2005/02/01 by John F. Mahoney · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #History and Developments in Astronomy
paper · doi:10.5951/mt.98.6.0390
openalex publication_date 2005/02/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), the son of a freed slave from Guinea and a black woman, born free in the territory of Maryland, was a self–taught mathematician, surveyor, and astronomer. He lived and worked on the farm he owned with his father near Baltimore. His grandmother, an Englishwoman who had come to the colonies as an indentured servant, taught Banneker how to read and write. She arranged for him to go to a local oneroom school, which was attended by several white and a few black children. The Quaker schoolmaster may have lent Banneker some books then, and later, a neighbor lent him some books on mathematics and astronomy. From these books he learned mathematics as far as double–position as well as surveying and astronomy. He began publishing annual almanacs containing his astronomical observations and predictions. He kept his notes in journals, but only one of the journals is preserved. This journal served as his notebook for astronomical observations, his diary, and his mathematics notebook. The mathematics in his journal consisted of six puzzles and two pages of mathematical writing.