Thomas Fuller: From enslavement to mathematical brilliance, by Gift Luckson Thomas Fuller (1710 – December 1790), also known as "Negro Demus" and the "Virginia Calculator", was an enslaved African renowned for his mathematical abilities. Origin 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 skills, Fuller was illiterate. Ethnomathematics researcher Ron Eglash theorises that Fuller may have been Bassari, comparing his abilities to their mathematical traditions. Before colonialism, the Bassari used to have "specialists who were...