List of slave owners

{{See also|Category:Slave owners|Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery}}

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.

A

Adelicia Acklen (1817–1887), at one time the wealthiest woman in Tennessee, she inherited 750 enslaved people from her husband, Isaac Franklin.James A. Hoobler, Sarah Hunter Marks, Nashville: From the Collection of Carl and Otto Giers, Arcadia Publishing, 2000, [https://books.google.com/books?id=cD_96hiqBJMC&pg=PA36 p. 36]
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.{{Cite web|url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/agnew_stair_6E.html|title=Biography – Agnew, Stair – Volume VI (1821–1835) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography|website=www.biographi.ca}}
William Aiken (1779–1831), founder and president of the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company, enslaved hundreds on his rice plantation.{{cite magazine |url=https://charlestonmag.com/features/living_history |title=Living History |date=February 2012 |first=Melissa |last=Bigner |magazine=Charleston Magazine}}
William Aiken Jr. (1806–1887), 61st Governor of South Carolina, state legislator and member of the U.S. House of Representatives, recorded in the 1850 census as enslaving 878 people.{{Cite journal|last=Buck|first=Susan L.|date=2005|title=Paint Discoveries in the Aiken-Rhett House Kitchen and Slave Quarters|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3514348|journal=Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture|volume=10|pages=185–198|jstor=3514348|issn=0887-9885}}
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.{{cite dcb |first=W.A. |last=Spray |title=Jones, Caleb |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/jones_caleb_5E.html}}
Diego de Almagro (1475–1538), Spanish conquistador active in South America who owned Malgarida before freeing her.Alvarez Gómez, Oriel. [https://www.bibliotecanacionaldigital.gob.cl/colecciones/BND/00/RC/RC0124660.pdf Sor Imelda y la primera mujer foránea que vino a Chile]
Joseph R. Anderson (1813–1892), civil engineer, he enslaved hundreds to operate his Tredegar Iron Works.{{cite web|url=http://srnels.people.wm.edu/antrichf95/bumgard.html|title=Tredegar Iron Works: A Synecdoche for Industrialized Antebellum Richmond|author=Bumgardner, Sarah|date=November 29, 1995|work=Antebellum Richmond|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080908111324/http://srnels.people.wm.edu/antrichf95/bumgard.html|archive-date=September 8, 2008}}
John Armfield (1797–1871), Virginia co-founder of "the largest slave trading firm" in the United States, and a rapist.{{cite journal|last1=Gudmestad|first1=Robert H.|title=The Troubled Legacy of Isaac Franklin: The Enterprise of Slave Trading|journal=Tennessee Historical Quarterly|date=Fall 2003|volume=62|issue=3|pages=193–217|jstor=42627764}}{{cite news

|first=Hannah

|last=Natanson

|title= They were once America's cruelest, richest slave traders. Why does no one know their names?|newspaper=Washington Post

|date= 14 Sep 2019

|url= https://beta.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/09/14/they-were-once-americas-cruelest-richest-slave-traders-why-does-no-one-know-their-names/

|accessdate=January 26, 2022}} The Armfield klan now owns land in Hardin County Texas, home of the KKK.

David Rice Atchison (1807–1883), U.S. Senator from Missouri, slave owner, prominent pro-slavery activist, and violent opponent of abolitionism.McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom, Penguin Books, 1990, {{ISBN|978-0140125184}} pp. 145–148
William Atherton (1742–1803), English owner of Jamaican sugar plantations.{{cite book|title=Encyclopedia of Jamaican heritage |first=Olive |last=Senior |publisher=Twin Guinep Publishers |year=2003 |isbn=976-8007141}}
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.{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/07/28/audubon-birds-enslaver-seattle-name-change/ |title=The largest Audubon group yet is changing its name, rebuking an enslaver |date=2022-07-28 |author1=Darryl Fears |newspaper=The Washington Post |place=Washington, D.C. |issn=0190-8286 |oclc=1330888409}}
Stephen F. Austin, American-born empresario and one of the founders of the Republic of Texas. He owned a few slaves and worked hard to protect and expand slavery in Texas.{{cite book|last=Cantrell|first=Gregg|title=Stephen F. Austin: Empresario of Texas|year=2001|pages=8–9|publisher=Yale University Press}}

B

File:Southern Chivalry.jpg attacking Charles Sumner, who had spoken against slavery two days earlier]]

Jacques Baby (1731–1789), French Canadian fur trader, slaveholder, and father of James Baby.{{cite book |title=Slavery and Freedom in Niagara |year=1993 |first1=Michael |last1=Power |first2=Nancy |last2=Butler |url=https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/230684538.pdf |publisher=The Niagara Historical Society |isbn=1895258057 |page=20}}
James Baby (1763–1833), prominent landowner, slaveholder, and official in Upper Canada.{{cite news |url = http://www.uppercanadahistory.ca/lluc/lluc3.html |title= An act to prevent the further introduction of slaves| work = Upper Canada History| year = 2013| access-date = 2019-06-13}}

