The following is a list of notable people who owned other people as slaves, where there is a consensus of historical evidence of slave ownership, in alphabetical order by last name.
Adelicia Acklen (1817–1887), at one time the wealthiest woman in Tennessee, she inherited 750 enslaved people from her husband, Isaac Franklin.[4]
Stair Agnew (1757–1821), land owner, judge and political figure in New Brunswick, he enslaved people and participated in court cases testing the legality of slavery in the colony.[5]
Isaac Allen (1741–1806), New Brunswick judge, he dissented in an unsuccessful 1799 case challenging slavery (R v Jones), freeing his own slaves a short time later.[8]
John James Audubon (1785–1851), American naturalist. He objected to Britain's abolition of slavery in the Caribbean and bought and sold enslaved people himself.[14]
William Barksdale (1821–1863), U.S. Representative and white supremacist, he enslaved 36 people by 1860 and vigorously defended the institution of slavery.[25]
George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher who purchased several enslaved Africans to work on his plantation in Rhode Island.[36]
John M. Berrien (1781–1856), U.S. Senator from Georgia who argued that slavery "lay at the foundation of the Constitution" and that slaves "constitute the very foundation of your union".[37]
Antoine Bestel (1766–1852), lawyer from France who migrated to Mauritius where he owned at least 122 slaves.[38][39]
James G. Birney (1792–1857), an attorney and planter who freed his slaves and became an abolitionist.[40]
William Brattle (1706–1776), American politician and military officer, he was identified as a slave owner in a 2022 Harvard investigation into that university's legacy of slavery.[48]
Simone Brocard (fl.1784), a "free colored" woman of Saint-Domingue, a slave trader, and one of the wealthiest women of that French colony.[50]
Preston Brooks (1819–1857), veteran of the Mexican–American War and U.S. Congressman from South Carolina. A slaveholder, he beat abolitionist senator Charles Sumner nearly to death after the latter spoke against slavery in the Senate.[51]
James Brown (1766–1835), U.S. Minister to France, U.S. Senator, and sugarcane planter, some of whose slaves were involved in the 1811 German Coast uprising in what is now Louisiana.[52]
Chang and Eng Bunker (1811–1874), Siamese twins who became successful entertainers in the United States.[53]
John Burbidge (c.1718–1812), Nova Scotia soldier, land owner, judge and politician, he freed his slaves in 1790.[54]
Pierce Butler (1744–1822), U.S. Founding Father and plantation owner.[55]
The reputation of Edward Colston, long praised for philanthropy, has been reassessed as his connections to slave-trading were uncovered. Protestors toppled his statue in Bristol in 2020.
Julius Caesar (100–44 BCE), Roman dictator, he once sold the entire population of Atuatuci into slavery.[57] He personally owned slaves, some of whom he freed, such as Julius Zoilos.[58]
Paul C. Cameron (1808–1891), North Carolina slaveholder and North Carolina Supreme Court justice. By about 1860, he owned 30,000 acres of land and 1,900 slaves.[61]
Charles Carroll (1737–1832), signer of Declaration of Independence, enslaved approximately 300 people on his estate in Maryland.[63]
Landon Carter (1710–1778), Virginia planter who enslaved as many as 500 people by the end of his life.[64]
Robert "King" Carter (1663–1732), Virginia landowner and acting governor of Virginia. He left 3000 enslaved people to his heirs.[65]
Samuel A. Cartwright (1793–1863), American physician who invented the pseudoscientific diagnosis of drapetomania to explain the desire for freedom among enslaved Africans.[66][67]
Lewis Cass (1782–1866), American politician prominent in Michigan, was known to have owned at least one slave.[68]
Girolamo Cassar (c.1520 – c.1592), Maltese architect who owned at least two slaves.[69]
Cato the Elder (234–149 BCE), Roman statesman. Plutarch reported that he owned many slaves, purchasing the youngest captives of war.[70]
Carlos Manuel de Céspedes (1819–1874), a Cuban revolutionary, he emancipated his own slaves at the beginning of the Ten Years' War, but only advocated for gradual abolition throughout Cuba.[71]
Auguste Chouteau (c.1750–1829), co-founder of the city of St. Louis, at the time of his death he owned 36 enslaved people.[72]
Sam Davis (1842–1863), Confederate soldier executed by Union forces. He came from a family of slave owners and, as a child, was gifted an enslaved person.[90]
James De Lancey (1703–1760), judge and politician in colonial New York. His own slave, Othello, was accused of attending a meeting related to the Conspiracy of 1741 and De Lancey sentenced him and other suspected enslaved conspirators to death.[92]
James De Lancey (1746–1804), colonial American and leader of a loyalist brigade. When he fled to Nova Scotia after the War of Independence, he took six enslaved people with him.[93]
Stephen A. Douglas (1813–1861), U.S. Senator from Illinois and 1860 U.S. Democratic presidential candidate. He inherited a Mississippi plantation and 100 slaves from his father-in-law.[103] Historians continue to debate whether he opposed slavery.[104]
Richard Duncan (died 1819), politician in Upper Canada and slave owner.[16]
Robley Dunglison (1798–1869), English-American physician, medical educator and author—purchased slaves from Thomas Jefferson while teaching at University of Virginia.[106]
