SLAVE INTO VIRGINIA.--VISITED BY MEN OF
LEARNING.--HE WAS PRONOUNCED TO BE A PRODIGY IN THE
MANIPULATION OF FIGURES.--HIS DEATH.--DERHAM THE
PHYSICIAN.--SCIENCE OF MEDICINE REGARDED AS THE MOST
INTRICATE PURSUIT OF MAN.--DAILY LIFE OF JAMES DERHAM.--HIS
KNOWLEDGE OF MEDICINES, HOW ACQUIRED.--HE BECOMES A
PROMINENT PHYSICIAN IN NEW ORLEANS.--DR. RUSH GIVES AN
ACCOUNT OF AN INTERVIEW WITH HIM.--WHAT THE NEGRO RACE
PRODUCED BY THEIR GENIUS IN AMERICA.

From the moment slavery gained a foothold in North America until the
direful hour that witnessed its dissolution amid the shock of
embattled arms, learning was the forbidden fruit that no Negro dared
taste. Positive and explicit statutes everywhere, as fiery swords,
drove him away hungry from the tree of intellectual life; and all
persons were forbidden to pluck the fruit for him, upon pain of severe
penalties. Every yearning for intellectual food was answered by whips
and thumb-screws.

But, notwithstanding the state of almost instinctive ignorance in
which slavery held the Negro, there were those who occasionally
astounded the world with the brightness of their intellectual genius.
There were some Negroes whose minds ran the gauntlet of public
proscription on one side and repressive laws on the other, and safely
gained eminence in _astronomy, mathematics_, and _medicine_.

BANNEKER THE ASTRONOMER.

BENJAMIN BANNEKER, the Negro _astronomer_ and _philosopher_, was born
in Maryland, on the 9th of November, 1731. His maternal grandmother
was a white woman, a native of England, named _Molly Welsh_. She came
to Maryland in a shipload of white emigrants, who, according to the
custom of those days, were sold to pay their passage. She served her
master faithfully for seven years, when, being free, she purchased a
small farm, at a nominal price. Soon after she bought two Negro slaves
from a ship that had come into the Chesapeake Bay, and began life
anew. Both of these Negroes proved to be men of more than ordinary
fidelity, industry, and intelligence. One of them, it was said, was
the son of an African king. She gave him his freedom, and then married
him. His name was Banneker.[612] Four children were the fruit of this
union; but the chief interest centres in only one,--a girl, named
Mary. Following the example of her mother, she also married a native
of Africa: but both tradition and history preserve an unbroken silence
respecting his