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (1971–2019), self-proclaimed Caliph of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), he kept several sex slaves.{{cite news |title=Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, extremist leader of Islamic State, dies at 48 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-islamic-states-terrorist-in-chief-dies-at-48/2019/10/27/0d004abc-663d-11e7-8eb5-cbccc2e7bfbf_story.html |access-date=28 October 2019 |last1=Warrick|first1=Joby |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=27 October 2019 |quote=Later, former hostages would reveal that Mr. Baghdadi also kept a number of personal sex slaves during his years as the Islamic State's leader}}
Adriana Bake (1724–1787), wife of the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, her foster children freed her slaves after her death.{{Cite book|last=Zuiderweg|first=Adrienne|date=2014-01-13|chapter=Bake, Adriana Johanna (1724–1787)|title=Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland|chapter-url=http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vrouwenlexicon/lemmata/data/BakeAdriana|access-date=2021-10-23|language=nl|archive-date=4 March 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170304035730/http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vrouwenlexicon/lemmata/data/BakeAdriana|url-status=live}}
Vasco Núñez de Balboa (1475–1519), Spanish explorer and conquistador, he enslaved the indigenous people he encountered in Central America.{{cite web |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vasco-Nunez-de-Balboa |title=Vasco Núñez de Balboa |first=Benjamin |last=Keen |author1-link=Benjamin Keen |date=8 January 2021 |website=Encyclopaedia Britannica |access-date=19 May 2021}}
Emanoil Băleanu ({{circa|1793}}–1862), Wallachian politician, he enslaved Romani people on his estates.Elena D. Gheorghe, Gabriel Stegărescu, "Monografia comunei Bolintinul din Deal", in Sud. Revistă Editată de Asociația pentru Cultură și Tradiție Istorică Bolintineanu, Issues 1–2/2013, pp. 29–30 In 1856 he signed a letter protesting the abolition of slavery in Wallachia.Gheorghe Sion, Suvenire contimporane, p. 53. Bucharest: Editura Minerva, 1915. {{OCLC|7270251}}
Elizabeth Swain Bannister ({{circa|1785}}–1828), free woman of colour who owned 76 slaves in Berbice.{{cite web |author=|title=Elizabeth Swain Bannister |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146634512 |website=Legacies of British Slave-ownership |publisher=University College London |access-date=15 February 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200215155007/https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146634512 |archive-date=15 February 2020 |location=London|date=2020}}
Hayreddin Barbarossa (1478–1546), Ottoman corsair and admiral who enslaved the population of Corfu.{{cite web|url=http://www.corfu.gr/web/guest/visitor/history/2nd_enetokratia|title=Δήμος Κέρκυρας – Δεύτερη Ενετοκρατία|website=www.corfu.gr}}
William Barksdale (1821–1863), U.S. Representative and white supremacist, he enslaved 36 people by 1860 and vigorously defended the institution of slavery.{{cite encyclopedia |title=William Barksdale |encyclopedia=Mississippi Encyclopedia |first=James W. |last=McKee |date=13 April 2018 |access-date=7 December 2021 |publisher=Center for Study of Southern Culture |url=http://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/william-barksdale/}}
Alexander Barrow (1801–1846), U.S. Senator and Louisiana planter.{{Cite web|title=The Diary of Bennet H. Barrow, Louisiana Slaveowner|url=https://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/barrow.htm|access-date=2020-07-15|website=www.sjsu.edu}}
George Washington Barrow (1807–1866), Congressman and U.S. minister to Portugal, who purchased 112 enslaved people in Louisiana.{{Cite web|url=http://slaveryarchive.georgetown.edu/items/show/10|title=Bill of sale from the heirs of Jesse Batey to Washington Barrow, January 18, 1853 · Georgetown Slavery Archive|website=slaveryarchive.georgetown.edu|language=en-US|access-date=2018-02-02}}
Robert Ruffin Barrow (1798–1875), American plantation owner who owned more than 450 slaves and a dozen plantations.{{cite news |title=Death's Doings |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/326036090/?terms=%22Robert%2BR.%2BBarrow%22 |access-date=June 12, 2018 |work=New Orleans Republican |date=July 29, 1875|page=1|via=Newspapers.com|url-access=registration }}
William Beckford (1709–1770), politician and twice Lord Mayor of London. He inherited about 3,000 enslaved people from his brother Peter.{{citation|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/content/articles/2007/03/06/abolition_fonthill_abbey_feature.shtml|website=BBC|title=Big Spenders: The Beckford's and Slavery|year=2007|first1=Amy|last1=Frost}}
William Thomas Beckford (1760–1844), writer and collector. He inherited about 3,000 enslaved people from his father.
Benjamin Belcher (1743–1802), Nova Scotia politician and militia leader, he enslaved at least 7 people.{{cite dcb | first=Shirley B. |last=Elliott |title=Belcher, Benjamin |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/belcher_benjamin_5E.html}}
Zabeau Bellanton ({{floruit|1782}}), free woman of color and slave trader in Saint Domingue.Stewart R. King: [https://books.google.com/books?id=ESy9AQAAQBAJ&dq=zabeau+bellanton&pg=PA81 Blue Coat Or Powdered Wig: Free People of Color in Pre-revolutionary Saint Domingue]
Judah P. Benjamin (1811–1884), Secretary of State for the Confederate States of America, a U.S. Senator from Louisiana, and a vocal supporter of slavery.{{Cite journal|title=Judah Benjamin|jstor=29777899|last=Landman|first=Rowland H.|date=1951–1952|journal=Transactions (Jewish Historical Society of England)|volume=17|pages=161–170}}
Charles Bent (1799–1847), American trader and first Territorial Governor of New Mexico during the United States occupation of New Mexico during the Mexican-American War. Bent owned Charlotte and Dick Green. Charles's brother William freed the Greens after Dick fought with the posse that avenged Charles's assassination during the Taos Revolt. {{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wo8-AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA61 |title=Collections of the Kansas State Historical Society |date=1923 |publisher=Kansas State Historical Society |pages=61 }}
Thomas H. Benton (1782–1858), American senator from Missouri.{{Citation | title = The American Historical Review | jstor = 1842457 | last1 = Smith | first1 = Elbert B. | year = 1953 | volume = 58 | issue = 4 | pages = 795–807 | publisher = Oxford University Press, American Historical Association | doi = 10.2307/1842457 }}{{Citation | title = The Ozarks: Land and Life | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=FGZVCf4STBkC&pg=PA82 | access-date = 13 January 2013| isbn = 978-1610753029 | last1 = Rafferty | first1 = Milton D | year = 1980 }}
George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher who purchased several enslaved Africans to work on his plantation in Rhode Island.{{cite news |last1=Humphreys |first1=Joe |title=What to do about George Berkeley, Trinity figurehead and slave owner? |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/what-to-do-about-george-berkeley-trinity-figurehead-and-slave-owner-1.4277555 |access-date=19 January 2023 |newspaper=The Irish Times |date=18 June 2020}}
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".Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War and Reconstruction; by Allen C. Guelzo, May 18, 2012, kindle location 935
Antoine Bestel (1766–1852), lawyer from France who migrated to Mauritius where he owned at least 122 slaves.{{cite web |title=Mauritius 5132 Claim |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/claim/view/2120008314 |publisher=University College London (Dept. of History) Legacies of British Slavery |access-date=2021-07-15}}{{cite web |title=Mauritius 6950 Claim |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/claim/view/2120009781 |publisher=University College London (Dept. of History) Legacies of British Slavery |access-date=2021-07-15}}
James G. Birney (1792–1857), an attorney and planter who freed his slaves and became an abolitionist.{{cite encyclopedia|contribution=Birney, James Gillespie|doi=10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1500061|year=1999|title=American National Biography|publisher=Oxford University Press|url=https://www.anb.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-1500061|last1=Fladeland|first1=Betty|isbn=978-0-19-860669-7|access-date=January 20, 2024}}
James Blair ({{circa|1788}}–1841), British MP who owned sugar plantations in Demerara.{{Cite web |url=http://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/8234 |title=James Blair: Profile & Legacies Summary |website=Legacies of British Slave-ownership |publisher=UCL Department of History |year=2014 |access-date=27 June 2014}}
Simón Bolívar (1783–1830), wealthy slave owner who became a Latin American independence leader and eventually an abolitionist.{{Cite web|first= Jaime |last=Manrique|date=2006-03-26|title=Simon Bolivar's extreme makeover|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-mar-26-op-manrique26-story.html|access-date=2020-07-15|website=Los Angeles Times|language=en-US}}
Shadrach Bond (1773–1832), 1st Governor of Illinois, he enslaved people on his farm in Monroe County.{{cite news |url=https://www.leaderunion.com/2010/07/13/the-story-of-illinois-first-governor/ |title=The story of Illinois' first governor |first= Linda |last=Hanabarger |date=13 July 2010 |newspaper=The Leader-Union |access-date=14 July 2020}}
Joseph Boucher de Niverville (1715–1804), military officer in New France, he enslaved a Cree woman named Marie.{{cite dcb |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio.php?BioId=35641 |title=Marie |first=André |last=Coté}}
James Bowie ({{circa|1796}}–1836), namesake of the Bowie knife, soldier at the Alamo, and slave trader.{{cite book |last=Hopewell|first=Clifford|title=James Bowie Texas Fighting Man: A Biography|publisher=Eakin Press|location=Austin, TX|isbn=0890158819|year=1994|page=11}}
Benjamin Boyd (1801–1851), Scottish entrepreneur and slave trader thought to be Australia's first "blackbirder".{{cite news |url=https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/boydtown-no-more-rebranding-for-australian-village-named-after-scottish-slave-trader/ |title=The first 'blackbirder:' Rebranding for Australian village named after Scottish slave trader |newspaper=The Sunday Post |first=Krissy |last=Storrar |date=4 April 2021 |access-date=24 October 2021}}
Joseph Brant (1747-1803), Mohawk military and political leader.https://www.archives.gov.on.ca/en/explore/online/slavery/sophia_pooley.aspx "Sophia Burthen Pooley: Part of the Family?", Ontario Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery website
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.{{Cite news|first=Anemona|last=Hartocollis|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/26/us/harvard-slavery-redress-fund.html|title=Harvard Details Its Ties to Slavery and Its Plans for Redress|work=The New York Times|date=April 26, 2022|access-date=April 30, 2022}}
John C. Breckinridge (1821–1875), 14th Vice President of the United States and Confederate Secretary of War. He enslaved people until at least 1857.{{cite book |last=Klotter |first=James C. |date=1986 |author-link=James C. Klotter |title=The Breckinridges of Kentucky |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VZKhxqplgf0C |location=Lexington |publisher=The University Press of Kentucky |isbn=0813191653 |page=113}}
Simone Brocard ({{floruit|1784}}), a "free colored" woman of Saint-Domingue, a slave trader, and one of the wealthiest women of that French colony.{{cite book|first1=David Barry |last1=Gaspar|first2=Darlene Clark |last2=Hine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=td2yIa7X6H4C&pg=PA291 |title=More Than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas|isbn=978-0253210432|publisher=Indiana University Press|date=1996|page=291}}
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.{{cite web |url=https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/charles-sumner-and-preston-brooks |title=Charles Sumner and Preston Brooks |first=Stephen |last=Puleo |publisher=Bill of Rights Institute |access-date=20 May 2021}}
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.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=plcuEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT164 |pages=164–165 |title=America's Forgotten Wars: From Lord Dunmore to the Philippines |first=Ian |last=Hernon |year=2021 |publisher=Amberley Publishing |isbn=978-1445695310}}
Chang and Eng Bunker (1811–1874), Siamese twins who became successful entertainers in the United States.{{citation|last=Orser|first=Joseph Andrew|title=The Lives of Chang & Eng: Siam's Twins in Nineteenth-Century America|year=2014|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|isbn=978-1469618302|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aexwBAAAQBAJ|page=84}}
John Burbidge ({{circa|1718}}–1812), Nova Scotia soldier, land owner, judge and politician, he freed his slaves in 1790.{{cite dcb |first=Allan C. |last=Dunlop |title=Burbridge, John |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/burbidge_john_5E.html}}
Pierce Butler (1744–1822), U.S. Founding Father and plantation owner.{{Cite web|url=http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/butler-family|title=Butler Family|website=New Georgia Encyclopedia|access-date=2016-11-19}}
William Orlando Butler (1791–1880), American general and politician, he advocated for gradual emancipation and enslaved people himself.{{cite book |last=Matthews |first=Gary R. |date=2014 |title=More American Than Southern: Kentucky, Slavery, and the War for an American Ideology, 1828–1861|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qdsUBQAAQBAJ&q=%22william+o+butler%22+%22gradual+emancipation%22&pg=PA129 |location=Knoxville |publisher=University of Tennessee Press |page=129 |isbn=978-1621901181 }}

