Benjamin Banneker

1. Benjamin Banneker Surveyor of Washington, DC 1/29/06

2. Benjamin Banneker • Why did the Post Office issue a stamp on Benjamin Banneker in 1980?

3. Benjamin Banneker • Benjamin Banneker was born November 9, 1731 in Maryland Colony. His mother, Mary, was the daughter of a white man and an African American slave. Benjamin’s father was a free African American but Benjamin took his mother’s last name.

4. Benjamin Banneker • In 1737, Benjamin moved to Baltimore County where he lived on a 100 acre tobacco farm. • He learned to read the Bible but he preferred arithmetic. He did attend an integrated school part-time as a teenager and read borrowed textbooks.

5. Benjamin Banneker • In 1751, when Benjamin was 20, he decided to build a clock. After studying a pocket watch, he built a wooden clock. • After his father died in 1759, Benjamin successfully ran the farm with his mother.

6. Benjamin Banneker • In 1771, three Quaker brothers immigrated from Pennsylvania, became Benjamin’s neighbors, and set up a mill on their 700 acre farm. They provided enough flour for Baltimore and even exported flour to Europe. • Benjamin became close friends with George Ellicott, one of their sons, who was 29 years younger.

7. Benjamin Banneker • In 1788, George loaned Benjamin some astronomical instruments and Benjamin became very interested in astronomy. • He learned quickly enough that he was able to predict a 1789 solar eclipse.

8. Benjamin Banneker • The next year, at age 59, Benjamin gave up farming. • His astronomy skills attracted the attention of Major Andrew Ellicott, one of the three Ellicott brothers and head surveyor for the new national capital project. Major Ellicott needed an assistant. George recommended Benjamin.

9. Benjamin Banneker • Benjamin had been in contact with another great inventor and planner, Thomas Jefferson. The future president had been so impressed by Banneker's skills that he had also recommended him for employment as an assistant surveyor of the new federal district.

10. Benjamin Banneker • In 1791 Benjamin became an assistant in the survey of what would become Washington DC. Benjamin lived in Alexandria, Virginia in the home of Andrew Ellicott, the project’s principle surveyor, while working on the project.

11. Benjamin Banneker • Benjamin’s main task was to maintain the astronomical clock. He had to see that the time would always be as accurate as possible. • He also observed the stars each night. Using the clock and observations, plus information in books, he ensured that the latitude the surveyors noted was correct.

12. Benjamin Banneker • Pierre L’Enfant, the architect of the new capital city then used the survey to ensure that what he laid out would be accurate.

13. Benjamin Banneker • This is the original of L’Enfant’s map.

14. Benjamin Banneker • This is what it looks like digitally enhanced. Let’s take a look at L’Enfant’s notes.

15. Benjamin Banneker • L’Enfant confirmed in his notes on the map that the lines were based on “celestial observation” leaving nothing to the “uncertainty of the compass.”

16. Benjamin Banneker • A year later, Benjamin wrote his first almanac and George helped get it published in 1792. He continued to publish almanacs every year to 1797.

17. Benjamin Banneker • He called his almanac the Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia Almanac and Ephemeris.

18. Benjamin Banneker The almanac included information on medicines and medical treatment, useful tables, and listed tides, astronomical information, and eclipses calculated by Banneker himself.

19. Benjamin Banneker The almanac included information on medicines and medical treatment, useful tables, and listed tides, astronomical information, and eclipses calculated by Banneker himself.

20. Benjamin Banneker The almanac included information on medicines and medical treatment, useful tables, and listed tides, astronomical information, and eclipses calculated by Banneker himself.

21. Benjamin Banneker The almanac included information on medicines and medical treatment, useful tables, and listed tides, astronomical information, and eclipses calculated by Banneker himself.

22. Benjamin Banneker The almanac included information on medicines and medical treatment, useful tables, and listed tides, astronomical information, and eclipses calculated by Banneker himself.

23. Benjamin Banneker The almanac included information on medicines and medical treatment, useful tables, and listed tides, astronomical information, and eclipses calculated by Banneker himself.

24. Benjamin Banneker And, of course, a day by day prediction of the weather and other notable events.

25. Benjamin Banneker And, of course, a day by day prediction of the weather and other notable events.

26. Benjamin Banneker • There is a short biography, noting that he learned “reading, writing, and arithmetic”

27. Benjamin Banneker • and that he learned astronomy and how to make an almanac in about three years.

28. Benjamin Banneker • The almanac editors also included information on Banneker being African American and pointed out that this scholarly work was, as Banneker said, “the first attempt of the kind that was ever made in American by a person of my complexion.”

29. Benjamin Banneker

30. Benjamin Banneker • August 19, 1791, Benjamin wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson, then Secretary of State. In it, he enclosed a manuscript copy of his first almanac.

31. Benjamin Banneker • In the letter Banneker complains that although African Americans "have long been considered rather as brutish than human, and scarcely capable of mental endowments, . . .

32. Benjamin Banneker • one universal Father hath given being to us all; and that he hath not only made us all of one flesh, but that he hath also, without partiality, afforded us all the same sensations and endowed us all with the same faculties."

33. Benjamin Banneker • In the same letter Banneker also quotes from the first lines of the Declaration of Independence: • "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . . ."

34. Benjamin Banneker In a polite response to Banneker's August 1791 letter, Jefferson expressed his ambivalent feelings about slavery

35. Benjamin Banneker and assured the surveyor that "no body wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition" of blacks "to what it ought to be."

