character of the negro by Banneker, are too great for us to allow his
name to sleep and his genius and merits to remain hidden from the
world. BENJAMIN BANNEKER was born in the State of Maryland, in the
year 1732, of pure African parentage; their blood never having been
corrupted by the introduction of a drop of Anglo-Saxon. His father
was a slave, and of course could do nothing towards the education of
the child. The mother, however, being free, succeeded in purchasing
the freedom of her husband, and they, with their son, settled on a
few acres of land, where Benjamin remained during the lifetime of
his parents. His entire schooling was gained from an obscure country
school, established for the education of the children of free negroes;
and these advantages were poor, for the boy appears to have finished
studying before he arrived at his fifteenth year. Although out of
school, Banneker was still a student, and read with great care and
attention such books as he could get. Mr. George Ellicott, a gentleman
of fortune and considerable literary taste, and who resided near to
Benjamin, became interested in him, and lent him books from his large
library. Among these books were Mayer's Tables, Fergusson's Astronomy,
and Leadbeater's Lunar Tables. A few old and imperfect astronomical
instruments also found their way into the boy's hands, all of which he
used with great benefit to his own mind.
Banneker took delight in the study of the languages, and soon mastered
the Latin, Greek, and German. He was also proficient in the French.
The classics were not neglected by him, and the general literary
knowledge which he possessed caused Mr. Ellicott to regard him as the
most learned man in the town, and he never failed to introduce Banneker
to his most distinguished guests. About this time Benjamin turned
his attention particularly to astronomy, and determined on making
calculations for an almanac, and completed a set for the whole year.
Encouraged by this attempt, he entered upon calculations for subsequent
years, which, as well as the former, he began and finished without the
least assistance from any person or books than those already mentioned;
so that whatever merit is attached to his performance is exclusively
his own. He published an almanac in Philadelphia for the years 1792,
'3, '4, and '5, which contained his calculations, exhibiting the
different aspects of the planets, a table of the motions of the sun
and moon, their risings and settings, and the courses of the bodies
of the planetary system. By this time Banneker's acquirements had
become generally known, and the best scholars in the country opened
correspondence with him. Goddard & Angell, the well-known Baltimore
publishers, engaged his pen for their establishment, and became the
publishers of his almanacs. A copy of his first production was sent to
Thomas Jefferson, together with a letter intended to interest the great
statesman in the cause of negro emancipation and the elevation of the
race, in which he says,--
"It is a truth too well attested to need a proof here, that we are a
race of beings who have long labored under the abuse and censure of
the world; that we have long been looked upon with an eye of contempt,
and considered rather as brutish than human, and scarcely capable of
mental endowments. I hope I may safely admit, in consequence of the
report which has reached me, that you are a man far less inflexible in
sentiments of this nature than many others; that you are measurably
friendly and well disposed towards us, and that you are willing to
lend your aid and assistance for our relief from those many distresses
and numerous calamities to which we are reduced. If this is founded
in truth, I apprehend you will embrace every opportunity to eradicate
that train of absurd and false ideas and opinions which so generally
prevail with respect to us, and that your sentiments are concurrent
with mine, which are, that one universal Father hath given being to us
all; that he hath not only made us all of one flesh, but that he hath
also, without partiality, afforded us all the same sensations, and
endowed us all with the same faculties; and that, however variable we
may be in society or religion, however diversified in situation or in
color, we are all of the same family, and stand in the same relation
to him. If these are sentiments of which you are fully persuaded, you
cannot but acknowledge that it is the indispensable duty of those who
maintain the rights of human nature, and who profess the obligations
of Christianity, to extend their power and influence to the relief of
every part of the human race from whatever burden or oppression they
may unjustly labor under; and this, I apprehend, a full conviction of
the truth and obligation of these principles should lead all to. I have
long been convinced that if your love for yourselves, and for those
inestimable laws which preserved to you the rights of human nature,
was founded on sincerity, you could not but be solicitous that every
individual, of whatever rank or distinction, might with you equally
enjoy the blessings thereof; neither could you rest satisfied short of
the most active effusion of your exertions, in order to effect their
promotion from any state of degradation to which the unjustifiable
cruelty and barbarism of men may have reduced them.