C

File:Edward Colston - empty pedestal.jpg, 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.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ovvgg3EyTyQC&pg=PA55 |title=Slavery in the Roman World |series=Cambridge Introduction to Roman Civilization |issn=1755-6058 |first=Sandra Rae |last=Joshel |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0521535014 |page=55}} He personally owned slaves, some of whom he freed, such as Julius Zoilos.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=twM7CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT116 |pages=116–117 |title=Lives of the Romans |author-first1=Joanne |author-last1=Berry |author-first2=Philip |author-last2=Matyszak |publisher=Thames & Hudson |year=2008 |isbn=978-0500771709}}
Charles Caldwell (1772–1853), American physician who started what is now the University of Louisville School of Medicine. He defended slavery and even owned house slaves himself.{{cite journal |jstor=230972 |title=The Anthropology of Charles Caldwell, M.D. |first=Paul |last=Erickson |journal=Isis |volume=72 |number=2 |date=June 1981 |pages=252–256 |doi=10.1086/352721 |s2cid=145124720 }}
John C. Calhoun (1782–1850), 7th Vice President of the United States, owned slaves and asserted that slavery was a "positive good" rather than a "necessary evil".{{cite web|last=Wilson|first=Clyde N.|date=June 26, 2014|title=John C. Calhoun and Slavery as a 'Positive Good': What He Said|url=https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/clyde-wilson-library/john-c-calhoun-and-slavery-as-a-positive-good-what-he-said/|access-date=June 6, 2016|publisher=The Abbeville Institute}}
Meredith Calhoun (1805–1869), Louisiana planter, merchant, slavetrader, and journalist.{{Cite book|last=Keith|first=Leeanna|title=The Colfax Massacre: The Untold Story of Black Power, White Terror, & The Death of Reconstruction|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2008|location=Oxford, UK|pages=5–20}} There have been reports dating to the 19th century that author Harriet Beecher Stowe based the character of Simon Legree in her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) on Calhoun."Reconstructing Reconstruction" by Eric Foner, The Washington Post, March 30, 2008, Page E03.{{cite news|url=http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/articles/n2ar19dvt.html|author=J. E. Dunn|title=About Uncle Tom's Cabin: A Louisianian Says Meredith Calhoun Was Not a Model for Legree|date= August 31, 1896|newspaper=The Washington Post|access-date=December 23, 2010}}
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.{{Cite news |last=Humanities |first=National Endowment for the |date=1891-01-18 |title=The news and observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1880-1893, January 18, 1891, Image 1 |url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024516/1891-01-18/ed-1/seq-1/ |access-date=2023-08-16 |issn=2769-0806}}
William Capell, 4th Earl of Essex (1732–1799), he enslaved George Edward Doney as a servant.{{cite news|title=Watford's slavery past discovered |url=http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/news/1281845.watfords_slavery_past_discovered/ |accessdate=15 December 2016 |publisher=Watford Observer |date=23 March 2007}}
Caravaggio (1571–1610), Italian artist and Hospitaller knight, who while in Malta was gifted slaves by Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt in recognition for his work as a painter.
Charles Carroll (1737–1832), signer of Declaration of Independence, enslaved approximately 300 people on his estate in Maryland.{{cite book|last=Dolan|first=Jay P.|title=The American Catholic Experience: A History from Colonial Times to the Present|url=https://archive.org/details/americancatholic00dola|url-access=registration|year=1985|publisher=Doubleday|isbn=978-0385152068|page=[https://archive.org/details/americancatholic00dola/page/86 86]}}
Landon Carter (1710–1778), Virginia planter who enslaved as many as 500 people by the end of his life.Bontemps, Alex (2001). The Punished Self: Surviving Slavery in the Colonial South, p. 30. Cornell University Press. {{ISBN|0801435218}}.
Robert "King" Carter (1663–1732), Virginia landowner and acting governor of Virginia. He left 3000 enslaved people to his heirs.{{cite book |title=A Genealogy of the Known Descendants of Robert Carter of Corotoman |year=1982 |first=Florence Tyler |last=Carlton}}
Samuel A. Cartwright (1793–1863), American physician who invented the pseudoscientific diagnosis of drapetomania to explain the desire for freedom among enslaved Africans.{{cite book|last=White|first=Kevin|title=An introduction to the sociology of health and illness|year=2002|publisher=Sage|isbn=0761964002|pages=41, 42|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5bHxQBNWGHMC&pg=PA41}}{{cite web |url=https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2005/november.htm |title=Question of the Month: Drapetomania |access-date=11 January 2021 |author=Pilgrim, David |date=November 2005 |publisher=Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia}}
Lewis Cass (1782–1866), American politician prominent in Michigan, was known to have owned at least one slave.{{cite book |last=Klunder |first=Willard Carl |date=1996 |title=Lewis Cass and the Politics of Moderation |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XlQHi_dJyRUC&pg=PA47 |location=Kent, OH |publisher=Kent State University Press |pages=46–47 |isbn=978-0-8733-8536-7 |via=Google Books}}
Girolamo Cassar ({{circa|1520}} – {{circa|1592}}), Maltese architect who owned at least two slaves.{{cite journal|last1=Mangion|first1=Giovanni|title=Girolamo Cassar Architetto maltese del cinquecento|journal=Melita Historica|date=1973|volume=6|issue=2|pages=192–200|url=http://melitensiawth.com/incoming/Index/Melita%20Historica/MH.06(1972-75)/MH.6(1972)2/orig07.pdf|publisher=Malta Historical Society|language=it|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160416133159/http://melitensiawth.com/incoming/Index/Melita%20Historica/MH.06%281972-75%29/MH.6%281972%292/orig07.pdf|archive-date=16 April 2016|url-status=dead}}
Cato the Elder (234–149 BCE), Roman statesman. Plutarch reported that he owned many slaves, purchasing the youngest captives of war.{{cite book |title=Plutarch's Lives of Illustrious Men |volume=1 |translator-first1=John |translator-last1=Langhorne |translator-first2=William |translator-last2=Langhorne |location=London |publisher=Henry G. Bohn |year=1853 |page=389 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8jIZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA389}}
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.{{cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hbATBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA79 |pages=79–80 |title=The Modern Caribbean |isbn=978-1469617329 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |editor1-first=Colin A. |editor1-last=Palmer |editor2-first=Franklin W. |editor2-last=Knight |chapter=Labor and Society |first=Francisco A. |last=Scarano |year=2014}}
Auguste Chouteau ({{circa|1750}}–1829), co-founder of the city of St. Louis, at the time of his death he owned 36 enslaved people.{{Cite web|url=http://www.nps.gov/archive/jeff/lewisclark2/Circa1804/StLouis/blockinfo/Block34AAChouteauSr.htm|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100422001805/http://www.nps.gov/archive/jeff/lewisclark2/Circa1804/StLouis/blockinfo/Block34AAChouteauSr.htm|url-status=dead|title=National Park Service|archivedate=22 April 2010}}
Pierre Chouteau (1758–1849), half-brother of Auguste Chouteau and defendant in a freedom suit by Marguerite Scypion.[https://archive.today/20130113145717/http://statehistoricalsocietyofmissouri.org/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/mhr&CISOPTR=41510&CISOSHOW=41366 William E. Foley, "Slave Freedom Suits before Dred Scott: The Case of Marie Jean Scypion's Descendants"], Missouri Historical Review, 79, no. 1 (October 1984), pp. 1–5, at The State Historical Society of Missouri, accessed 18 February 2011
Cicero (106–43 BCE), Roman statesman and philosopher. He enslaved at least four people, but the true number is likely higher.{{cite journal |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/642848 |last=Treggiari |first=Susan |authorlink=Susan Treggiari |title=The Freedmen of Cicero |journal=Greece & Rome |volume=16 |number=2 |year=1969 |pages=195–204 |doi=10.1017/S0017383500017034 |jstor=642848 |s2cid=163283620 |access-date=4 July 2021}}
William Clark (1770–1838), American explorer and territorial governor, he brought one of his African-American slaves with him on the Lewis and Clark Expedition.{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/lewisandclark/inside/york.html|title=Lewis and Clark . Inside the Corps . York |publisher=PBS}}
Nancy Clarke a Barbadian hotelier and free woman of colour.{{sfn|Welch|1999}}{{explain|date=March 2023}}
Henry Clay (1777–1852), United States Secretary of State and Speaker of the House, he advocated for gradual emancipation but owned slaves until his death.{{cite magazine |url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Rescue-of-Henry-Clay.html|title=History, Travel, Arts, Science, People, Places |magazine=Smithsonian}}
Howell Cobb (1815–1868), U.S. Congressman, Secretary of the Treasury, 19th Speaker of the House, and 40th Governor of Georgia. One hundred people were enslaved on his plantation until they were liberated by William T. Sherman and his army.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GGbkHUePtVwC&pg=PA211|title=The Soul of Battle: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, How Three Great Liberators Vanquished Tyranny|date=1999|publisher=The Free Press|location=New York|first=Victor Davis|last=Hanson|page=211|isbn=978-0684845029|author-link=Victor Davis Hanson|access-date=March 8, 2016}}
Edward Coles (1786–1868), 2nd Governor of Illinois; an abolitionist, he inherited slaves from his father and freed them.Coles, Edward. "Autobiography." April 1844. Coles Collection, Historical Society of Pennsylvania
Amaryllis Collymore (1745–1828), Barbadian slave and later slave owner and planter.{{cite journal|last1=Welch|first1=Pedro L. V.|title=Unhappy and Afflicted Women? Free Coloured Women in Barbados 1780–1834|journal=Revista/Review Interamericana|date=1999|volume=29|issue=1–4|pages=9–12|url=http://cai.sg.inter.edu/revista-ciscla/volume29/welsh.html|access-date=29 November 2017|publisher=Interamerican University of Puerto Rico Press|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141110202412/http://cai.sg.inter.edu/revista-ciscla/volume29/welsh.html|archive-date=10 November 2014|location=Hato Rey, Puerto Rico|issn=0196-1373}}
Alfred H. Colquitt (1824–1894), U.S. Congressman, 49th Governor of Georgia, and Confederate Army Major General, he wanted to lift restrictions on slavery in the western territory and was himself a slave owner.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bDDjmbW63k0C&pg=PA101 |page=101 |title=Missouri Compromise |first=Susan |last=Dudley Gold |year=2010 |isbn=978-1608700417 |publisher=Marshall Cavendish Benchmark}}{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VLCce56TE_wC&pg=PA119 |page=119 |title=Antebellum Homes of Georgia |first=David King |last=Gleason |year=1987 |isbn=978-0807114322 |publisher=LSU Press}}
Edward Colston (1636–1711), English merchant, philanthropist and slave trader.{{cite ODNB |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/5996 |title=Colston, Edward |last=Morgan |first=Kenneth |date=September 2004 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/5996 |access-date=14 August 2010}}
Christopher Columbus (1451–1506), enslaved the Taíno and Arawak people and "sent the first slaves across the Atlantic."{{cite book |last=Loewen |first=James W. |author-link=James W. Loewen |title=Lies My Teacher Told Me |year=1995 |publisher=The New Press|title-link=Lies My Teacher Told Me |pages=57–58}}
Hernán Cortés (1485–1547), Spanish conquistador who invaded Mexico.[https://books.google.com/books?id=vF0lcFF4pGoC&pg=PA316 Jane Landers, Slaves, Subjects, and Subversives: Blacks in Colonial Latin America], UNM Press, 2006, p. 43
Thérèse de Couagne (1697–1764), Montreal businesswoman, she enslaved Marie-Joseph Angélique who attempted to escape repeatedly.{{cite dcb |first=André |last=Lachance |title=Couagne, Thérèse de |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/couagne_therese_de_3E.html}}

