Benjamin Banneker, son of a former slave, mathematician, surveyor and astronomer, was born November 9, 1731 on a farm near the Patapsco River within 10 miles of the city of Baltimore, Maryland. Various accounts exist assessing his parental ancestry; all converge on his mother and father as free persons of African descent. Divergence occurs on the descent of his maternal grandmother. A credible source asserts she is a white woman of English descent who legally married a freed African slave.
Like his father, Benjamin was described as having much intelligence with dignified and contemplative habits. Demonstrating this superior mental endowment at an early age, his maternal grandmother, Mollie Welsh, taught him to the limits of her ability. As his first reading teacher, she introduced him to Christian beliefs by requiring him to read the Bible to her. Through these activities, Benjamin found his delight in study and inquiry, and adopted this as his life path.
The resources of the Banneker family constrained the breath of young Benjamin’s readings. Eager for knowledge, he read everything available to him turning his surrounding into his personal laboratory, and incorporated every channel from beyond as a personal source of information. Soon his mental skills and his correct form of speech increased beyond many privileged with formal schooling. As his mental accomplishments grew, he gained popularity within his community, in particular, for his superior facility in mathematics. For miles around, Benjamin was known as the best mathematician, and often solved puzzles submitted to test his skills, astounding the challengers with the breath and clarity of his explanations. It became his practice to answer challenges with a counterchallenge written in prose.
Although he devoted himself to developing his cognitive skills, Benjamin showed industry in matters of operating the family farm. Having seen and studied a striking watch, with a pocketknife as his primary tool, he coalesced his mental and mechanical skills into a wooden clock that he carved and assembled; probably the first striking all wooden parts clock in the new world.
Interesting facts about the life and name of Benjamin Banneker:
1. Without instruction, he undertook to study astronomy at age 61 from the books of Ferguson’s Astronomy and Leadbetter’s Lunar Tables loan to him from the George Ellicott collection.
2. Discovered and communicated astrological errors in these volumes.
3. Completed the calculations for his first almanac that covered the year 1792 at age sixty-one. Regularly published an almanac until 1802.
4. 1789: President George Washington invited and appointed Banneker to serve on the commission to lay out the boundary and streets of the Federal Territory, later called Washington, D.C.
5. 1791: rebukes then secretary of State Thomas Jefferson’s position that Africans are inferior in a letter to appeal for a more liberal attitude toward men of his race, offering his almanac as evidence against mental inferiority of African descendents.
6. Thomas Jefferson’s response.
7. Calculated the length of his life, entered into a contract with the Ellicott family to provide an annual allowance until his death, at which time Banneker’s farm would become a part of their estate. He outlived the contract by eight years. The Ellicott family honored the contract to his death. Probably the first reverse mortgage in the new country.
8. Calculated the period of recurrent locust plagues at 17 years.
9. Wrote a dissertation on bees that has been favorably compared to Pliny’s contribution of 1800 years earlier.
10. An legacy from a member of the Ellicott family: “During the whole of his long life, he lived respectably and much esteemed by all who became acquainted with him, but more especially by those who could fully appreciate his genius and the extent of his acquirements.
11. A Google search of the name Benjamin Banneker identifies more than 220,000 website. They are associated with elementary, middle and high schools, junior colleges, community colleges, academies, conference rooms at universities, parks, educational organizations that bolsters the fate of the less fortunate and short histories of his life.
12. Died on his farm, October 25, 1806.
13. SUMMAC of the Mathematical Association of America, whose mission is to focus on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level, named the office its Director to honor Benjamin Banneker.
14. The Benjamin Banneker Association is a national non-profit organization dedicated to mathematics education advocacy, establishing a presence for leadership, and professional development to support teachers in leveling the playing field for mathematics learning of the highest quality for African-American students.
15. An excellent Farmers Almanac TV video highlighting Benjamin Banneker’s life.
16. Memoir of Benjamin Banneker read before the Maryland Historical Society.
Banneker lived a life worthy of celebration. Born with a natural endowment towards scholarship, he embodied patience, tenacity, conviction, respect for others, while answering the command “to be fruitful and have dominion over the earth”. Truly, he is an American Treasure.
