Questions below refer to this passage. Benjamin Banneker was born in Maryland in 1731, the son of a woman who was a freed slave, and a free-born father. Largely self-taught, he did formally study with a Quaker friend until he was old enough to work on his family’s farm. By 1788, again with the help of neighboring Quakers, Banneker had begun to study astronomy. The next year, he calculated a solar eclipse. Soon, Banneker found work with a surveyor, who was marking the territory that would eventually become the original District of Columbia. He used his astronomical observations to mark a... Show more

Questions below refer to this passage.

Benjamin Banneker was born in Maryland in 1731, the son of a woman who was a freed slave, and a free-born father. Largely self-taught, he did formally study with a Quaker friend until he was old enough to work on his family’s farm. By 1788, again with the help of neighboring Quakers, Banneker had begun to study astronomy. The next year, he calculated a solar eclipse. Soon, Banneker found work with a surveyor, who was marking the territory that would eventually become the original District of Columbia. He used his astronomical observations to mark a starting location for the surveyors, and maintained a clock that related the positions of the stars to points on the ground.
Poor health and a long delay in the surveying kept Banneker from staying with the project. Instead he turned his attention to further astronomical calculations, eventually publishing a series of almanacs which were hugely popular. These accurately predicted both coming solar and lunar eclipses. That Banneker was an African-American scientist in a time period that routinely attributed low intelligence and potential to his race only makes his achievements more remarkable.

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