D

File:Slave Cabin at the Sam Davis Home and Plantation.jpg in Smyrna, Tennessee]]

Sir Robert Davers, 2nd Baronet ({{circa|1653}}–1722), English politician and landowner, he enslaved some 200 people on his plantation in Barbados.{{cite web |title=Suffolk and the slave trade |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/suffolk/content/articles/2007/03/08/suffolk_and_the_slave_trade_feature.shtml |website=www.bbc.co.uk |publisher=BBC |accessdate=15 June 2019 |language=en-gb}}
Jefferson Davis (1807–1889), President of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. He enslaved as many as 113 people on his Mississippi plantation.{{Cite book|title=A History of the American People|last=Johnson|first=Paul|publisher=HarperCollins|year=1997|isbn=0060168366|location=New York|page=[https://archive.org/details/historyofameric000john/page/452 452]|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofameric000john/page/452}}

File:Marianne Celeste Dragon.jpg (1777–1856) was a wealthy mixed-race creole slave owner during the Spanish Louisiana.]]

Joseph Davis (1784–1870), eldest brother of Jefferson Davis and one of the wealthiest antebellum planters in Mississippi, he enslaved at least 345 people on his Hurricane Plantation.{{cite web |url=http://www.mshistorynow.mdah.ms.gov/articles/401/joseph-emory-davis-a-mississippi-planter-patriarch |title=Joseph Emory Davis: A Mississippi Planter Patriarch |first=Lynda |last=Lasswell Crist |work=Mississippi History Now |publisher=Mississippi Historical Society |date=February 2016 |access-date=4 July 2021}}
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.{{Cite web|last=DeGennaro|first=Nancy|title=Confederate monuments: Sam Davis, a slave-owning soldier mythologized as a 'Boy Hero'|url=https://www.dnj.com/story/news/local/2020/07/30/sam-davis-confederate-monument-nashville-smyrna-home/5364067002/|access-date=2021-06-13|website=The Daily News Journal|language=en-US}}
Francisco Paulo de Almeida, Baron of Guaraciaba (1826–1901), Afro-Brazilian landowner, businessman, and nobleman. He owned several coffee plantations as well as around a thousand of slaves.{{cite news |last1=Lopes |first1=Marcus |title=A história esquecida do 1º barão negro do Brasil Império, senhor de mil escravos |url=https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-44792271 |access-date=1 December 2022 |work=BBC News |date=15 July 2018}}
Marianne Celeste Dragon (1777–1856) was a wealthy mixed-race creole slave owner during the Spanish Louisiana.
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.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_nhBBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA36 |pages=36–38 |title=Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers |first1=James |last1=Nevius |first2=Michelle |last2=Nevius |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=2014 |isbn=978-1493008407}}
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.{{cite dcb |title=DeLancey (de Lancey, De Lancey, Delancey), James |first=Barry M. |last=Moody |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/delancey_james_5E.html}}
Abraham de Peyster (1657–1728), 20th mayor of New York City, he purchased two enslaved people in 1797.{{cite dcb |first=Jo-Ann |last=Fellows |title=De Peyster, Abraham |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/de_peyster_abraham_4E.html}}
Demosthenes (384–322 BCE), Athenian statesman and orator who inherited at least 14 slaves from his father.Demosthenes, Against Aphobus 1, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0074%3Aspeech%3D27%3Asection%3D6 6.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120520104603/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0074%3Aspeech%3D27%3Asection%3D6 |date=20 May 2012 }}
Henry Denny Denson ({{circa|1715}}–1780), Irish-born soldier and politician in Nova Scotia, he enslaved at least five people.{{cite dcb |first=J. M. |last=Bumsted |title=Denson, Henry Denny |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/denson_henry_denny_4E.html}}
Jean Noël Destréhan (1754–1823), Louisiana plantation owner whose slaves rebelled during the 1811 German Coast Uprising.[http://www.knowlouisiana.org/entry/jean-noel-destrehan "Jean Noël Destrehan"] by John H. Lawrence, KnowLouisiana.org Encyclopedia of Louisiana. Ed. David Johnson. Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, 18 Jun 2013. Web. 15 Apr 2017.
Thomas Roderick Dew (1802–1846), president of the College of William & Mary; he was an influential pro-slavery advocate, owning one enslaved person himself.{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/dew-thomas-r-1802-1846/ |title=Dew, Thomas R. (1802–1846) |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Virginia |first1=Melvin Patrick |last1=Ely |first2=Jennifer R. |last2=Loux |date=12 February 2021 |access-date=4 July 2021}}
John Dickinson (1732–1808), a Founding Father of the United States. Largest slaveholder in Philadelphia in 1766, he freed them in 1777.{{cite book |title=Slavery and the Making of America |first1=James Oliver |last1=Horton |first2=Lois E. |last2=Horton |author-link2=Lois Horton |date=2006 |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=7–8 |isbn=978-0195304510 }}
Albert Baldwin Dod (1805–1845), mathematician, theologian, and Princeton University professor. The 1840 US Census records Dod owning one enslaved female aged ten to twenty-four, making him one of the latest slaveholders in both Princeton and the entire state of New Jersey, which had adopted a system of gradual emancipation in 1804.{{cite web |last1=Mack |first1=Jessica R. |title=Albert Dod |url=https://slavery.princeton.edu/stories/albert-dod |website=Princeton & Slavery |publisher=The Trustees of Princeton University |access-date=31 May 2023}}
Henry Dodge (1782–1867), 1st and 4th Governor of the Wisconsin Territory. In 1827, defying the Northwest Ordinance's prohibition of slavery in the territory, Dodge brought five Black slaves from Missouri to work his lead mines.{{Cite web|url=https://wi101.wisc.edu/2018/09/11/slavery-in-wisconsin/|title=Redfearn, Winifred V. "Slavery in Wisconsin" Wisconsin 101: Our History in Objects September 11, 2018}}
Thomas Dorland (1759–1832), Quaker, farmer and politician in Upper Canada, he enslaved as many as 20 people.{{cite dcb | first=Robert Lochiel |last=Fraser |title=Dorland, Thomas |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/dorland_thomas_6E.html}}
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.{{cite web|url=https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/spcl/excat/douglas2.html |title=Stephen A. Douglas and the American Union, University of Chicago Library Special Exhibit, 1994|publisher=Lib.uchicago.edu |access-date=2012-08-21}} Historians continue to debate whether he opposed slavery.{{cite journal |last1=Nichols |first1=Roy F. |title=The Kansas-Nebraska Act: A Century of Historiography |journal=Mississippi Valley Historical Review |date=1956 |volume=43 |issue=2 |pages=187–212 |jstor=1902683|doi=10.2307/1902683 }}
Richard Duncan (died 1819), politician in Upper Canada and slave owner.
Stephen Duncan (1787–1867), originally from Pennsylvania, he became the wealthiest Southern cotton planter before the American Civil War with 14 plantations where he enslaved 2200 people.{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Brazy |first1=Martha Jane |title=Stephen Duncan |url=https://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/stephen-duncan/ |encyclopedia=Mississippi Encyclopedia |date= 19 April 2018 |publisher=Center for Study of Southern Culture |access-date=19 June 2021}}
Robley Dunglison (1798–1869), English-American physician, medical educator and author—purchased slaves from Thomas Jefferson while teaching at University of Virginia.{{cite web |last1=Schulman |first1=Gayle M. |title=Slaves at the University of Virginia |url=http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/slavery/Slaves_University_Virginia.pdf |website=www.latinamericanstudies.org |access-date=13 July 2021}}

