Benjamin Banneker's Letter to Thomas Jefferson
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Benjamin Banneker’s Letter to Thomas Jefferson Also: Measuring Pollution and Taking Action A National Council for the Social Studies Publication Number 55 • January/February 2016 www.socialstudies.org Middle Level Learning 55, p. M2– M11 ©2016 National Council for the Social Studies Benjamin Banneker’s Letter to Thomas Jefferson: Using the C3 Framework Inquiry Literacies John A. Moore In 1791 Benjamin Banneker, a free black American mathematician, surveyor, farmer, and astronomer, sent a letter to then Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson.1 Enclosed with the letter was Banneker’s first almanac, containing his original astronomical calculations for that year.2 His purpose for sending the letter was to challenge Jefferson’s racial ideology and to ask for Jefferson’s assistance in ending the “the unjustifiable cruelty and barbarism” that was the institution of slavery in America. Details and Context eight years, be president of the United States. Jefferson was To understand the salience of Banneker’s letter, students should aware of Banneker’s scientific accomplishments. Indeed, he consider to what he was responding and the context of the time. had not objected to Banneker’s position as assistant to the Seven years before Banneker sent his letter, Thomas Jefferson’s survey commission, and according to one account, “Jefferson book Notes on the State of Virginia, had been published in Paris, encouraged [chief surveyor Mayor Andrew] Ellicott to employ France. The book was a lengthy response to questions posed Banneker for the preliminary survey.”6 by a French diplomat about the United States. Jefferson used President Washington was also very interested in the work the occasion to expound on various issues concerning his home of the survey team, and he often checked on their progress in state and the United States generally, including geography, person. “It is virtually certain that Washington and Banneker education, religion, economics, citizenship, government – and were in the same meetings on many occasions,” according to race. For example, he shared his “suspicion” that blacks were biographer Charles Cerami.7 “inferior to whites in the endowments of both body and mind.”3 (Sidebar, p. 3) In 1787, the book of 23 chapters was published A “Political” Response in English, and it sold well in America.4 Banneker was probably In a brief response to Banneker, Jefferson thanked him for the an eager reader of the book. Jefferson was a famous man, and letter and almanac, admitted that the abilities of the different Banneker read widely. races was open to question (“such proofs as you exhibit” in the letter that “our black brethren talents equal … that of the other Two Men, Builders of a New Nation colors of men”), and said that he (Jefferson) was forwarding Banneker, when he sent his letter to Jefferson, was 60 years the letter and almanac to the Academy of Sciences at Paris.8 old, a retired Maryland farmer, and well known as a scientist It probably pleased Banneker to think that this prestigious in this country and abroad. Early in the year, he’d assisted the group of scientists and scholars would be reading his letter commission that surveyed the future capital of the nation. His and almanac. One biographer has written that Jefferson “was major contribution was taking astronomical measurements paying Banneker a great honor.”9 However, in the opinion of each night during the cold months of February-April 1791, more recent scholars, Jefferson’s response was a political one.10 using the most precise instruments available in America at He avoided discussing in depth the notion that blacks and that time, including an astronomical clock. These data were Native Americans might be equal to whites in their intellectual crucial to establishing accurate longitude and latitude as sur- potential. He avoided sincerely evaluating the institution of veyors mapped and marked out the 100 square miles of the slavery or encouraging further correspondence from Banneker. “federal district.” Banneker considered this work to be a great adventure.5 Jefferson, at the time of this correspondence, was 49 years ON THE COVER: Part of the cover of Benjamin Banneker’s 1795 Almanac, which featured a woodcut portrait of the author at age old and serving as U.S. Secretary of State. He was the famous 64. See also the caption on page 3. “author of the Declaration of Independence” who would, in 2 January/February 2016 Middle Level Learning 55 ©2016 National Council for the Social Studies That was not, however, the end of the story. The correspon- dence was soon published as a pamphlet in Philadelphia, and Banneker included the letter and response in his 1793 almanac, which pleased his abolitionist friends.11 “Banneker’s almanacs were among the first to popularize the theme of antislavery and contributed substantially to the abolitionist cause. As the scientific effort of a free Negro, his almanacs provided tangible (Maryland Historical Society/Cerami, p. 153) proof of the mental equality of the races”—a topic central to the antislavery movement.12 Banneker’s medium was