Matthew Elliott (c.1739–1814), a Loyalist, he captured slaves during the American Revolution and kept them on his farm in Upper Canada in defiance of government pressure.[110]
George Ellis (1753–1815), English antiquary, poet and Member of Parliament, he enslaved people on his sugar plantations in Jamaica.[111]
William Ellison (1790–1861), an African-American slave and later a slave owner.[112]
Erchinoald (died 658), mayor of the palace of Neustria (in present-day France). He introduced his slave, Balthild, to Clovis II who made her his wife and queen consort.[116]
Rebecca Latimer Felton (1835–1930), suffragist, white supremacist, and Senator for Georgia, she was the last member of the U.S. Congress to have been a slave owner.[119]
Eliza Fenwick (1767–1840), British author, she used slave labor in her Barbados schoolhouse.[120]
Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), American statesman and philosopher, who owned as many as seven slaves before becoming a "cautious abolitionist".[121]
John Forsyth (1780–1841), congressman, senator, Secretary of State, and 33rd Governor of Georgia. He supported slavery and was a slaveholder.[124]
Ana Gallum (or Nansi Wiggins; fl.1811), was an African Senegalese slave who was freed and married the white Florida planter Don Joseph "Job" Wiggins, in 1801 succeeding in having his will, leaving her his plantation and slaves, recognized as legal.[125]
Horatio Gates (1727–1806), American general during the American Revolutionary War. Seven years later, he sold his plantation, freed his slaves, and moved north to New York.[126]
Sir John Gladstone (1764–1851), British politician, owner of plantations in Jamaica and Guyana, and recipient of the single largest payment from the Slave Compensation Commission.[127][128]
Estêvão Gomes (c.1483–1538), Portuguese explorer, in 1525 he kidnapped at least 58 indigenous people from what is now Maine or Nova Scotia, taking them to Spain where he attempted to sell them as slaves.[129]
Antão Gonçalves (15th-century), Portuguese explorer and, in 1441, the first to enslave captive Africans and bring them to Portugal for sale.[130]
Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885), Union general and 18th President of the United States, who acquired slaves through his wife and father-in-law.[131] On March 29, 1859, Grant freed his slave William Jones, making Jones the last person to have been enslaved by a person who later served as U.S. president.[132]
Robert Isaac Dey Gray (c.1772–1804), Canadian politician and slave owner. In 1798 he voted against a proposal to expand slavery in Upper Canada.[133]
Curtis Grubb (c.1730–1789), Pennsylvania iron master and one of the state's largest enslavers at the time of U.S. independence.[134]
James Henry Hammond (1807–1864), U.S. Senator and South Carolina governor, defender of slavery, and owner of more than 300 slaves.[135]
Wade Hampton I (c.1752 – 1835), American general, Congressman, and planter. One of the largest slave-holders in the country, he was alleged to have conducted experiments on the people he enslaved.[136][137]
Wade Hampton II (1791–1858), American soldier and planter with land holdings in three states. He held a total of 335 slaves in Mississippi by 1860.[138]
Wade Hampton III (1818–1902), U.S. Senator, governor of South Carolina, Confederate lieutenant general, planter, slave owner, white supremacist, and proponent of the Lost Cause.[139]
John Hancock (1737–1793), American statesman. He inherited several household slaves who were eventually freed through the terms of his uncle's will; there is no evidence that he ever bought or sold slaves himself.[140]
Benjamin Harrison IV (1693–1745), American planter and politician. Upon his death his each of his ten surviving children inherited slaves from his estate.[141]
Benjamin Harrison V (1726–1791), American politician, United States Declaration of Independence signatory, he inherited a plantation and the people enslaved upon it from his father.[142]
Patrick Henry (1736–1799), American statesman and orator. He wrote in 1773, "I am the master of slaves of my own purchase. I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living here without them. I will not, I cannot justify it."[144]
Thomas Heyward Jr. (1746–1809), South Carolina judge, planter, and signer of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. He impregnated at least one of the women he enslaved, making him the grandfather of Thomas E. Miller, one of only five African Americans elected to Congress from the South in the 1890s.[145]
George Hibbert (1757–1837), English merchant, politician, and ship-owner. A leading member of the pro-slavery lobby, he was awarded £16,000 in compensation after Britain abolished slavery.[146]
Thomas Hibbert (1710–1780), English merchant, he became rich from slave labor on his Jamaican plantations.[147]
Eufrosina Hinard (born 1777), a free black woman in New Orleans, she owned slaves and leased them to others.[148]
Thomas C. Hindman (1828–1868), American politician and Confederate general. During the Civil War he rented two enslaved families to the Medical Director of the Army of Tennessee.[149]
Abijah Hunt (1762–1811), planter and merchant in the Natchez District in Mississippi. In 1808, he sold one of his plantations, complete with 60 or 61 slaves.[155]
Peter Jefferson (1708–1757), father of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson.[163] In his last will and testament he set free the slaves who remained his after paying Monticello's debts.
