A Very Brief Biography Of Benjamin Banneker

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Benjamin Banneker was a huge self educated mathematician, astronomer, complier of almanacs and also a writer all at the same time. Benjamin Banneker was born on November 9, 1731, in Ellicott’s, Maryland. A free black man who owned his own property with a farm close to Baltimore, Banneker was very self educated in astronomy an mathematics. He was later called to help in the surveying of territory for the construction of the nations capital. Benjamin Banneker also became an active writer of almanacs and exchanged letters with Thomas Jefferson, politely challenging him to do to ensure racial equality. Banneker later passed on October 9, 1806. Benjamin Banneker was the son of a freed slave from Guinea named Robert and of Mary banneky, daughter of a formerly indentured English servant named Molly Welsh and her husband, Bannka, a slave whom she freed and who claimed to be the son of a Gold Coast tribal chief. Banneker’s early years were spent with his family. This includes his three sisters, growing tobacco on his parents’ 100-acre farm near the banks of the Patapsco River. At a young age, he had been trained to read and write by his grandmother by means of a bible she bought from England. Benjamin Banneker’s only formal schooling was attendance for a …show more content…

One way he was motivated is he didn 't let not knowing how to read or not going to school for no more than A week to two weeks stop him from being one of the greatest black mathematicians. Banneker also gained fame from the many different ways he contributed to math. Some of Benjamin Banneker 's contributions to math include how to better study the stars to make predictions and calculations about events such as solar eclipses. When Benjamin Banneker successfully predicted a solar eclipse in 1789, he surprised the fields of mathematics and astronomy with his accuracy. He also applied his mathematical skill to survey Washington, D.C., helping to shape the