his message. Broadening the Curriculum When Black Americans during this era have been recognized This is said to be the only portrait of Benjamin Banneker made from in social studies curricula, they’ve traditionally been depicted life. His name was misspelled in the original woodcut. We corrected this error for the cover of MLL. as slaves with limited agency.13 Even in today’s curriculum, black American agency (their conscious efforts to fight against oppression) is often limited to stories of slave escapes and revolts.14 To be clear, resistance in the form of escapes and rebellions are historical events that help us understand black Americans’ desire for freedom and to counter the myth of the good master and the happy, docile slave. These particular narratives, however, do not communicate the totality of black Americans’ resistance to slavery: the intellectual, political, and social strategies—employed by free blacks like Banneker as 15 well as the enslaved—that helped them garner freedom. date,(no Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-3795) Banneker’s letter is a primary source that can help social studies teachers bring some of the C3 Framework “inquiry literacies” into the traditional American history curriculum.16 This etching, “Thomas Jefferson, Vice President of the U.S.,” may (Teaching with Banneker’s Letter, pp. 6–7) It is a long letter, resemble Jefferson as he looked about a decade after he received and the eloquent language would be difficult for middle school Banneker’s letter in 1791. Jefferson’s “Suspicion” about “the Blacks” in 1787 In general, their existence appears to par- in reason much inferior, as I think one is online at xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/ JEFFERSON/ch14.html. ticipate more of sensation than reflection. could scarcely be found capable of trac- To this must be ascribed their disposi- ing and comprehending the investiga- tion to sleep when abstracted from their tions of Euclid; and that in imagination Commentary: In general, Thomas diversions, and unemployed in labour. they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. Jefferson, who was often mercurial in An animal whose body is at rest, and … I advance it therefore as a suspicion his thoughts about race … had written who does not reflect, must be disposed only, that the blacks … are inferior to publicly about blacks’ lack of intellec- to sleep of course. Comparing them by whites in the endowments both of body tual ability. … But typically, he also wrote their faculties of memory, reason, and and mind. opinions casting doubt on that. imagination, it appears to me, that in —Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1787), —Charles A. Cerami, Benjamin Banneker (New York: in Thomas Jefferson: Writings (New York: The Library of John Wiley & Sons, 2002), p. 136. memory they are equal to the whites; America, 1984), Query XIV, pages 266 and 270; the text 3 January/February 2016 Middle Level Learning 55 ©2016 National Council for the Social Studies students to read in full, so we have provided key excerpts for Banneker’s almanac was irrefutable evidence of the letter’s students. (Handouts, p. 8–11) The social studies teacher could thesis: people of color could reason as well as anyone else. His possibly collaborate with a language arts teacher on having letter to Jefferson is a clear example of black agency. Here are students analyze both Banneker’s and Jefferson’s letters as the words of a black man who was, like Jefferson, a scientist, they relate to today’s proper spelling, grammar, and writing writer, patriot, civil servant—and social critic. Let’s bring his conventions. For example, Jefferson writes “no body” instead prophetic American voice into the curriculum. of “nobody” and closes his letter with “I am with great esteem, Sir, Your most obedient Humble Servant,” which did not mean Notes he was offering to be Banneker’s servant.17 Students should 1. Charles A. Cerami, Benjamin Banneker: Surveyor, Astronomer, Publisher, Patriot (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2002), 163-167; Angela G. Ray, certainly examine the full letter in senior high school, charting “‘In My Own Handwriting’: Benjamin Banneker Addresses the Slaveholder the general path of his arguments, and again in college, dis- of Monticello,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 1, no. 3 (1998), 387-405; “Banneker’s Letter to Jefferson, August 19, 1791.” A full transcript of the secting the rhetorical devices and logic of his argument, and letter is free online at the PBS series “Africans in America,” www.pbs. comparing this letter with civil and human rights documents org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h71t.html. of any era. 2. Benjamin Banneker, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia Almanack and Ephemeris, for the Year of Our Lord 1792 (Baltimore, MD: Using Banneker’s letter in a middle or high school lesson William Goddard and James Angell, 1791) in the Rare Book and Special is also an example of the process of democratic humanistic Collections Division, Library of Congress (2-14), www.loc.gov/exhibits/ african-american-odyssey/free-blacks-in-the-antebellum-period.