"I freely and cheerfully acknowledge that I am one of the African race,
and in that color which is natural to them, of the deepest dye; and it
is under a sense of the most profound gratitude to the Supreme Ruler of
the universe, that I now confess to you that I am not under that state
of tyrannical thraldom and inhuman captivity to which too many of my
brethren are doomed; but that I have abundantly tasted of the fruition
of those blessings which proceed from that free and unequalled liberty
with which you are favored, and which I hope you will willingly allow
you have mercifully received from the immediate hand of that Being from
whom proceedeth every good and perfect gift.
"Your knowledge of the situation of my brethren is too extensive to
need a recital here; neither shall I presume to prescribe methods by
which they may be relieved, otherwise than by recommending to you
and to others to wean yourselves from those narrow prejudices which
you have imbibed with respect to them, and, as Job proposed to his
friends, 'put your soul in their souls' stead.' Thus shall your hearts
be enlarged with kindness and benevolence towards them; and thus shall
you need neither the direction of myself or others in what manner to
proceed herein.... The calculation for this almanac is the production
of my arduous study in my advanced stage of life; for having long had
unbounded desires to become acquainted with the secrets of nature,
I have had to gratify my curiosity herein through my own assiduous
application to astronomical study, in which I need not recount to you
the many difficulties and disadvantages which I have had to encounter."
Mr. Jefferson at once replied as follows:--
"PHILADELPHIA, _August 30, 1791_.
"SIR: I thank you sincerely for your letter and the almanac it
contained. Nobody wishes more than I do to see such proofs as
you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren talents
equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance
of the want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition
of their existence, both in Africa and America. I can add with
truth, that nobody wishes more ardently to see a good system
commenced for raising their condition, both of their body and
their mind, to what it ought to be, as far as the imbecility of
their present existence, and other circumstances, which cannot
be neglected, will admit. I have taken the liberty of sending
your almanac to Monsieur de Condorcet, secretary of the Academy
of Sciences at Paris, and a member of the Philanthropic Society,
because I consider it as a document to which your whole color have
a right for their justification against the doubts which have been
entertained of them.
"I am, with great esteem,
"Dear sir, your obedient, &c.,
"THOMAS JEFFERSON.
"To MR. B. BANNEKER."
The letter from Banneker, together with the almanac, created in the
heart of Mr. Jefferson a fresh feeling of enthusiasm in behalf of
freedom, and especially for the negro, which ceased only with his life.
The American statesman wrote to Brissot, the celebrated French writer,
in which he made enthusiastic mention of the "Negro Philosopher."
At the formation of the "Society of the Friends of the Blacks," at
Paris, by Lafayette, Brissot, Barnave, Condorcet, and Gregoire, the
name of Banneker was again and again referred to to prove the equality
of the races. Indeed, the genius of the "Negro Philosopher" did much
towards giving liberty to the people of St. Domingo. In the British
House of Commons, Pitt, Wilberforce, and Buxton often alluded to
Banneker by name, as a man fit to fill any position in society. At
the setting off of the District of Columbia for the capital of the
federal government, Banneker was invited by the Maryland commissioners,
and took an honorable part in the settlement of the territory. But
throughout all his intercourse with men of influence, he never lost
sight of the condition of his race, and ever urged the emancipation
and elevation of the slave. He well knew that every thing that was
founded upon the admitted inferiority of natural right in the African
was calculated to degrade him and bring him nearer to the foot of the
oppressor, and he therefore never failed to allude to the equality of
the races when with those whites whom he could influence. He always
urged self-elevation upon the colored people whom he met. He felt that
to deprive the black man of the inspiration of ambition, of hope, of
health, of standing among his brethren of the earth, was to take from
him all incentives to mental improvement. What husbandman incurs the
toil of seed time and culture, except with a view to the subsequent
enjoyment of a golden harvest? Banneker was endowed by nature with all
those excellent qualifications which are necessary previous to the
accomplishment of a great man. His memory was large and tenacious, yet,
by a curious felicity, chiefly susceptible of the finest impressions
it received from the best authors he read, which he always preserved
in their primitive strength and amiable order. He had a quickness
of apprehension and a vivacity of understanding which easily took
in and surmounted the most subtile and knotty parts of mathematics
and metaphysics. He possessed in a large degree that genius which
constitutes a man of letters; that quality without which judgment is
cold and knowledge is inert; that energy which collects, combines,
amplifies, and animates.
