Benjamin Banneker: Genius of Early America

True, young Benjamin’s “eyes fairly danced with excitement,” but it’s contagious: this is an inspirational biography so thoroughly conversant with black aspirations and Maryland history (the author is a black Baltimore librarian) and so attentive to the particulars of its hero’s accomplishments as to make him a hero indeed. At six he becomes the proud co-owner of 100 “Crown Colony of Maryland” acres. From the Bible (and his grandmother) he learns to read; a Quaker schoolmaster opens up a “new world” of mathematics, of “parts to be added, divided, made larger or smaller, taken apart and put together again.” On Patterson’s part, calculated words. The sight of a watch, and its loan, starts him building “the wonderful wooden clock” that first makes him famous. Educated neighbors, the Quaker Ellicotts, acquaint him with surveying and astronomy; and, at almost 60, he exchanges most of his farm for a lifelong annuity and time to pursue his new interests. Though the account is dramatized, what is invented is not implausible-and what is crucial or controversial is forthrightly stated. Banneker collaborates with Andrew Ellicott in surveying the land for the new capital city; then, after Pierre L’Enfant is dismissed, the two execute his plans. Did Banneker himself redraw the plans from memory? The evidence is lost, we’re informed; sufficient, the ascertainable. But what is most intriguing, and made Banneker still “more famous,” is his almanac. From the details of its compilation-complete to original astronomical charts (B. Franklin’s were borrowed)-we come to appreciate its significance in demonstrating (as a publisher’s foreword noted) “that the colour of the skin is in no way connected with strength of mind or intellectual powers.” So, BB, “philomath”-in the most meticulously appreciative young biography yet. -Kirkus Review