Benjamin Banneker

Benjamin Banneker was a free African American almanac author, surveyor, naturalist and farmer. Born in Baltimore County, Maryland, to a free African American woman and a former slave, Banneker had little formal education and was largely selftaught. He is known for being part of a group led by Major Andrew Ellicott that surveyed the borders of the original District of Columbia, the federal capital district of the United States.

Benjamin Banneker was born on November 9, 1731, in Baltimore County, Maryland to his mother Mary, a free black, and his father Robert, a freed slave from Guinea. There are two conflicting accounts of Bannekers family history. Banneker himself and his earliest biographers described him as having only African ancestry. None of Bannekers surviving papers describe a white ancestor or identify the name of his grandmother. However, later biographers have contended that Bannekers mother was the child of Molly Welsh, a white indentured servant, and an African slave named Banneka. The first published description of Molly Welsh was based on interviews with her descendants that took place after 1836, long after the deaths of both Molly and Benjamin.

Source: Wikipedia