E

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), American Congregationalist theologian who played a critical role in shaping the First Great Awakening. He owned several slaves during his lifetime.{{cite book|last=Sweeney|first=Douglas A.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uvhaQ3Ju9dYC&q=%22they+owned+several+slaves.+Beginning+in+June+1731%2C+Edwards+joined+the+slave+trade%2C+buying%22+Girle+%22named+Venus%22&pg=PA66|title=Jonathan Edwards and the Ministry of the Word: A Model of Faith and Thought|publisher=InterVarsity Press|year=2010|isbn=978-0830879410|location=Downers Grove|pages=66–68|quote=...they owned several slaves. Beginning in June 1731, Edwards joined the slave trade, buying 'a Negro Girle named Venus ages Fourteen years or thereabout' in Newport, at an auction, for 'the Sum of Eighty pounds.'}}{{cite news|last=Stinson|first=Susan|author-link=Susan Stinson|date=April 5, 2012|title=The Other Side of the Paper: Jonathan Edwards as Slave-Owner|newspaper=Valley Advocate|url=http://valleyadvocate.com/2012/04/05/the-other-side-of-the-paper-jonathan-edwards-as-slave-owner/|access-date=October 5, 2017}}
Ninian Edwards (1775–1833), Governor of Illinois Territory and 3rd Governor of Illinois. He was a slave owner and evaded the Northwest Ordinance, which outlawed slavery in the territory.{{cite news |url=https://www.illinoistimes.com/springfield/slavery-in-the-land-of-lincoln/Content?oid=11444782 |title=Slavery in the Land of Lincoln |first=Tara |last=McClellan McAndrew |date=12 January 2017 |newspaper=Illinois Times}}
Matthew Elliott ({{circa|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.{{cite journal |author=William Renwick Riddell |year=1932 |title=Additional notes on slavery |journal=The Journal of Negro History |volume=17 |issue=3 |pages=368–377 |doi=10.2307/2714282 |jstor=2714282|s2cid=149992126}}
George Ellis (1753–1815), English antiquary, poet and Member of Parliament, he enslaved people on his sugar plantations in Jamaica.Higman, Montpelier (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 1998), pp. 20, 24.
William Ellison (1790–1861), an African-American slave and later a slave owner.Larry Koger, Black Slaveowners: Free Black Slave Masters in South Carolina, 1790–1860, University of South Carolina Press, 1985 (paperback edition, 1995), pp. 144–145
Adrien d'Épinay (1794–1839), lawyer and politician of Mauritius.{{cite web |title=Mauritius 5696 Claim 16th Jan 1837 103 Enslaved £3194 15s 6d |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/claim/view/2120008848 |publisher=University College London |access-date=2021-07-07}}{{cite web |title=Mauritius 3901 A Claim 31st Jul 1837 332 Enslaved £10757 2s 0d |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/claim/view/2120010104 |publisher=University College London |access-date=2021-07-07}}
Edwin Epps (born {{circa|1808}}), former overseer turned planter and, for 10 years, owner of Solomon Northup, who authored Twelve Years a Slave.{{cite news |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/03/patsey-12-years-a-slave |title="What'll Become of Me?" Finding the Real Patsey of 12 Years a Slave |first=Katie |last=Calautti |date=2 March 2014 |magazine=Vanity Fair |access-date=14 July 2020}}
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.Theuws, De Jong and van Rhijn, Topographies of Power, p. 255.

F

File:Reb Felton-Geo Senate.jpg, the last U.S. Congressmember to have enslaved people]]

Mary Faber (1798–{{floruit|1857}}), Guinean slave trader known for her conflict with the West Africa Squadron.{{cite web |last1=Mouser |first1=Bruce L. |title=Women Traders and Big-Men of Guinea-Conakry |url=http://www.tubmaninstitute.ca/sites/default/files/file/2009bbigmenasslaves.pdf |website=tubmaninstitute.ca |pages=6–8 |publisher=Tubman Institute |date=17 October 1980 |access-date=15 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170809054454/http://www.tubmaninstitute.ca/sites/default/files/file/2009bbigmenasslaves.pdf |archive-date=9 August 2017 |url-status=dead }}
Peter Faneuil (1700–1743), Colonial American slave trader and owner, and namesake of Boston's Faneuil Hall.{{cite web |url=https://www.nps.gov/boaf/winter-newsletter-2015-peter-faneuil-and-slavery.htm |title=Peter Faneuil and Slavery |date=January 16, 2015 |access-date=July 31, 2020 |work=Boston African American National Historic Site |publisher=National Park Service}}
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.{{cite book |last=McKay |first=John |date=2011 |title=It Happened in Atlanta: Remarkable Events That Shaped History |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eGcys7hebd0C&pg=PA82 |location=Guilford, CT |publisher=Morris Book Publishing |page=82 |isbn=978-0762764396}}
Eliza Fenwick (1767–1840), British author, she used slave labor in her Barbados schoolhouse.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IOR5bOpGUiQC&pg=PA192 |pages=192–193 |title=The Human Tradition in the Atlantic World, 1500–1850 |series=The Human Tradition around the World |editor-first1=Karen |editor-last1=Racine |editor-first2=Beatriz G. |editor-last2=Mamigonian |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=2010 |isbn=978-1442206991}}
Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), American statesman and philosopher, who owned as many as seven slaves before becoming a "cautious abolitionist".Nash, Gary B. "Franklin and Slavery." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 150, no. 4 (2006): 620.
Isaac Franklin (1789–1846), owner of more than 600 slaves, partner in the largest U.S. slave trading firm Franklin and Armfield, and rapist.{{cite news |author=Betsy Phillips |title= Isaac Franklin's money had a major influence on modern-day Nashville — despite the blood on it|newspaper= Nashville Scene|date= 7 May 2015| url=https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/pith-in-the-wind/article/13059116/isaac-franklins-money-had-a-major-influence-on-modernday-nashville-despite-the-blood-on-it |access-date= 15 Sep 2019}}
Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821–1877), Confederate general, slave trader, and Ku Klux Klan leader.{{cite book|author=Alan Axelrod|title=Generals South, Generals North: The Commanders of the Civil War Reconsidered|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M-l6buinWv8C&pg=PA84|date=2011|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-0762774883|page=84}}
John Forsyth (1780–1841), congressman, senator, Secretary of State, and 33rd Governor of Georgia. He supported slavery and was a slaveholder.{{cite book|last1=Finkelman|first1=Paul|last2=Kennon|first2=Donald R.|title=In the shadow of freedom: the politics of slavery in the national capital|date=2010|publisher=Ohio University Press|location=Athens|isbn=978-0821419342|page=27|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N0fLDuFTEbkC}}

