[610] U.S. Statutes at large, vol. viii. p. 218.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE NEGRO INTELLECT.—BANNEKER THE ASTRONOMER.[611].— FULLER THE MATHEMATICIAN.—DERHAM THE PHYSICIAN.
Statutory Prohibition against the Education of Negroes.—Benjamin Banneker, the Negro Astronomer and Philosopher.—His Antecedents—Young Banneker as a Farmer and Inventor—The Mills of Ellicott & Co.—Banneker cultivates his Mechanical Genius and Mathematical Tastes.—Banneker's first Calculation of an Eclipse submitted for Inspection in 1789.—His Letter to Mr Ellicott.—The Testimony of a Personal Acquaintance of Banneker as to his Upright Character.—His Home becomes a Place of Interest to Visitors.—Record of his Business Transactions.—Mrs. Mason's Visit to him.—She addresses him in Verse.—Banneker replies by Letter to her.—Prepares his First Almanac for Publication in 1792.—Title of his Almanac—Banneker's Letter to Thomas Jefferson.—Thomas Jefferson's Reply.—Banneker invited to accompany the Commissioners to run the Lines of the District of Columbia.—Banneker's Habits of studying the Heavenly Bodies.—Minute Description given to his Sisters in Reference to the Disposition of his Personal Property after Death.—His Death.—Regarded as the most Distinguished Negro of his Time.—Fuller the Mathematician, or "The Virginia Calculator."—Fuller of African Birth, but stolen and sold as a Slave into Virginia.—Visited by Men of Learning.—He was pronounced to be a Prodigy in the Manipulation of Figures.—His Death.—Derham the Physician.—Science of Medicine regarded as the most Intricate Pursuit of Man.—Early Life of James Derham.—His Knowledge of Medicine, how acquired.—He becomes a Prominent Physician in New Orleans.—Dr. Rush gives an Account of an Interview with him.—What the Negro Race produced by their Genius in America.
FROM the moment slavery gained a foothold in North America until the direful hour that witnessed its dissolution amid the shock of embattled arms, learning was the forbidden fruit that no Negro dared taste. Positive and explicit statutes everywhere, as fiery swords, drove him away hungry from the tree of intellectual life; and all persons were forbidden to pluck the fruit for him, upon pain of severe penalties. Every yearning for intellectual food was answered by whips and thumb-screws.
But, notwithstanding the state of almost instinctive ignorance in which slavery held the Negro, there were those who occasionally astounded the world with the brightness of their intellectual genius. There were some Negroes whose minds ran the gauntlet of public proscription on one side and repressive laws on the other, and safely gained eminence in astronomy, mathematics, and medicine.
BANNEKER THE ASTRONOMER.