Benjamin Banneker -- USA

Benjamin Banneker was a free African American astronomer, mathematician, surveyor, almanac author and farmer.  Benjamin Banneker's family history is difficult to verify, however, Banneker described himself only as having an African ancestry. 

Born on 9 November 1731, the son of freed slaves Robert and Mary Bannaky, near the Patapsco River southeast of Baltimore, Maryland, where his father owned a small farm. Benjamin seems to have served as an indentured labourer on the Prince George’s County plantation of Mary Welsh, who had dealings with the Bannaky family.  In 1773 she executed her dead husband’s instructions to release several of her labour force including “Negro Ben, born free age 43.” Walsh was surely not Banneker’s grandmother, as argued by many biographers, but she did leave him a substantial legacy.  He then lived alone as a tobacco farmer near the Patapsco River, it has been suggested that Banneka may have been a member of the Dogon tribe, which is reputed to have a historical knowledge of astronomy. 

As a young teenager, Banneker met and befriended Peter Heinrichs, a Quaker farmer who established a school near Banneker's family's farm.  Heinrichs shared his personal library with Banneker and provided Banneker's only classroom instruction.  Once he was old enough to help on his parents' farm, Benjamin's formal education ended, and he spent most of the rest of his life at the farm.  He showed an early talent for mathematics and construction, when his family was introduced to Josef Levi who owned a watch.  Young Benjamin was so fascinated by the object that Mr. Levi explained how it worked gave it to him to as a gift.  

Over the course of the next few days, Benjamin repeatedly took the watch apart and reassembled it. After borrowing a book on geometry and Isaac Newton's Principia, he drafted plans to build a larger version of the watch, mimicking a picture he had seen of a clock.  After two years of designing the clock and carving each piece by hand, including the gears, Banneker had successfully created the first wooden clock ever built in the United States and For the next thirty years, the clock kept perfect time.

In 1776, the Third Continental Congress met and submitted the Declaration of Independence from England.  Soon thereafter, the Revolutionary War broke out and Banneker set out to grow crops of wheat in order to help feed American troops.  His knowledge of soil gained from his grandfather allowed him to raise crops in areas which had previously stood barren for years.  He read widely and recorded the research, his skills drew him into contact with a wealthy Quaker family, the Ellicotts, who had established flourmills and an iron foundry on the outskirts of Baltimore, Banneker supplied their workers with food, and studied the mills. 

When a family friend died and left him a book on astronomy, a telescope and other scientific equipment, Banneker became fascinated with the stars and the skies.  In 1788, George Ellicott, a keen amateur astronomer, lent Banneker books and other instruments that enabled him to construct tables predicting the positions of the stars and future solar and lunar eclipses, sunrises and sunsets. 

In April 1791 he began work on an ephemeris, Banneker won the backing of several Philadelphia supporters of the anti-slavery cause, to help print his work in the popular form of an almanac.  In 1792, he developed his first almanac, predicting weather and seasonal changes and  included information on planting crops and medical remedies.  

Banneker sent a copy of his book to Thomas Jefferson, who at that time was the Secretary of State and in a twelve page letter expressed that Blacks in the United States possessed equal intellectual capacity and mental capabilities as those Whites who were described in the Declaration of Independence.  

As such, he stated, Blacks should also be afforded the same rights and opportunities afforded to whites.  This began a long correspondence between the two men that would extend over several years. The 1792 publication of “Banneker’s Almanac” was a considerable success and over the next five years produced twenty-seven further editions.

Around the time that President Washington, decided to move the Nation's Capitol from Philadelphia to the border of Maryland and Virginia, Andrew Ellicott asked Banneker to assist in surveying the "Federal Territory". Major Pierre L'Enfant from France was commissioned to develop the plans for the new city and at Jefferson's request, Banneker was included as one of the men appointed to assist him. Banneker consulted frequently with L'Enfant and carefully studied his draft plans for the Capitol City. L'Enfant was subject to great criticism and hostility because he was a foreigner and abruptly resigned from the project to go back to France.  As the remaining members of the team began debating how they should start from scratch, Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory.  In two days did exactly as promised, the plans he drew were the basis for the layout of streets, buildings and monuments that exist to this day in Washington D.C.

Banneker also kept a series of journals that contained his notes for astronomical observations and his diary. The notebooks also contained a number of mathematical calculations and puzzles, William Wilberforce and other prominent abolitionists praised Banneker and his works in the House of Commons of Great Britain.  His last almanac was published in 1797 due to declining sales, Banneker continued to live on his farm, in declining health, and died on 9 October 1806.  

Only fragments of his later writings survive, as most perished in a fire after his death.  His life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.  But his achievements ranked him among other American scientists of the time, and they were more remarkable, as the product of a lifelong self-education, emerging out of humble origins.

A commemorative obelisk that the Maryland Bicentennial Commission and the State Commission on Afro American History and Culture erected in 1977 stands near his unmarked grave in an Oella, Maryland, churchyard.