothing misanthropic in his reference … [ He was known as ] kind , generous , hospitable , humanist , dignified and pleasant , abounding in information on all the various subjects and incidents of the day ; very modest and unassuming , and please in society at his own home . ”
give Banneker ’s wide - ranging stake and enthusiasm , then , it‘s outfit that a variety of parks , schools , awards , streets , businesses , and other public and individual institutions and facility all acquit his name today . Admirers can take about the accomplished scholar atBenjamin Banneker Parkin Washington , D.C. , at Baltimore‘sBenjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum , or at theBanneker - Douglass Museumin Annapolis , Maryland . Or , visitor can follow in his footsteps by explore their passion and hobbies at community center named for Banneker in Washington , D.C.,Bloomington , Indiana ; and Catonsville , Maryland . It seems possible , however , that the man himself might have been most fond of — or , at least , a very frequent visitor to — Maryland ’s ownBanneker Planetarium .
A interpretation of this taradiddle ran in 2016 ; it has been update for 2023 .
