Benjamin Banneker was a free black man from Maryland who wrote the following letter to Thomas Jefferson. Banneker knows who Jefferson is: the writer of the Declaration of Independence. This is important, and it plays a role in his argument. He, like Patrick Henry, speaks about the hypocrisy of America’s continual support of slavery. It is not an institution that is wrong just in action; the real tragedy is how slavery is a perversion of larger American ideals. How does Banneker appeal directly to Jefferson’s ideas, and what are the different ways that he tries to show that slavery is wrong? Also think about Jefferson reading this- how might he responded to such a letter?
Maryland, Baltimore County, August 19, 1791
"Sir-
It is a truth...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 that we have long been considered rather as brutish than human, and scarcely capable of mental abilities.
...[God] afforded us all the same sensations and endowed us all with the same faculties...
...it is the indispensable duty of those, who maintain for themselves the rights of human nature, and who possess 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 all lead to.
Sir, I freely and cheerfully acknowledge, that I am of the African race, 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 rule, and inhuman captivity, to which too many of my brethren are doomed, but that I have abundantly tasted of the fruition of those blessings...
Sir, allow me to help you recall to your mind that time, in which the arms and tyranny of the British crown were exerted, with every powerful effort, in order to reduce you to a state of servitude...
This sir, was a time when you clearly saw into the injustice of a state of slavery, and in which you had just apprehensions of the horrors of its condition. It was then that you said 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'...
How pitiable is it to reflect, that although you were so fully convinced of the kindness of God, and of his equal and impartial distribution of these rights and privileges,...that you should at the same time counteract him, in detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren, under groaning captivity and cruel oppression"
Definitions
indispensable: absolutely necessary
apprehensions: fear or anxiety
"Sir-
It is a truth...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 that we have long been considered rather as brutish than human, and scarcely capable of mental abilities.
...[God] afforded us all the same sensations and endowed us all with the same faculties...
...it is the indispensable duty of those, who maintain for themselves the rights of human nature, and who possess 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 all lead to.
Sir, I freely and cheerfully acknowledge, that I am of the African race, 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 rule, and inhuman captivity, to which too many of my brethren are doomed, but that I have abundantly tasted of the fruition of those blessings...
Sir, allow me to help you recall to your mind that time, in which the arms and tyranny of the British crown were exerted, with every powerful effort, in order to reduce you to a state of servitude...
This sir, was a time when you clearly saw into the injustice of a state of slavery, and in which you had just apprehensions of the horrors of its condition. It was then that you said 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'...
How pitiable is it to reflect, that although you were so fully convinced of the kindness of God, and of his equal and impartial distribution of these rights and privileges,...that you should at the same time counteract him, in detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren, under groaning captivity and cruel oppression"
Definitions
indispensable: absolutely necessary
apprehensions: fear or anxiety