G

Ana Gallum (or Nansi Wiggins; {{floruit|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.Jane Landers, [https://books.google.com/books?id=6KByoQgXZEcC&dq=Dona+Honoria+Cummings+Clarke&pg=PA122 Black Society in Spanish Florida]
James Garland ( 1791–1825), Virginian politician, planter, lawyer, and judge. By 1820, the Garland household included five free people (including two sons and a daughter younger than 10) and nine slaves.
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.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3A1giyFWrYQC&pg=PA47 |pages=47–48 |title=An Argument on the Unconstitutionality of Slavery |first=G. W. F. |last=Mellen |year=1841 |publisher=Saxton & Peirce}}
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.Michael Craton, "Proto-peasant revolts? The late slave rebellions in the British West Indies 1816–1832." Past & Present 85 (1979): 99–125 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/650681 online].{{Cite web|title=Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners, Profit and Loss|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b062nqpd|access-date=2021-09-13|website=BBC Two|language=en-GB}}
Estêvão Gomes ({{circa|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.{{cite dcb |first=L.A. |last=Vigneras |title=Gomes, Estêvão |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/gomes_estevao_1E.html}}
Antão Gonçalves (15th-century), Portuguese explorer and, in 1441, the first to enslave captive Africans and bring them to Portugal for sale.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T9ytoxU3TncC |page=253 |title=Sagres: A Strategic Revolution |first=Luiz Fernando |last=da Silva Pinto |year=2002 |translator1=Ana Beatriz Rodrigues |translator2=John Savage |isbn=978-8522503889 |publisher=FGV}}
Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885), Union general and 18th President of the United States, who acquired slaves through his wife and father-in-law.{{cite book |last=Smith |first=Jean Edward | author-link=Jean Edward Smith|title=Grant |publisher=Simon & Schuster |location=New York|year=2001 |isbn=0684849275 |url=https://archive.org/details/grant00smit |url-access=registration |pages=94–95}} 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.{{Cite web|title=William Jones (U.S. National Park Service)|url=https://www.nps.gov/people/william-jones.htm|access-date=2021-09-13|website=www.nps.gov|language=en}}
Robert Isaac Dey Gray ({{circa|1772}}–1804), Canadian politician and slave owner. In 1798 he voted against a proposal to expand slavery in Upper Canada.{{cite dcb |first=Robert J. |last=Burns |title=Gray, Robert Isaac Dey |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/gray_robert_isaac_dey_5E.html}}
Curtis Grubb ({{circa|1730}}–1789), Pennsylvania iron master and one of the state's largest enslavers at the time of U.S. independence.{{Cite book |last=Bezis-Selfa |first=John |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pi5zDwAAQBAJ |title=Forging America: Ironworkers, Adventurers, and the Industrious Revolution |date=2018 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=978-1501722196 |page=185 |language=en}}

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James Henry Hammond (1807–1864), U.S. Senator and South Carolina governor, defender of slavery, and owner of more than 300 slaves.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/29/books/monster-of-all-he-surveyed.html|title=Monster of All He Surveyed |first=Rosellen|last=Brown|work=The New York Times |date=29 January 1989|via=NYTimes.com}}
Wade Hampton I ({{circa|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.{{cite web|url=http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~msissaq2/hampton.html |title=The Wade Hampton Family|website= The Issaquena Genealogy and History Project, Rootsweb|accessdate=May 7, 2017}}{{citation|title=American Slavery as It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses |pages=29 |language=en |url=https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/weld/weld.html#p29 |access-date=May 27, 2020}}
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.[http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~msissaq2/hampton.html "Wade Hampton Family"], Issaquena Genealogy and History Project, Rootsweb, accessed 6 November 2013
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.{{cite news|url=https://www.adn.com/article/20150702/wade-hampton-no-more-alaska-census-area-named-confederate-officer-gets-new-moniker|title=Wade Hampton no more: Alaska census area named for confederate officer gets new moniker|date=July 2, 2015|access-date=July 2, 2015|first=Lisa|last=Demer|work=Alaska Dispatch News}}
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.{{cite book | last = Fowler | first = William M. Jr. | author-link = William M. Fowler | year = 1980 | title = The Baron of Beacon Hill: A Biography of John Hancock | publisher = Houghton Mifflin | location = Boston | isbn = 0395276195 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/baronofbeaconhil0000fowl | page = 78}}
Benjamin Harrison IV (1693–1745), American planter and politician. Upon his death his each of his ten surviving children inherited slaves from his estate.{{cite book |last1=Moore |first1=Anne Chieko |editor1-first=Hester Anne |editor1-last=Hale |title=Benjamin Harrison: Centennial President |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HKBFgjrulnUC |series=First Men, America's Presidents |year=2006 |publisher=Nova Science Publishers, Inc. |location=New York |isbn=978-160021-0662 |pages=5–6 |chapter=The Harrison Heritage |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HKBFgjrulnUC&pg=PA1 }}
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.{{cite book|last=Dowdey|first=Clifford|title=The Great Plantation|publisher=Rinehart & Co.|year=1957|location=New York|page=162}}
Benjamin Hawkins (1754–1816), Continental Congress delegate, Senator for North Carolina, and appointed by George Washington as Indian agent of the United States. He built a large complex using slave labour and transformed Creek Agency and Fort Hawkins into holding stations for fugitive slaves.
William Henry Harrison (1773–1841), 9th President of the United States, he owned eleven slaves.{{cite web|last=Whitney|first= Gleaves|title=ASK GLEAVES {{!}} Slaveholding Presidents {{!}} Paper 30|year= 2006|url= http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/ask_gleaves/30|website=scholarworks.gvsu.edu}}
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."{{cite book|last=Kukla|first=Jon|title=Patrick Henry: Champion of Liberty|year=2017|location=New York|publisher=Simon & Schuster|isbn=978-1439190814|page=124}}
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.{{cite web|url=https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/08/this-day-in-politics-april-8-1938-505004 |title=Final member of a generation of Southern black lawmakers dies, April 8, 1938 |first=Andrew |last=Glass |date=8 April 2018 |website=Politico |access-date=20 July 2020}}
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.Source: Slavery Abolition Act (P.P. 1837–8, XLVIII); NA, Treasury Papers, slave compensation T71/852-900. – referenced in Draper, N. (2008). [http://secretcity-thefilm.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/The-City-of-London-and-slavery-Nick-Draper.pdf "The City of London and slavery: evidence from the first dock companies, 1795–1800"]. Economic History Review, 61, 2 (2008), pp.432–466.
Thomas Hibbert (1710–1780), English merchant, he became rich from slave labor on his Jamaican plantations.{{cite web | url = http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/hibbert-george-1757-1837| title = Hibbert, George (1757–1837), of Clapham, Surr.|publisher = History of Parliament Online|access-date = 26 July 2015}}
Eufrosina Hinard (born 1777), a free black woman in New Orleans, she owned slaves and leased them to others.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gt-e-5H9B7QC&pg=PA100|title=In Her Footsteps: 101 Remarkable Black Women from the Queen of Sheba to Queen Latifah|last=Madden|first=Annette|publisher=Conari Press|year=2000|isbn=978-1573245531|location=Berkeley, California|pages=99–100|language=en}}
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.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OlH_cmNkiw4C&pg=PA198 |page=198 |title=The Lion of the South: General Thomas C. Hindman |year=1997 |publisher=Mercer University Press |isbn=978-0865545564 |first1=Diane |last1=Neal |first2=Thomas W. |last2=Kremm}}
Hipponicus III (c. 485 BC – 422/1 BC), wealthy Athenian general; according to Xenophon he leased six hundred slaves to the state to work in the silver Mines of Laurion.Xenophon. Ways and Means (Xenophon), iv.15
Arthur William Hodge (1763–1811), British Virgin Islands planter, the first, and likely only, British subject executed for the murder of his own slave.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VWEgkmBSYaUC&pg=PA85|title=The Hanging of Arthur Hodge: A Caribbean Anti-Slavery Milestone|last=Andrew|first=John|date=2000|publisher=Xlibris Corporation|isbn=978-0738819310|language=en}}
Jean-François Hodoul (1765–1835), captain, corsair, merchant and plantation owner who moved from France and settled in Mauritius and Seychelles.{{cite web |title=Compensation claim 6147 |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/claim/view/2120009180 |publisher=Legacies of Slavery UCL |access-date=2021-07-15}}
Johns Hopkins (1795–1873), philanthropist who donated seed money for the creation of Johns Hopkins University.{{Cite web|url=https://www.wrdw.com/video/2020/12/10/noted-abolitionist-johns-hopkins-owned-slaves/|title=Noted abolitionist Johns Hopkins owned slave}}
Sam Houston (1793–1863), U.S. Senator, President of the Republic of Texas, 6th Governor of Tennessee, and 7th Governor of Texas; he enslaved twelve people.{{cite web |url=https://www.shsu.edu/today@sam/samhouston/HouEman.html |title=Houston, the Emancipator |first=Frank |last=Krystyniak |publisher=Sam Houston State University |work=Today@Sam |date=20 July 2018 |access-date=7 July 2021}}
Hjörleifr Hróðmarsson (9th century), early settler of Iceland whose thralls (slaves) rebelled and killed him.{{cite web |url=http://brydebud.vik.is/Walking.aspx |title=Hjörleifshöfði |publisher= brydebud.vik.is |access-date= January 20, 2016}}
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.{{cite book|last1=Libby|first1=David J.|title=Slavery and Frontier Mississippi, 1720–1835|date=2004|publisher=Univ. Press of Mississippi|page=52|isbn=978-1604730500|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PEHylaCW4M8C&pg=PA52 |accessdate=17 September 2014}}
David Hunt (1779–1861), wealthy planter in the Natchez District of Mississippi and the largest benefactor of Oakland College, he enslaved nearly 1,700 people.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=my5L0Ek-UxUC&pg=PA157 |page=157 |title=Antebellum Natchez |isbn=978-0807118603 |year=1993 |publisher=LSU Press |first=D. Clayton |last=James}}
Margaret Hutton (1727–1797), largest enslaver in Pennsylvania at the time of the first federal census.{{Cite book |author=United States Bureau of the Census |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VxYiAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22Hutton%2C+24+slaves%22&pg=PA137 |title=A Century of Population Growth from the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth, 1790–1900 |date=1909 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |pages=137 |language=en}}

