Thomas Fuller 1710-1790

Was an African,shipped to America as a slave in 1724. He had remarkable powers,of calculation, and later in his life was discovered by antislavery campaigners who used him as a demonstration that blacks are not mentally 

inferior to whites.

The place of his birth appears to have been between present day Liberia and Benin.Known as negro Tom, he was described as a very black man he lived in Virginia after being brought to the United States as a slave.Later in life he was 

property of Elixabeth Coxe Alexandria.

He was known as the Virginia Calculator,was stolen from his native Africa at the age of  fourteen and sold to a planter. When Thomas was about seventy two gentlemen, from Pennsylvania,William & Samuel Coates, men of  probity and 

respectable powers in arithmetic sent for him and had their curiosity sufficiently 

gratified by the answers which he gave to the following questions: First,Upon being asked how many seconds there were in a year and a half,he answered in 

about two minutes, 47 304 000. Second: On being asked how many seconds a man has lived who is 70 years old, 17 days and 12 hours old, he answered in a minute 

and half 2 210 500 800. One of the gentlemen who employed himself  with his pen

in making these calculations told him he was wrong,and the sum was not so great as he said- upon which the old man hastily replied: stop,master, you fotget the leap year. On adding the amount of the seconds of the leap years the amount of the whole in both their sums agreed exactly.

Another question was asked and satisfactorily answered. Before two other gentlemen he gave the amount of nine figures multiplied by nine... Thomas 

died at the age of 80 years old, having never learned to read or write,in spite 

of his extraoridinary power of calculation.

He did not learn to calculate while in the United States.