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List of slave owners

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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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.

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A

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B

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1856 lithograph of Preston Brooks attacking Charles Sumner, who had spoken against slavery two days earlier
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C

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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.
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D

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A slave cabin on the grounds of the home of Sam Davis in Smyrna, Tennessee
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E

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F

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Senator Rebecca Latimer Felton, the last U.S. Congressmember to have enslaved people
  • Antônio Pires Ferreira (1799–1877), a powerful farmer responsible for building Engenho Paraíso, the most important engenho from Maranhão.[122]
  • Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), American statesman and philosopher, who owned as many as seven slaves before becoming a "cautious abolitionist".[123]
  • Eliza Fenwick (1767–1840), British author, she used slave labor in her Barbados schoolhouse.[124]
  • Fernando Pires Ferreira (1842–1907), the father of ophthalmology in Brazil. After his father died in 1877, he inherited part of property, including the slaves. He wasn't interested in farming, and his property was passed to his relatives that lived in Piauí and Maranhão, instead of his children.[125]
  • Firmino Pires Ferreira (1848–1930), important Brazilian military and politician during the Old Republic. When he got married in 1875, "the party lasted two whole days, with the guests and slaves dancing, singing, drinking and eating".[126]
  • Isaac Franklin (1789–1846), owner of more than 600 slaves, partner in the largest U.S. slave trading firm Franklin and Armfield, and rapist.[127]
  • Joaquim Pires Ferreira (born 1761), a merchant and a collaborator of the Pernambucan revolt. He had slaves.[128]
  • John Forsyth (1780–1841), congressman, senator, Secretary of State, and 33rd Governor of Georgia. He supported slavery and was a slaveholder.[129]
  • José Pires Ferreira (born 1757), a merchant, he eventually inherited lands from his father and the parents of his wife and became a slave owner.[130]
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G

  • 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.[135]
  • James Garland ( 1791–1825), Virginian politician, planter, lawyer, and judge. By 1820, the Garland household included five free people and nine slaves.[citation needed]
  • 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.[136]
  • 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.[137][138]
  • 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.[139]
  • Antão Gonçalves (15th-century), Portuguese explorer and, in 1441, the first to enslave captive Africans and bring them to Portugal for sale.[140]
  • Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885), Union general and 18th President of the United States, who acquired slaves through his wife and father-in-law.[141] 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.[142]
  • 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.[143]
  • Curtis Grubb (c.1730–1789), Pennsylvania iron master and one of the state's largest enslavers at the time of U.S. independence.[144]
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H

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I

  • Ibn Battuta (1304 – c.1368), Muslim Berber Moroccan scholar and explorer. He enslaved girls and women in his harem.[169]
  • Emina Ilhamy (1858–1931), Egyptian princess, she gifted enslaved concubines to her son and owned slaves until the First World War.[170]

J

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In 1769 Thomas Jefferson placed an advertisement in the Virginia Gazette offering a reward for an escaped slave named Sandy.
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K

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L

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Toussaint Louverture was born into slavery, then owned slaves, and eventually liberated Haiti's slaves.

M

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General Marion Inviting a British Officer to Share His Meal (c.1835); his slave Oscar Marion kneels at the left of the group.
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Mansa Musa, accompanied by thousands of slaves, traveling to Mecca

N

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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".
  • Cosmana Navarra (c.1600–1687), Maltese noblewoman and art patron who also owned slaves.[67]
  • John Newton (1725–1807), British slave trader and later abolitionist.[238]
  • Nicias (c.470–413 BCE), Athenian politician and general. Plutarch recorded that he enslaved more than 1,000 people in his silver mines.[239]
  • Nikarete of Corinth (fl.5th and 4th century BC), she bought young girls from the Corinthian slave market and trained them as hetaera.[240]

O

  • 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.[241]
  • James Owen (1784–1865), American politician, planter, major-general and businessman, he owned the enslaved scholar Omar ibn Said.[242]

P

Q

R

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"The slaves of Buenos Aires praising their noble liberator." In fact, de Rosas revived the slave trade and owned slaves himself.

S

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1895 illustration depicting the c.1655 slave-auction organized by Peter Stuyvesant

T

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Robert Toombs (left) and one of the men he enslaved, Bishop Wesley John Gaines (right)

U

V

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Hugues Loubenx de Verdalle

W

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Life of George Washington: The Farmer (1851); his slaves harvest grain behind him.

Y

  • 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.[350]
  • 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".[351]
  • 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.[352]

Z

See also

References

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