William King (1812–1895), he enslaved as many as 15 people before becoming an abolitionist and establishing the Elgin settlement, a community of former slaves in southwestern Ontario.[167]
Anna Kingsley (1793–1870), African-born, when she was thirteen Zephaniah Kingsley bought her to be his wife; she later owned slaves in her own right.[168]
Henry Laurens (1724–1792), 5th President of the Continental Congress, his company, Austin and Laurens, was the largest slave-trader in North America.[173]
Delphine LaLaurie (1787–1849), New Orleans socialite and serial killer, infamous for torturing and murdering slaves in her household.[174]
John Lamont (1782–1850), Scottish emigrant who enslaved people on his Trinidad sugar plantations.[175]
Marie Laveau (1801–1881), Louisiana Voodoo practitioner, she enslaved at least seven people.[176]
William Ballard Lenoir (1775–1852), mill-owner and Tennessee politician, he used both paid and forced labor in his mills.[181]
Francis Lieber (1800–1872), German-American jurist and political philosopher who authored the Lieber Code during the American Civil War. He enslaved people in South Carolina before he moved north to New York.[182][183]
Edward Lloyd (1779–1834), American politician from Maryland, in 1832 owned 468 people, including abolitionist Frederick Douglass (then known as Frederick Bailey).[184]
Edward Long (1734–1813), English colonial administrator and planter in Jamaica. He was a slave-owner and polemic defender of slavery.[185]
George Long (1800–1879), English classical scholar. Long acquired a slave named Jacob while teaching at the University of Virginia and brought him back to England, where he was listed in the census as a manservant.[186]
David Lynd (c.1745–1802), seigneur and politician in Lower Canada. He enslaved at least two people and voted against abolition in 1793.[189]
General Marion Inviting a British Officer to Share His Meal (c.1835); his slave Oscar Marion kneels at the left of the group.Mansa Musa, accompanied by thousands of slaves, traveling to Mecca
William Mahone (1826–1895), railroad builder, Confederate general and U.S. Senator from Virginia. He had owned slaves but joined the bi-racial Readjuster Party after the Civil War.[196]
Muhammad (c.570–632), Arab religious, social, and political leader and founder of Islam; he bought, sold, captured, and owned enslaved people and established rules to regulate and restrict slavery.[215]
John Newton captained slave ships and was enslaved himself in Sierra Leone. He became an abolitionist, calling the African slave trade "this stain of our National character".
