To Mr. BENJAMIN BANNEKER.
Philadelphia, August 30, 1792.

SIR,
I THANK you sincerly for your letter of the 19th instant, and for the almanack it contained. Nobody wishes more than I do, to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colours of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence both in Africa and America. I can add with truth that nobody wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition both of their body and mind to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecility of their present existence, and other circumstances, which cannot be neglected, will admit.

I have taken the liberty of sending your almanack to Monsieur de Coudozett, secretary of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and member of the Philanthropick Society, because I considered it as a document to which your whole colour had a right for their justification against the documents which have been entertained of them.

I am with great esteem, sir,
Your most obedient
Humble servant,
THOMAS JEFFERSON.
(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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In this letter from Thomas Jefferson printed in the Greenfield Gazette in 1792, he thanks free African American Benjamin Banneker for the gift of an almanac and agrees with him that the white public needs as much evidence as possible to prove that African Americans are as talented and intelligent as everyone else. Banneker was a primarily self-taught scientist, mathematician, astronomer, surveyor, farmer and almanac author.

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