He knew every branch of history, both natural and civil; he had read
all the original historians of England, France, and Germany, and
was a great antiquarian. Criticism, metaphysics, morals, politics,
voyages and travels, were all studied and well digested by him. With
such a fund of knowledge his conversation was equally interesting,
instructive, and entertaining. Banneker was so favorably appreciated
by the first families in Virginia, that in 1803 he was invited by
Mr. Jefferson, then President of the United States, to visit him at
Monticello, where the statesman had gone for recreation. But he was
too infirm to undertake the journey. He died the following year, aged
seventy-two. Like the golden sun that has sunk beneath the western
horizon, but still throws upon the world, which he sustained and
enlightened in his career, the reflected beams of his departed genius,
his name can only perish with his language.
Banneker believed in the divinity of reason, and in the omnipotence of
the human understanding with Liberty for its handmaid. The intellect
impregnated by science and multiplied by time, it appeared to him, must
triumph necessarily over all the resistance of matter. He had faith in
liberty, truth, and virtue. His remains still rest in the slave state
where he lived and died, with no stone to mark the spot or tell that it
is the grave of Benjamin Banneker.
He labored incessantly, lived irreproachably, and died in the literary
harness, universally esteemed and regretted.
NAT TURNER.
Biography is individual history, as distinguished from that of
communities, of nations, and of worlds. Eulogy is that deserved
applause which springs from the virtues and attaches itself to the
characters of men. This is not intended either as a biography or a
eulogy, but simply a sketch of one whose history has hitherto been
neglected, and to the memory of whom the American people are not
prepared to do justice.
On one of the oldest and largest plantations in Southampton county,
Virginia, owned by Benjamin Turner, Esq., Nat was born a slave, on
the 2d of October, 1800. His parents were of unmixed African descent.
Surrounded as he was by the superstition of the slave quarters, and
being taught by his mother that he was born for a prophet, a preacher,
and a deliverer of his race, it was not strange that the child should
have imbibed the principles which were afterwards developed in his
career. Early impressed with the belief that he had seen visions, and
received communications direct from God, he, like Napoleon, regarded
himself as a being of destiny. In his childhood Nat was of an amiable
disposition; but circumstances in which he was placed as a slave,
brought out incidents that created a change in his disposition, and
turned his kind and docile feeling into the most intense hatred to the
white race.
Being absent one night from his master's plantation without a pass,
he was caught by Whitlock and Mull, the two district patrolers, and
severely flogged. This act of cruelty inflamed the young slave, and he
resolved upon having revenge. Getting two of the boys of a neighboring
plantation to join him, Nat obtained a long rope, went out at night
on the road through which the officers had their beat, and stationing
his companions, one on each side of the road, he stretched the rope
across, fastening each end to a tree, and drawing it tight. His rope
thus fixed, and his accomplices instructed how to act their part, Nat
started off up the road. The night being dark, and the rope only six or
eight inches from the ground, the slave felt sure that he would give
his enemies a "high fall."
