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 trained in the memorisation of sums”.
A Mathematical Genius
Stories of his mathematical achievements spread through the East Coast of the United States and reached as far as France and Germany, becoming fuel for the abolitionist movement.
Later Life and Fame
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.”
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The pair stopped their travels to investigate Fuller. Benjamin Rush, physician and Founding Father, had sought proof of Black intelligence through the lens of “scientific achievement” to bolster antislavery causes. 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. Rush retold how Hartshorne and Coates tested Fuller’s mathematical abilities.
Fuller’s Obituary
The only other “independent original” source documenting Fuller’s abilities besides Rush is Fuller’s obituary.
Fuller’s obituary, published anonymously in the Columbian Centinel in 1790, tells how he could mentally calculate correct answers to complicated questions faster than people calculating by hand could. It also reported minor details of his life.
The obituary went on to say, “Had his opportunity of improvement been equal to those of thousands of his fellow-men, neither the Royal Society of London, the Academy of Sciences at Paris, nor even a Newton himself, need have been ashamed to acknowledge him a Brother in Science”.
Legacy
Due to Rush’s involvement in the abolitionist movement, the London-based Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade reached out to him for “accounts of mental improvement” of Black people so they could counter those who said they were inferior. Along with information about Fuller, Rush shared the story of a Black doctor he knew personally, James Derham.
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Testimony of Fuller’s abilities spread beyond American periodicals. French revolutionaries Jacques Pierre Brissot and Henri Grégoire wrote of Fuller as an example of why Black people should have equal rights.
Brissot stated, “These instances prove, without a doubt that the capacity of the negroes may be extended to anything; that they have only need of instruction and liberty”.
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