Summary Of Letter To Thomas Jefferson By Benjamin Banneker

In Benjamin Banneker’s “Letter To Thomas Jefferson” he argues against slavery and proves himself to be an advocate for the abolishment of slavery. Banneker begins the letter by admitting to Thomas Jefferson that the world generally views African-Americans as rather “brutish than human, and scarcely capable of mental endowments”. In other words, Banneker points out to Thomas Jefferson that African-Americans were looked at as dumb savages so to speak. Basically, the point Banneker makes is that African-Americans were seen as something simply sub-human. Meaning we weren’t people in the eyes of caucasian society; we were nothing more than creatures. Banneker’s objective is to argue that slavery is wrong, here he partially gives an idea as to why

Banneker recites a line from the Declaration Of Independence which Thomas Jefferson framed himself. The line goes “we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal”. The purpose of Banneker incorporating this line is to expose the fact that Jefferson does indeed believe that “all men are created equal”. So for Jefferson to own slaves and not help abolish slavery knowing that all are created equal makes him a hypocrite. What’s also included in the 4th paragraph is Banneker’s understanding of the circumstances that caused for Jefferson and others to write the Declaration Of Independence in the first place. He recalls a time in which their (writers of the Declaration, and white Americans) “tender feelings” for themselves had engaged them to “declare” that they were “impressed with proper ideas of the great violation of liberty, and the free possession of those blessings, to which [they] were entitled to by nature”. Banneker’s reason in saying this is to make Jefferson understand that those are the same circumstances that every African-American slave faces. Being oppressed, held captive, mistreated, and having no real rights are the same adversities white Americans went and pushed through when it came to the overruling of the