John Newton (1725–1807), British slave trader and later abolitionist.[219]
Nicias (c.470–413 BCE), Athenian politician and general. Plutarch recorded that he enslaved more than 1,000 people in his silver mines.[220]
Nikarete of Corinth (fl.5th and 4th century BC), she bought young girls from the Corinthian slave market and trained them as hetaera.[221]
Susannah Ostrehan (died 1809), Barbadian businesswoman, herself a freed slave, she bought some slaves (including her own family) in order to free them, but kept others to labor on her properties.[222]
James Owen (1784–1865), American politician, planter, major-general and businessman, he owned the enslaved scholar Omar ibn Said.[223]
John Pinney (1740–1818), a British merchant, he inherited a sugar plantation on Nevis at age 22 and bought dozens of enslaved people to work it.[233][234]
Rachael Pringle Polgreen (1753–1791), Afro-Barbadian hotelier and brothel owner. Emancipated herself, she had a violent temper and abused her own slaves.[242]
Daniel Robertson (1733–1810), British Army officer in North America, manumitted Pierre Bonga and his parents at Mackinac Island, as well as Hilaire Lamour in Montreal, but insisted that Lamour pay for the release of his wife Catherine in 1787.[248]
Hernando de Soto (c.1500–1542), explorer and conquistador, he enslaved many of the indigenous people he encountered in North America. At the time of his death he owned four enslaved people.[265]
Stephen the Great (c.1430s–1504), Moldavian prince, he consolidated his country's practice of slavery, including the notion that different laws applied to slaves, reportedly enslaving as many as 17,000 Roma during his invasion of Wallachia.[266]
Charles Stewart (fl.1740s–1770s), Scottish-American customs officer who enslaved James Somerset. In 1772, while in England, Somerset successfully sued for his freedom. The judgment in Somerset v Stewart effectively ended slavery in Britain.[268]
J. E. B. Stuart (1833–1864), Confederate general. He and his wife enslaved two people.[269]
Peter Stuyvesant (c.1592–1672), director-general of New Netherland, he organized Manhattan's first slave-auction and enslaved 40 African people himself.[271]
Thomas Sumter (1734–1832), South Carolina planter and general, in the Revolutionary War he gifted slaves to new recruits as an incentive to enlist.[272]
John Tayloe II (1721–1779), Virginia planter and politician, he enslaved approximately 250 people.[278]
George Taylor (c.1716–1781), Pennsylvania ironmaster and signer of the Declaration of Independence, he enslaved two men who, upon his death, were sold to settle his debts.[279]
Life of George Washington: The Farmer (1851); his slaves harvest grain behind him.
Walkara (ca. 1805-1855), leader in the Timpanogos Native American group in what is now Utah, enslaved other Native Americans (typically Paiute or Goshute) many of whom he traded to California or New Mexico.[298][299][300]
Martha Washington (1731–1802), 1st U.S. First Lady, inherited slaves upon the death of her first husband and later gave slaves to her grandchildren as wedding gifts.[306]
Richard Wenman (c.1712–1781). Nova Scotia politician and brewer. One of his slaves, Cato, attempted to escape in 1778.[311]
John H. Wheeler (1806–1882), U.S. Cabinet official and North Carolina planter. In separate, well-publicized incidents, two women he enslaved, Jane Johnson and Hannah Bond, escaped from him and both gained their freedom.[312][313]
William Whipple (1730–1785), American general and politician, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and slave trader.[314]
George Whitefield (1714–1770), English Methodist preacher who successfully campaigned to legalize slavery in Georgia.[315]
James Matthew Whyte (c.1788–1843), Canadian banker, he enslaved at least a dozen people on a plantation in Jamaica.[316]
John Witherspoon (1723–1794), Scottish-American Presbyterian minister, Founding Father of the United States, president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). At the time of his death, he owned "two slaves...valued at a hundred dollars each".[318]
Joseph Wragg (1698–1751), British-American merchant and politician. He and his partner Benjamin Savage were among the first colonial merchants and ship owners to specialize in the slave trade.[320]
Wynflaed (died c.950/960), an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman, she bequeathed a male cook named Aelfsige to her granddaughter Eadgifu.[321][322]
George Wythe (1726–1807), American legal scholar, U.S. Declaration of Independence signatory. He freed his slaves late in his life.[323]
William Lowndes Yancey (1814–1863), American secessionist leader, he was gifted 36 people as a dowry and established a plantation where he forced them to work.[324]
Marie-Marguerite d'Youville (1701–1771), the first person born in Canada to be declared a saint and "one of Montreal's more prominent slaveholders".[325]
David Levy Yulee (1810–1886), American politician and attorney, he forced enslaved people to work his Florida sugarcane plantation and later to build a railroad.[326]
Juan de Zaldívar (1514–1570), Spanish official and explorer, he enslaved many people on his farms and mines in New Spain.[327]
Nicholas DeAntonis (11 March 2021). "Joe Biden is making clear that Saudi human rights violations won't be ignored". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 18 March 2021. Retrieved 30 September 2023. During the four-hour meeting between the President and the King, where the two discussed oil, Palestinian territories and their future partnership, "7-foot tall Nubian slaves" could be found on the opposite deck of the destroyer
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