I

Ibn Battuta (1304 – {{circa|1368}}), Muslim Berber Moroccan scholar and explorer. He enslaved girls and women in his harem.{{cite book|author=William Dalrymple|title=City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GVvUJVmVr8kC&q=battuta+slave+girl+damascus|year=2003|publisher=Penguin Publishing Group|isbn=978-1101127018}}
Emina Ilhamy (1858–1931), Egyptian princess, she gifted enslaved concubines to her son and owned slaves until the First World War.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O4CC0SlaynsC&pg=PA263 |last=Doumani |first=Beshara |year=2003 |title=Family History in the Middle East: Household, Property, and Gender |publisher=SUNY Press |isbn=978-0-791-48707-5 |page=263}}

J

File:Run away from the subscriber - Thomas Jefferson.png placed an advertisement in the Virginia Gazette offering a reward for an escaped slave named Sandy.]]

Andrew Jackson (1767–1845), 7th President of the United States, he enslaved as many as 300 people.{{cite web |title=Andrew Jackson's Enslaved Laborers |url=http://www.thehermitage.com/mansion-grounds/farm/slavery |publisher=The Hermitage |access-date=April 13, 2017 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140912055314/http://www.thehermitage.com/mansion-grounds/farm/slavery |archive-date=September 12, 2014 }}
William James (1791–1861), English Radical politician and owner of a West Indies plantation.{{Cite web

| url = http://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/-124525692

| title = William James MP: Profile & Legacies Summary

| website = Legacies of British Slave-ownership

| publisher = UCL Department of History 2014

| year = 2014

| access-date = 8 July 2017

}}

William Jarvis (1756–1817), prominent landowner and government official in York, Upper Canada.

{{cite web

| url = http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/en/explore/online/slavery/henry_lewis.aspx

| title = Henry Lewis: seeking freedom

| work = Archives of Ontario

| access-date = 2019-06-14

| quote = Hannah Jarvis incorrectly wrote about the Slave Act that Simcoe... {{'}}has by a piece of chacanery freed all the negroes...{{'}}

}}

Peter Jefferson (1708–1757), father of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson.{{Cite web |url=https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/peter-jefferson |title=Peter Jefferson |website=www.monticello.org |language=en |

author=Verell, Nancy| date=April 14, 2015|access-date=January 23, 2021}} In his last will and testament he set free the slaves who remained his after paying Monticello's debts.

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), 3rd President of the United States. He had a long-term sexual relationship with enslaved Sally Hemings.{{Cite news |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/16/us/sally-hemings-exhibit-monticello.html |title=Monticello Is Done Avoiding Jefferson's Relationship With Sally Hemings |last=Stockman |first=Farah |date=June 16, 2018 |work=The New York Times |access-date=July 15, 2018}}
Thomas Jeremiah (died 1775), a free Negro executed in the Province of South Carolina for attempting to foment a slave insurrection.J. William Harris. The Hanging of Thomas Jeremiah: A Free Black Man's Encounter with Liberty. Yale University Press, 2009. {{ISBN|978-0300152142}} p. 2.
Andrew Johnson (1808–1875), 17th President of the United States, he opposed the 14th Amendment (which granted citizenship to former slaves) and owned at least ten slaves before the Civil War.{{cite web |title=Slaves of Andrew Johnson |url=https://www.nps.gov/anjo/learn/historyculture/slaves.htm |publisher=National Park Service |work=Andrew Johnson |date=24 July 2020 |access-date=7 July 2021}}

K

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.{{cite dcb |title=King, William |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/king_william_12E.html |first=Jason H. |last=Silverman}}
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.{{cite book |last=Schafer |first=Daniel L. |date=2003 |title=Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley: African Princess, Florida Slave, Plantation Slaveowner |publisher=University Press of Florida |isbn=0813026164}}
Zephaniah Kingsley (1765–1843), planter and slave trader, defender of slavery and of what then was called "amalgamation", interracial marriage.{{cite book |title=Zephaniah Kingsley Jr. and the Atlantic World |first=Daniel L. |last=Schafer |year=2013 |publisher=University Press of Florida |isbn=978-0813044620}}
James Knight ({{circa|1640}}–{{circa|1721}}), English explorer and Hudson's Bay Company director, he enslaved indigenous women, including Thanadelthur.{{cite dcb |first=Ernest S. |last=Dodge |title=Knight, James |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/knight_james_2E.html}}

