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Collection: African American Newspapers
Publication: FREDERICK DOUGLASS PAPER
Date: April 29, 1852
F. DouglassTitle: LETTER FROM WILLIAM G. ALLEN -------
Location: Rochester, New York

LETTER FROM WILLIAM G. ALLEN
-------

FREDERICK DOUGLASS - DEAR SIR: - Colonizationists have recently dug up Thomas Jefferson, for the two-fold purpose of helping them berate African intellect, and thus make out that the race is not fit to live among "white folks;" and to aid Colonization - Those, however, who rely upon Jefferson to prove the inferiority of the African race, have, for once in their lives, at least, sadly missed their figure. The following letter, written by Jefferson to Banneker, is conclusive on this point. The letter is taken from a sketch of Banneker, read before the Maryland Historical Society, some few years ago, by John H.B. Latrobe, a distinguished lawyer of Baltimore.

Banneker was of pure African blood - his father being a native African, and his mother a child of natives of Africa. He was emblematically a great mathematician; and, in deed, so exalted was his intellectual and moral character, generally, that when the lines were about being run for the District of Columbia, he was invited by the Commissioners to be present: and he was not only present, but was treated with marked consideration.

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 31, 1791.

SIR: - I thank you sincerely for your letter of the 19th inst., and for the almanac it contained. Nobody wishes more than I do, to see much proofs as you exhibit, that Nature has given to our black brethren talents equal to those of other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them, is owing only to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa and America . I can add, with truth, that no one wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced, for raising the condition, both of their body and mind, to what it ought to be, as fast 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 members of the Philanthropic Society, because I considered it a document to which your whole color had a right, for their justification against the doubts which have been entertained of them.

I am, with great esteem, Sir, your
most obedient servant,
THOMAS JEFFERSON.
Mr. Benj. Banneker, near Ellicott's
Lower Mills, Baltimore County.

The italics are mine. Jefferson's notes, in which, speaking of the blacks, he says, "I think one would scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid," were written in 1781: this letter, to Banneker, it will be seen, was written some ten years after. Would that others were as honest as Jefferson, in acknowledging the evidence when it meets them face to face.

Those who desire to make capital of the "notes," will do well, also, to remember that Jefferson advanced his views of African intellect, in the language of conjecture, merely, and not in the language of one settled as to the point at issue. He says, comparing the blacks with the whites, "the opinion that they are inferior in the faculties of reason and imagination, must be hazarded with great diffidence." * * * * Still farther on, he says, "I advance it, therefore, as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made so by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites, in the endowments both of body and mind."

The man who wrote in such language, surely, is not the man to whom Colonizationists or any one else may appeal, that mind is of one race only, and genius of one complexion.
While writing of Banneker, I might as well say, that Greenbury Morton, a relative of his, on the mother's side, was as remarkable for his oratorical powers, as Banneker, for his mathematical.

In the year 1809, a law was passed in Maryland, restricting the right of voting to free white males. Morton was ignorant of the change in the law until he presented it. Of course his vote was refused. Whereupon he mounted the stump, and delivered a speech remarkable for its power, and of such pure and impassioned eloquence, that the crowd assembled by the election, hung upon his lips in breathless attention while he spoke. So says Mr. Latrobe.

As many of your readers may not have heard much of Banneker, I will say for their benefit that he was born in Baltimore Co., Maryland, of free parents, in the year 1732. He had but slender advantages of education in his youth. He attended an obscure district school, and this, not often, as he had to do daily labor for a living. His powers of observation, however, were great, and his general intelligence, the wonder of all who knew him. He was an adept in natural philosophy, and had great mechanical ingenuity. When a very young man, and without having ever seen a clock in the backwoods, where he lived, he constructed one, taking a watch for his model, which was said to have kept excellent time. His forte, however, lay in mathematics and astronomy; hence, he was for twelve years, a successful almanac maker. The title-page of his almanacs is here given, as it might be matter of interest to some:

"Benjamin Banneker's Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, Maryland Almanac and Ephemeries, for the year of our Lord, 17--, and the year of American Independence, which commenced July 4, 1776, containing the motions of the sun and moon, the true places and aspects of the planets, the rising and setting of the sun, and the rising, setting and southing, place and age of the moon, &c. The lunations, conjunctions, eclipses, judgment of the weather, festivals, and remarkable days."
To make all almanac with much help, requires much intellectual power. Banneker had no such help. He had advanced far in the preparation of logarithms necessary for his purpose, before he was furnished with any tables. Banneker died in 1804. His personal appearance was fine; and his manners decidedly gentlemanly. His color, as he describes it in his letter to Jefferson, was not only African, but of the "deepest dye."

Respectfully and truly yours,
WILLIAM G. ALLEN.
MCGRAWVILLE, N.Y., April 19, 1852.