Banneker, Benjamin

An African-American scientist of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Banneker taught himself calculus and trigonometry in order to make astronomical calculations for almanacs. He was hailed by abolitionists ( see abolitionism ) for proving that “the powers of the mind are disconnected with the colour of the skin.”

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Benjamin Banneker's mother was a white woman who married one of her own slaves.

I have thus, briefly given you my recollections of Benjamin Banneker.

I should place foremost among these that wonderful clock constructed by our first astronomer, Benjamin Banneker, of Maryland.

Benjamin Banneker's proficiency in mathematics enabled him to make the first clock manufactured in the United States.

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