The Freedmen's Book

by Lydia Maria Child

With a cheek of olive He made
The little Hindoo child;
And darkly stained the forest tribes,
That roam our Western wild.

To me He gave a form
Of fairer, whiter clay;
But am I, therefore, in his sight,
Respected more than they?

No;—'tis the hue of deeds and thoughts
He traces in his book;
'Tis the complexion of the heart
On which He deigns to look.

Not by the tinted cheek,
That fades away so fast,
But by the color of the soul,
We shall be judged at last.

BENJAMIN BANNEKER.

BY L. MARIA CHILD.

This remarkable man was born near the village of Ellicott's Mills, Baltimore County, Maryland, in 1732. That was one hundred and thirty-three years ago, when there were very few schools and very few books in this country, and when it was not as easy as it now is for even white people to obtain a tolerably good education. His parents were both black, and though they were free, they were too poor to do much for their bright boy. They sent him to a school in the neighborhood, where he learned reading and writing and a little of arithmetic.

His father was a slave at the time of his marriage, but his wife was a free woman; and she was so energetic and industrious, that she soon earned money enough to buy his freedom. Then they worked together, and earned enough to buy a few acres of land, and build a small cabin.

Benjamin was obliged to labor diligently when he was at home from school, but every spare moment he could catch he was ciphering, and planning how to make things. As his parents grew old, he had to work early and late, to support himself and help them. His mother always continued active enough to do the in-door work. When she was seventy years old, if she wanted to catch a chicken she would run it down without appearing to be tired. The place was thinly peopled, and the few neighbors they had took no particular notice of Benjamin, though he had the name of being a bright, industrious lad. His hands worked hard, but his brain was always busy. He was particularly fond of arithmetic, and was always working out sums in his head. He took notice of everything around him, observed how everything was made, and never forgot one word of what he had learned at school. In this way, he came to have more knowledge than most of his white neighbors; and they began to say to one another, "That black Ben is a smart fellow. He can make anything he sets out to; and how much he knows! I wonder where he picked it all up."