Benjamin Banneker
At a glance:
- Series: Dictionary of World Biography: The 17th and 18th Centuries
- Categories: Social Issues, Reform, and Protest, Science
- Subcategories: African Americans, Blacks, Mathematics, Mathematicians, Scientists, Astronomy, Astronomers, Cosmology
- Curriculum: American Colonial History (1607-1775), American Revolutionary History (1776-1788), African American History, American Early National History (1789-1815)
Article abstract: Banneker’s calculations provided the essential data for almanacs published from 1792 through 1797. A free black in a slave state, Banneker overcame obstacles of rural isolation, little formal education, racial prejudice, and alcoholism to establish himself as a respected scientist, earn a place on the crew that surveyed the District of Columbia, and become a symbol of racial equality in the abolitionist movement.
Early Life
Benjamin Banneker’s American antecedents came in bonds to colonial Maryland. His grandmother, Molly Welsh, was...
[The entire page is 2048 words long]