Banneker, Benjamin | One of the great prizes of African Americana: a Banneker Almanack

Banneker, Benjamin

Bannaker's Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, Kentucky, and North-Carolina Almanack and Ephemeris, for the Year of our Lord 1796; being Bissextile, or Leap-Year: the Twentieth Year of American Independence, and Eighth Year of the Federal Government. Baltimore: Printed for Philip Edwards, James Keddie, and Thomas, Andrews, and Butler; and Sold at their respective Stores, Wholesale and Retail, (1795)

12mo (175 x 106 mm, uncut). Woodcut of anatomical man on A2r; conjugate leaves C3.4 short at top just touching printed rules and a few letters, a few leaves slightly creased and so printed, occasional light browning. Stitched as issued.

First edition, presumed second issue (another issue gives the final phrase of the title in truncated form as "and Eighth of Federal Government"). An exceptional copy.

The life experience of Benjamin Benneker (1731–1806), "a free African-American man living in a slave state in the eighteenth century … diverged from those of most African Americans living in the early United States. He received a formal education during his youth, maintained his property and farm as an adult, and parlayed his intellectual gifts into national prestige. Despite his many accomplishments, however, Banneker was forced to navigate the same racial prejudices that African Americans often faced in both slave and free states.

"In many ways, his story is an historical anomaly. He assisted with the initial survey of Washington, D.C., published abolitionist material south of the Mason-Dixon Line, and engaged with some of the country’s founders in a way no black man had before. However, Banneker’s life also reflects the defining paradox of the early United States—a land of freedom and opportunity with insurmountable racial qualifiers—which the nation’s capital would come to embody" (White House Historical Association: https://www.whitehousehistory.org/benjamin-banneker).

Banneker's widest fame came from the sequence of six almanacs that he calculated and published for the years 1792 through 1797, having taught himself celestial navigation and astronomy using a telescope and books loaned to him by a neighbor, George Ellicott. Heavily promoted by abolitionist societies, the almanacs went through a total of at least twenty-eight editions. Banneker's race was never disguised from his readers; indeed, his first Benjamin Banneker's Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia Almanack … 1792, included a biographical sketch by James McHenry that stated, "I consider this Negro as fresh proof that the powers of the mind are disconnected with the colour of the skin."

The present annual compilation begins with a similar, but even more striking preface because it does not focus simply on Banneker's singular accomplishments but advocates for equality among the races: "To make an Almanac is not so easy a matter as some people think—like a we'l furnished table it requires to have a variety of dishes to suit every palate, besides considerable skill in the cooking— … We are persuaded you will not only be entertained but instructed by our Almanac for we have ransacked all the repositories of learning to cull a few flowers for your amusement. Moreover, Kind Reader, as we believe you would think the better of a man for having a decent coat on his back, so we have exerted ourselves to make our Almanac appear in a more respectable dress, than some other Almanac mongers have done, who, it would seem, have thought their Almanacs not worthy a good coat.

"But there is one dish we invite you to partake of, and we are prouder of it than of all the rest put together; and to whom do you think are we indebted for this part of our entertainment? Why, to a Black Man—Strange! Is a Black capable of composing an Almanac? Indeed, it is no less strange than true … The labours of the justly celebrated Bannaker will likewise furnish you with a very important lesson, courteous reader, which you will not find in any other Almanac, namely that the Maker of the Universe is no respecter of colours; that the colour of the skin is no ways connected with strength of mind or intellectual powers; that although the God of Nature has marked the face of the African with a darker shade than his brethren, he has given him a soul equally capable of refinement."

Bannecker continued to calculate ephemerides every year until 1804, but “diminishing interest in the abolitionist movement failed to find a publisher for them after the 1797 almanac” (Bedini, in American National Biography).

REFERENCES:

Evans 28231; ESTC W22955; Drake, Almanacs 2243