Praise for Banneker

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) to
M. de Condorcet (1743-1794)
Holograph press copy,
August 30, 1791
Manuscript Division( July 24, 2006 )

In this letter to the French philosophe Marquis de Condorcet, Thomas Jefferson praises the mathematical abilities of Benjamin Banneker, "the son of a black man born in Africa, and of a black woman born in the United States." He voices the hope that the example of Banneker might prove "that the want of talents observed in them is merely the effect of their degraded condition, and not proceeding from any difference in the structure of the parts on which intellect depends."