Benjamin Banneker, the son of a free Black American woman and a formerly enslaved African man from Guinea, writes a letter to Thomas Jefferson, then-Secretary of State. On the letter, Banneker criticizes Jefferson’s hypocritical stance on slavery in respectful but unambiguous terms, using Jefferson’s own words to make his case for the abolition of slavery.
Jefferson brief response thanked him for the letter, expressed his ambivalence about slavery ("…no body [sic] wishes more sincerely than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit in your letter, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colours of men") and endorsed Banneker’s accomplishments. More