36. Benjamin Banneker Jefferson also indicated that he had sent an example of Banneker's work to the Marquis de Condorcet, secretary of the Royal Academy of Science I n Paris and a strong advocate of racial equality, for the marquis's use in disposing of other people's doubts about black inferiority.

37. Benjamin Banneker And send the letter he did, stating that Benjamin was a “very respected mathematician” and that “I have seen very elegant solutions of geometrical problems by him.”

38. Benjamin Banneker • Benjamin did get to see Washington DC become the nation’s capital.

39. Benjamin Banneker On October 9, 1806, Benjamin suddenly became ill while walking home. He made it home, but died in his sleep. He was 74. His home and all his possesions burned down on the day of his burial.

40. Bibliography Benjamin Banneker's Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia Almanack and Ephemeris, for the Year of Our Lord 1792.Baltimore: William Goddard and James Angell, 1791. First image: http://memory.loc.gov/rbc/rbcmisc/ody/ody0214/0214001v.jpg Benjamin Banneker's Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia Almanack and Ephemeris, for the Year of Our Lord 1792. CREATED/PUBLISHEDBaltimore: William Goddard and James Angell, 1791. African American Odyssey , Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division. Washington, D.C. 20540 rbcmiscody0214 http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=rbcmisc&fileName=ody/ody0214/ody0214page.db&recNum=0&itemLink=/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aopart2.html@0214&linkText=9

41. Bibliography Letter, Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Banneker expressing his belief that blacks possess talents equal to those of "other colours of men," 30 August 1791.(Thomas Jefferson Papers) http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/images/vc004878.jpg Reproduction Number:A54 (color slide); LC-MSS-27748-21 (B&W negative) http://memory.loc.gov/mss/mcc/028/0001.jpg

42. Bibliography Letter, Thomas Jefferson to French philosophe Marquis de Condorcet http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/images/vc004808.jpg

43. Bibliography Plan of the City Intended for the Permanent Seat of the Government,by Pierre Charles L'EnfantManuscript map on paper, 1791.American Treasures of the Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/images/tlc0290.jpg

44. Bibliography Plan of the city of Washington in the territory of Columbia : ceded by the states of Virginia and Maryland to the United States of America, and by them established as the seat of their government, after the year MDCCC / engrav'd by Sam'l Hill, Boston ; in order to execute this plan, Mr. Ellicott drew a true meridional line ... Ellicott, Andrew, 1754-1820, Boston : s.n., 1792 Shows block numbers and proposed government buildings. Watermarks: Budgen, GR, [crown over fleur-de-lis]. Includes text and notes. LC copies variously soiled, torn, annotated in lead pencil, trimmed, edged with cloth stripping, and mounted on cloth backing. LC copies 1 and 3 have annotated notes on verso, in pencil of the city canal by F.C. de Krafft dated September 9, 1831. Scale [ca. 1:19,800]. G3850 1792 .E41 Vault, Library of Congress Geography and Map Division Washington, D.C. 20540-4650 USA, g3850 ct000299 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3850.ct000299

45. Bibliography A portrait of Benjamin Banneker on the cover of his Almanac, 1795 CREDIT: "Cover, Benjamin Banneker's Almanac for 1795." Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore. http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/colonial/jb_colonial_banneker_1_e.html

46. Bibliography Banneker and Jefferson's correspondence reveals Jefferson's contradictions when it comes to slavery CREDIT: Pendleton's Lithography. "Thomas Jefferson, Third President of the United States." Engraving after an original painting by Gilber Stuart, circa 1828. By Popular Demand: Portraits of the Presidents and First Ladies, 1789-Present, American Memory collections, Library of Congress. Photo of Jefferson http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/colonial/jb_colonial_banneker_3_e.html

47. Bibliography A View of the Capitol of Washington before it was burnt down by the British, ca. 1800. Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Division. Reproduction number: LC-USZC4-247 (color film copy transparency). A view of the Capitol of Washington before it was burnt down by the British. Birch, William Russell, 1755-1834, artist. CREATED/PUBLISHEDca. 1800. DRWG/US - Birch REPRODUCTION NUMBERLC-USZC4-247 DLC (color film copy transparency)LC-USZ62-1804 DLC (b&w film copy neg.) REPOSITORYLibrary of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C., 20540 USA http://memory.loc.gov/service/pnp/cph/3b50000/3b51000/3b51800/3b51829v.jpg

48. Bibliography

49. Bibliography Benjamin Banneker's Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia Almanack and Ephemeris, for the Year of Our Lord 1792.Baltimore: William Goddard and James Angell, 1791. First image: http://memory.loc.gov/rbc/rbcmisc/ody/ody0214/0214001v.jpg Benjamin Banneker's Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia Almanack and Ephemeris, for the Year of Our Lord 1792. CREATED/PUBLISHEDBaltimore: William Goddard and James Angell, 1791. African American Odyssey , Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division. Washington, D.C. 20540 rbcmiscody0214 http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=rbcmisc&fileName=ody/ody0214/ody0214page.db&recNum=0&itemLink=/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aopart2.html@0214&linkText=9

50. Bibliography Letter, Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Banneker expressing his belief that blacks possess talents equal to those of "other colours of men," 30 August 1791.(Thomas Jefferson Papers) http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/images/vc004878.jpg Reproduction Number:A54 (color slide); LC-MSS-27748-21 (B&W negative) http://memory.loc.gov/mss/mcc/028/0001.jpg