Banneker, Benjamin

Benjamin Banneker, (born November 9, 1731, Banneky farm [now in Oella], Maryland [U.S.]—died October 19? [see Researcher’s Note], 1806, Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.), mathematician, astronomer, compiler of almanacs, inventor, and writer, one of the first important African American intellectuals.

Banneker, a freeman, was raised on a farm near Baltimore that he would eventually inherit from his father. Although he periodically attended a one-room Quaker schoolhouse, Banneker was largely self-educated and did much of his learning through the voracious reading of borrowed books. Early on he demonstrated a particular facility for mathematics. While still a young man (probably about age 20), he built a wooden clock that kept precise time. Banneker was encouraged in the study of astronomy by George Ellicott, a Quaker and amateur astronomer whose family owned nearby mills. As early as 1788, Banneker began to make astronomical calculations, and he accurately predicted a solar eclipse that occurred in 1789. In 1791, while working with Andrew Ellicott and others in surveying the land that would become Washington, D.C., Banneker made other astronomical observations.

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As an essayist and pamphleteer, Banneker opposed slavery and advocated 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, which he continued to publish annually through 1797.