Facts about benjamin banneker biography mathematician

Living as a free black man in 18th century America, Benjamin Banneker was a unique figure amongst his rural Maryland community.

A competent astronomer, his publications challenged the idea that African-Americans were mentally inferior to their white counterparts, with Banneker even writing directly to US Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson on the discussion of racial inequality.

Here are 10 facts about this unsung hero of early America:

1.

He was born in Maryland in 1731

Benjamin Banneker was born on November 9 1731 in Baltimore County, Maryland. Most reports state that his mother was Mary Banneky, a free black woman, and his father Robert, a freed slave from Guinea, and the family grew up on a 100-acre tobacco farm which Banneker inherited upon his father’s death.

Despite the deeply ingrained racism and commonplace slavery prevalent in American society, the Bannekers appear to have enjoyed some autonomy in their everyday lives.

2.

He is thought to have been largely self-taugh