Nat hearing them, he called out in a disguised voice, "Is dat you,
Jim?" To this Whitlock replied, "Yes, dis is me." Waiting until the
white men were near him, Nat started off upon a run, followed by the
officers. The boy had placed a sheet of white paper in the road, so
that he might know at what point to jump the rope, so as not to be
caught in his own trap. Arriving at the signal he sprung over the rope,
and went down the road like an antelope. But not so with the white men,
for both were caught by the legs and thrown so hard upon the ground
that Mull had his shoulder put out of joint, and his face terribly
lacerated by the fall; while Whitlock's left wrist was broken, and
his head bruised in a shocking manner. Nat hastened home, while his
companions did the same, not forgetting to take with them the clothes
line which had been so serviceable in the conflict. The patrolers were
left on the field of battle, crying, swearing, and calling for help.
Snow seldom falls as far south as the southern part of Virginia; but
when it does, the boys usually have a good time snow-balling, and on
such occasions the slaves, old and young, women and men, are generally
pelted without mercy, and with no right to retaliate. It was only a
few months after his affair with the patrolers, that Nat was attacked
by a gang of boys, who chased him some distance, snow-balling with all
their power. The slave boy knew the lads, and determined upon revenge.
Waiting till night, he filled his pockets with rocks, and went into
the street. Very soon the same gang of boys were at his heels, and
pelting him. Concealing his face so as not to be known, Nat discharged
his rocks in every direction, until his enemies had all taken to their
heels.
The ill treatment he experienced at the hands of the whites, and the
visions he claimed to have seen, caused Nat to avoid, as far as he
could, all intercourse with his fellow-slaves, and threw around him a
gloom and melancholy that disappeared only with his life.
Both the young slave and his friends averred that a full knowledge
of the alphabet came to him in a single night. Impressed with the
belief that his mission was a religious one, and this impression
strengthened by the advice of his grandmother, a pious but ignorant
woman, Nat commenced preaching when about twenty-five of age, but never
went beyond his own master's locality. In stature he was under the
middle size, long armed, round-shouldered, and strongly marked with
the African features. A gloomy fire burned in his looks, and he had a
melancholy expression of countenance. He never tasted a drop of ardent
spirits in his life, and was never known to smile. In the year 1828 new
visions appeared to Nat, and he claimed to have direct communication
with God. Unlike most of those born under the influence of slavery, he
had no faith in conjuring, fortune-telling, or dreams, and always spoke
with contempt of such things. Being hired out to cruel masters, he ran
away, and remained in the woods thirty days, and could have easily
escaped to the free states, as did his father some years before; but he
received, as he says in his confession a communication from the spirit,
which said, "Return to your earthly master, for he who knoweth his
Master's will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes."
It was not the will of his earthly, but his heavenly Master that he
felt bound to do, and therefore Nat returned. His fellow-slaves were
greatly incensed at him for coming back, for they knew well his ability
to reach Canada, or some other land of freedom, if he was so inclined.
He says further, "About this time I had a vision, and saw white spirits
and black spirits engaged in battle, and the sun was darkened, the
thunder rolled in the heavens, and blood flowed in streams; and I heard
a voice saying, 'Such is your luck; such are you called on to see; and
let it come, rough or smooth, you must surely bear it.'" Some time
after this, Nat had, as he says, another vision, in which the spirit
appeared and said, "The serpent is loosened, and Christ has laid down
the yoke he has borne for the sins of men, and you must take it up,
and fight against the serpent, for the time is fast approaching when
the first shall be last, and the last shall be first." There is no
doubt but that this last sentence filled Nat with enthusiastic feeling
in favor of the liberty of his race, that he had so long dreamed of.
"The last shall be first, and the first shall be last," seemed to him
to mean something. He saw in it the overthrow of the whites, and the
establishing of the blacks in their stead, and to this end he bent
the energies of his mind. In February, 1831, Nat received his last
communication, and beheld his last vision. He said, "I was told I
should arise and prepare myself, and slay my enemies with their own
weapons."
