Benjamin Banneker

In the early years of the American colonies, it was an accepted practice to trade seven years of indentured servitude as payment for passage to the New World. In 1683, Molly Welsh (or Walsh) made her way from England to Maryland this way, and seven years later she was farming tobacco on her own land in Baltimore County. In 1692, she purchased two slaves directly from a slave ship, one of them named Banne Ka, the son of an African chief. After granting her slaves their freedom, she married Bannaka and together they had four daughters.
Molly and Bannaka's eldest daughter, Mary, married Rober…