Benjamin Tasker Jr.

Quality 0.50 · 1 view · Updated 2 months ago

American slave trader, politician (1720–1760)

title: "Benjamin Tasker Jr." type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1721-births", "1760-deaths", "american-racehorse-owners-and-breeders", "mayors-of-annapolis,-maryland", "18th-century-owners-of-plantations-in-the-thirteen-colonies", "18th-century-american-slave-traders", "tasker-family", "18th-century-mayors-of-places-in-maryland", "owners-of-plantations-in-colonial-maryland", "slave-owners-from-maryland", "merchants-from-colonial-maryland", "mayors-of-places-in-the-thirteen-colonies"] description: "American slave trader, politician (1720–1760)" topic_path: "people/1720s" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Tasker_Jr." license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American slave trader, politician (1720–1760) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox Politician"]

Field	Value
name	Benjamin Tasker Jr.
image	Benjamin Tasker Jr. - John Wollaston.jpg
caption	portrait by John Wollaston
office	Mayor of Annapolis
term_start	1754
term_end	1755
predecessor	Michael MacNamara
successor	John Brice Jr.
birth_date	February 14, 1720
birth_place	Maryland
death_date
death_place	Maryland
relations	Benjamin Tasker Sr. (father)
residence	Belair Mansion (Bowie, Maryland)
occupation	planter, politician
::

Colonel Benjamin Tasker Jr. (February 14, 1720–21 – October 17, 1760) was a politician and slave trader in colonial Maryland, and Mayor of Annapolis from 1754 to 1755. He was the son of Benjamin Tasker Sr., Provincial Governor of Maryland from 1752 to 1753.

Early life

Benjamin Tasker Jr. was born in Maryland in 1720, the son of Ann Bladen and Benjamin Tasker Sr., the Provincial Governor of Maryland from 1752 to 1753.

Career

From September 1742 to December 1755, Benjamin Tasker Jr. was Naval Officer for the port of Annapolis (a position previously held by his father). Tasker was Surveyor General of the Eastern Shore from October 1747 to 1755.

Benjamin Tasker Jr. was appointed by Provincial Governor of Maryland, Horatio Sharpe as Commissioner, to secure the assistance of The Six Nations, having been voted £500 by the Maryland General Assembly for this purpose. This commission resulted in the Confederacy of 1752, a union of colonial interests for defense about a quarter of a century before the United States Declaration of Independence.{{Citation | last =Warfield | first =Joshua Dorsey | title =The Founders of Anne Arundel And Howard Counties, Maryland | publisher =Kohn & Pollock |date=July 1905 | location =Baltimore, Maryland | url =https://books.google.com/books?id=vgINAAAAYAAJ | isbn = 0-8063-7971-5 | page =212}}

He was one of Maryland's delegates to the Albany Congress of 1754, another attempt on the part of the colonists to deal jointly with a common problem. He served on a committee at the Albany congress with Benjamin Franklin which was charged with the task of drawing up a plan for a central government of all the colonies. Ath the adjournment of the congress, the plan adopted was submitted to the various legislatures for approval. While it was rejected, its goals were pursued later at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.{{Citation |last1=Fiehler |first1=Leonard E |last2=Baltz |first2=Shirley |title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Nomination Form: Belair Mansion |publisher=United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service |year=1976 |url=http://www.mdihp.net/cfm/dsp_display.cfm?previous_image=1 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081022201245/http://www.mdihp.net/cfm/dsp_display.cfm?previous_image=1 |archive-date=2008-10-22

In 1752 he helped to organize a lottery to pay for a town clock in Annapolis.

He was dispatched to settle Cresap's War between Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Tasker partnered with his brother-in-law, Christopher Lowndes on the slaving voyage of the Elijah.

Horse racing

An owner of thoroughbred horses, Tasker is noted in horse racing circles for having imported from England the mare "Selima" between 1750 and 1752.{{Citation | last = Deubler | first = Cindy | title = Belair Museums stand in path of "Progress" | journal = Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred | pages = 22–27 | date = May 2002 | last = Remly | first = Lynn L. | title = Art Among the Oats: Belair Stable Museum | journal = Equine Images | volume = 2000 | issue = 81 | pages = 5–56 | date = Fall 2002

Tasker and Franklin became friends, and when Franklin visited Annapolis in the spring of 1755, he visited Tasker at the Belair Mansion, then being run by Tasker. Tasker died on October 17, 1760, around 40 years of age.

References

Andrews, Matthew Page, History of Maryland, Doubleday Doran & Co, New York City (1929).
Warfield, J. D. The Founders of Anne Arundel and Howard Counties, Maryland: A Genealogical and Biographical Review from Wills, Deeds and Church Records Retrieved August 2012

Notes

References

''Archives of Maryland'', Biographical Series, MSA SC 3520-1228.
Andrews, p.247
[https://books.google.com/books?id=eUB5oCNIgJEC&dq=benjamin+tasker&pg=PA212 Warfield, J. D., p.212] Retrieved August 2012
(1883). "Collections of the Virginia Historical Society, Volume 3: Dinwiddie Papers". [[Virginia Historical Society]].
(May 28, 1752). "Just imported". The Maryland Gazette.
Johnston, James H.. (2012). "From Slave Ship to Harvard: Yarrow Mamout and the History of an African American Family". [[Fordham University Press]].

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::