Benjamin Banneker 2010 - Introduction

Question 1

step 1

Answer 1

Banneker, son of former slaves, highly accomplished, anti-slavery

Question 2

step 2

Answer 2

a letter to Jefferson in 1791, shortly after Revolutionary War and Declaration of Independence

Question 3

step 3

Answer 3

Thomas Jefferson, principal writer of the Declaration of Independence, Secretary of State

Question 4

step 4

Answer 4

persuade Jefferson that according to the Declaration he helped write, slavery is wrong

Question 5

step 5

Answer 5

eloquent, emotional diction, direct address, allusions

Question 6

step 6

Answer 6

pleading, didactic

Question 7

warning

Answer 7

• read the following excerpt from the letter

Question 8

style

Answer 8

• you should at the same time be found guilty of that most criminal act which you detest in others (irony)
• to recall to your mind that time in which the arms and tyranny of the British Crown (allusion)
• servitude, look back…preservation; you cannot (sentence complexity)
• British crown… in order to reduce you to a state of servitude (analogy between tyranny and slavery)
• worthy to be recorded and remembered in all succeeding ages. “we hold these truths… self-evident” (allusion)

Question 9

speaker

Answer 9

• your tender feelings for yourselves had engaged you thus to declare, (remind the reader of his feelings)
• benevolence of the Father of mankind (word choice that indicates he’s Christian)

Question 10

task

Answer 10

• write an essay that analyzes how Banneker uses rhetorical strategies to argue against slavery

Question 11

purpose

Answer 11

• wean yourselves from those narrow prejudices which you have imbibed with respect to them

Question 12

occasion

Answer 12

• sir, suffer me to recall to your mind that time in which the arms and tyranny of the British Crown
• in 1791 he wrote to Thomas Jefferson