AP Rhetoric Blog

[Sydney Potter]

Speaker: Benjamin Banneker

Occasion: Arguing against slavery to Thomas Jefferson

Type of Text: Letter

Strong Vocabulary: Benevolence. Fortitude

     Former slave, astronomer, and author, Benjamin Banneker wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson, secretary of state, arguing the topic of slavery. One rhetorical strategy used in the letter is "pathos". Pathos is the appeal to emotion. Banneker begins the letter with asking Jefferson to look back in the time when British tyranny was a major power in the colonies. When "every human aid appeared unavailable" and "hope and fortitude were an aspect of inability." Banneker then makes a shift and states that if Jefferson can remember those times then he clearly saw into the injustice of the state of slavery. He uses this comparison to invoke pity and sadness in the audience (Jefferson). He uses strong vocabulary to to exert guilt on the reader. He compares a time where colonist felt as if they were enslaved by the British Crown to African slavery. When colonist were in agony and all hopes of freedom seemed unreachable.This is how slaves all over the US felt, as if they were helpless, alienated by hope, and that freedom was an illusion.