Thomas Fuller

Thomas Fuller (1710 – December 1790), also known as "Negro Demus" and the "Virginia Calculator", was an enslaved African renowned for his mathematical abilities.

History Born on the African continent, likely somewhere between present-day Liberia and Benin, Fuller was kidnapped and shipped to America in 1724, at the age of 14. He became enslaved by Elizabeth Cox of Alexandria, Virginia. Despite his mathematical skill, Fuller was illiterate. Ethnomathematics researcher Ron Eglash theorizes that Fuller may have been Bassari, comparing his abilities to their mathematical traditions. Before colonialism, the Bassari used to have "specialists who were trained in the memorization of sums".

Documentation of abilities When Fuller was about 70 years old, William Hartshorne and Samuel Coates, members of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society (PAS), heard about Fuller's "extraordinary powers in arithmetic." The pair stopped their travels to investigate Fuller. . Through his membership in PAS, Rush was acquainted with Hartshorne and Coates and reported on their interview of Fuller in the Columbian Magazine. In this report, Rush stressed the credibility of Hartshorne and Coates.