The plan of an insurrection was now formed in his own mind, and the
time had arrived for him to take others into the secret; and he at once
communicated his ideas to four of his friends, in whom he had implicit
confidence. Hark Travis, Nelson Williams, Sam Edwards, and Henry Porter
were slaves like himself, and like him had taken their names from their
masters. A meeting must be held with these, and it must take place in
some secluded place, where the whites would not disturb them; and a
meeting was appointed. The spot where they assembled was as wild and
romantic as were the visions that had been impressed upon the mind of
their leader.
Three miles from where Nat lived was a dark swamp filled with reptiles,
in the middle of which was a dry spot, reached by a narrow, winding
path, and upon which human feet seldom trod, on account of its having
been the place where a slave had been tortured to death by a slow fire,
for the crime of having flogged his cruel and inhuman master. The
night for the meeting arrived, and they came together. Hark brought a
pig; Sam, bread; Nelson, sweet potatoes; and Henry, brandy; and the
gathering was turned into a feast. Others were taken in, and joined
the conspiracy. All partook heartily of the food and drank freely,
except Nat. He fasted and prayed. It was agreed that the revolt
should commence that night, and in their own master's households,
and that each slave should give his oppressor the death blow. Before
they left the swamp Nat made a speech, in which he said, "Friends and
brothers: We are to commence a great work to-night. Our race is to be
delivered from slavery, and God has appointed us as the men to do his
bidding, and let us be worthy of our calling. I am told to slay all
the whites we encounter, without regard to age or sex. We have no arms
or ammunition, but we will find these in the houses of our oppressors,
and as we go on others can join us. Remember that we do not go forth
for the sake of blood and carnage, but it is necessary that in the
commencement of this revolution all the whites we meet should die,
until we shall have an army strong enough to carry on the war upon a
Christian basis. Remember that ours is not a war for robbery and to
satisfy our passions; it is a struggle for freedom. Ours must be deeds,
and not words. Then let's away to the scene of action."
Among those who had joined the conspirators was Will, a slave, who
scorned the idea of taking his master's name. Though his soul longed
to be free, he evidently became one of the party, as much to satisfy
revenge, as for the liberty that he saw in the dim distance. Will had
seen a dear and beloved wife sold to the negro trader and taken away,
never to be beheld by him again in this life. His own back was covered
with scars, from his shoulders to his feet. A large scar, running from
his right eye down to his chin, showed that he had lived with a cruel
master. Nearly six feet in height, and one of the strongest and most
athletic of his race, he proved to be the most unfeeling of all the
insurrectionists. His only weapon was a broadaxe, sharp and heavy.
Nat and his accomplices at once started for the plantation of Joseph
Travis, with whom the four lived, and there the first blow was struck.
In his confession, just before his execution, Nat said,--
"On returning to the house, Hark went to the door with an axe, for the
purpose of breaking it open, as we knew we were strong enough to murder
the family should they be awakened by the noise; but reflecting that
it might create an alarm in the neighborhood, we determined to enter
the house secretly, and murder them whilst sleeping. Hark got a ladder
and set it against the chimney, on which I ascended, and hoisting a
window, entered and came down stairs, unbarred the doors, and removed
the guns from their places. It was then observed that I must spill the
first blood. On which, armed with a hatchet, and accompanied by Will,
I entered my master's chamber. It being dark, I could not give a death
blow. The hatchet glanced from his head; he sprang from the bed and
called his wife. It was his last word; Will laid him dead with a blow
of his axe, and Mrs. Travis shared the same fate, as she lay in bed.
The murder of this family, five in number, was the work of a moment;
not one of them awoke. There was a little infant sleeping in a cradle,
that was forgotten until we had left the house and gone some distance,
when Henry and Will returned and killed it. We got here four guns that
would shoot, and several old muskets, with a pound or two of powder. We
remained for some time at the barn, where we paraded; I formed them in
line as soldiers, and after carrying them through all the manœuvres I
was master of, marched them off to Mr. Salathiel Francis's, about six
hundred yards distant.