L

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

James Ladson (1753–1812), lieutenant governor of South Carolina, he enslaved over 100 people in that state.[https://books.google.com/books?id=w8k3DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT157 We the People: The Economic Origins of the Constitution]
James H. Ladson (1795–1868), businessman and South Carolina planter.The history of Georgetown County, South Carolina, p. 297 and p. 525, University of South Carolina Press, 1970
Henry Laurens (1724–1792), 5th President of the Continental Congress, his company, Austin and Laurens, was the largest slave-trader in North America.{{cite web |url=http://www.brown.edu/Research/Slavery_Justice/documents/SlaveryAndJustice.pdf |title=Slavery and Justice: Report of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice |publisher=Brown University |date=October 2006 }}
Delphine LaLaurie (1787–1849), New Orleans socialite and serial killer, infamous for torturing and murdering slaves in her household.{{cite book|ref=refMorrowLong2012|last=Long |first=Carolyn Morrow|year=2012|title=Madame Lalaurie Mistress of the Haunted House|location=Gainesville|publisher=University Press of Florida |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2NAQYAAACAAJ|isbn=978-0813038063}}
John Lamont (1782–1850), Scottish emigrant who enslaved people on his Trinidad sugar plantations.{{cite web | last=Lamont | first=John | title=Summary of Individual | website=Legacies of British Slave-ownership | date=21 March 2017 | url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/28141 | access-date=21 March 2017}}
Marie Laveau (1801–1881), Louisiana Voodoo practitioner, she enslaved at least seven people.Carolyn Morrow Long: A New Orleans Voudou Priestess: The Legend and Reality of Marie Laveau, 2018
Fenda Lawrence (born 1742), slave trader based in Saloum. She visited the Thirteen Colonies as a free black woman.{{cite book|editor1-last=Holloway|editor1-first=Joseph E.|title=Africanisms in American Culture|date=2005|publisher=Indiana University Press|location=Bloomington|isbn=978-0253217493|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TmzTyI5rfDMC&pg=PA49}}
Richard Bland Lee (1761–1827), American politician, he inherited a Virginia plantation and 29 slaves in 1787.{{cite web |url=https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/sully-historic-site/site-history |title=Sully Historic Site History |website=Fairfax County, Virginia |access-date=18 July 2020}}
Robert E. Lee (1807 – 1870), commander of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, inherited 10 enslaved people from his mother and oversaw nearly 200 slaves on the Arlington Plantation his wife inherited from her father George Washington Parke Custis.{{cite web |url=https://www.nps.gov/arho/learn/historyculture/robert-e-lee-and-slavery.htm |title=Robert E. Lee and Slavery |date=12 May 2024 |website=nps.gov |publisher=National Park Service |access-date=16 June 2024}}
William Lenoir (1751–1839), American Revolutionary War officer and prominent statesman, he was the largest slave-holder in the history of Wilkes County, North Carolina.{{cite news |url=https://www.journalpatriot.com/news/griffin-slave-owners-here-no-more-benevolent-than-others/article_d18c0dfc-cd98-11e4-9a07-0be539c718c4.html |title= Griffin: Slave owners here no more benevolent than others |first=Emily |last=Storrow |date=March 18, 2015 |newspaper=Wilkes Journal-Patriot}}
William Ballard Lenoir (1775–1852), mill-owner and Tennessee politician, he used both paid and forced labor in his mills.Gail Guymon, [https://web.archive.org/web/20060826201716/http://www.state.tn.us/environment/hist/pdf/LenoirCottonMill.pdf National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form for Lenoir Cotton Mill Warehouse], February 2006. Retrieved: 2009-11-03.
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.{{Cite web|title=A Tale of Two Columbias: Francis Lieber, Columbia University and Slavery {{!}} Columbia University and Slavery|url=https://columbiaandslavery.columbia.edu/content/tale-two-columbias-francis-lieber-columbia-university-and-slavery|access-date=2022-01-06|website=columbiaandslavery.columbia.edu}}{{Cite journal|last=Keil|first=Hartmut|date=2008|title=Francis Lieber's Attitudes on Race, Slavery, and Abolition|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27501879|journal=Journal of American Ethnic History|volume=28|issue=1|pages=13–33|doi=10.2307/27501879 |jstor=27501879|s2cid=254496072 |issn=0278-5927}}
Edward Lloyd (1779–1834), American politician from Maryland, in 1832 owned 468 people, including abolitionist Frederick Douglass (then known as Frederick Bailey).{{cite news |last1=Duncan-Smith |first1=Nicole |title=Report Finds Over 1,700 Elected Officials Were Once Slaveholders, One Senator Owned a Plantation with Over 400 Enslaved Africans |url=https://news.yahoo.com/report-finds-over-1-700-160000664.html |access-date=10 October 2023|work=Atlanta Black Star |publisher=Yahoo News |date=17 January 2022}}
Edward Long (1734–1813), English colonial administrator and planter in Jamaica. He was a slave-owner and polemic defender of slavery.{{cite ODNB|id=16964|first=Kenneth|last=Morgan|title=Long, Edward}}
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.{{cite web

|url=http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/slavery/Slaves_University_Virginia.pdf

|title=Slaves at the University of Virginia

|author=Gayle M. Schulman

|date=2005

|website=Latin American Studies

|access-date=17 October 2020

|quote=Soon after he arrived from England George Long acquired a slave, Jacob.}}

Toussaint Louverture (1743–1803), a former slave, he enslaved a dozen people himself before becoming a general and a leader of the Haitian Revolution.de Cauna, Jacques. 2004. Toussaint L'Ouverture et l'indépendance d'Haïti. Témoignages pour une commémoration. Paris: Ed. Karthala. pp. 63–65
George Duncan Ludlow (1734–1808), colonial lawyer. He was a slave owner and, in 1800 as Chief Justice of New Brunswick, he supported slavery in defiance of British practice at the time.{{cite dcb |first=C.M. |last=Wallace |title=Ludlow, George Duncan |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/ludlow_george_duncan_5E.html}}
David Lynd ({{circa|1745}}–1802), seigneur and politician in Lower Canada. He enslaved at least two people and voted against abolition in 1793.{{cite dcb |first=André |last=Morel |title=Lynd, David |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/lynd_david_5E.html}}

M

File:General Marion.jpg Inviting a British Officer to Share His Meal ({{circa|1835}}); his slave Oscar Marion kneels at the left of the group.]]

File:Mansa-Musa-on-his-way-to-Mecca-Credit-Print-Collector-Getty-images-1536x790.jpg, accompanied by thousands of slaves, traveling to Mecca]]

Macuncuzade Mustafa Efendi (born c. 1550s), Ottoman qadi and poet who owned at least one slave. He and his slave were on board a ship which was captured by the Knights Hospitaller in 1597, and they were both enslaved in Malta until 1600.{{cite journal |last1=Cassar |first1=Carmel |title=Between Africa and Europe : corsairing activities and the Order of St John in Malta |journal=Terzo Convegno Storico Internazionale: Corsari, schiavi, riscatti tra Liguria e Nord Africa nei secoli XVI e XVII |date=2004 |pages=73–116 |url=https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/42313 |location=Ceriale}}
James Madison (1751–1836), 4th President of the United States, by 1801 he enslaved more than 100 people on his Montpelier plantation.{{cite book|last=Broadwater|first=Jeff.|title=James Madison: A Son of Virginia and a Founder of a Nation|url=https://archive.org/details/jamesmadisonsono00broa|url-access=registration|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|year=2012|page=188|isbn=978-0807835302}}
James Madison Sr. (1723–1801), father of President James Madison, by the time of his death, he owned 108 slaves.Taylor, Elizabeth Dowling. (Jan. 2012), A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons, Foreword by Annette Gordon-Reed, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, Chapter 1
Ferdinand Magellan ({{circa|1480}}–1521), Portuguese navigator, he enslaved Enrique of Malacca.{{Cite web|url=http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/printheritage/detail/dd3d97ec-0018-4bd1-9e23-8270477e2d16.aspx|title=Purbawara Panglima Awang – BookSG – National Library Board, Singapore|last=Singapore|first=National Library Board|website=eresources.nlb.gov.sg|access-date=2018-07-30}}
Bertrand-François Mahé de La Bourdonnais (1699–1753), naval officer and administrator of Isle de France (Mauritius) and Réunion for the French East India Company.{{cite book |last1=Teelock |first1=Vijaya |title=Transition from slavery in Zanzibar and Mauritius a comparative history |date=2016 |publisher=Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa |isbn=978-2869786806 |pages=25–43}}{{cite web |title=Truth and Justice Commission Report Vol. 1 |url=https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/ROL/TJC_Vol1.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160615081832/http://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/ROL/TJC_Vol1.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=15 June 2016 |publisher=Government of Mauritius |access-date=2021-07-04}}{{cite book |last1=Vaughan |first1=Megan |title=Creating the Creole Island: Slavery in Eighteenth-Century Mauritius |date=2005 |publisher=Duke University Press |location=Durham and London |isbn=978-0822333999 |pages=46–48 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kNK6nFrRwTMC&q=labourdonnais+slave+owner&pg=PA46 |access-date=2021-07-04}}
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.{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/mahone-william-1826-1895/ |title=Mahone, William (1826–1895) |first=Peter C. |last=Luebke |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Virginia |publisher=Virginia Humanities |date=12 February 2021 |access-date=10 July 2021}}
John Lawrence Manning (1816–1889), 65th Governor of South Carolina, in 1860 he kept more than 600 people as slaves.{{cite web|title=American slave owners|url=https://www.geni.com/projects/American-slave-owners/11457|website=Geni|access-date=8 July 2017}}
Francis Marion (1732–1795), Revolutionary War general, most of the people he enslaved escaped and fought with the British.Young, Jeffrey Robert. Domesticating Slavery: The Master Class in Georgia and South Carolina, 1670–1837. University of North Carolina Press, 1999, p. 93
Joseph Marryat (1757–1824), owned slaves in Grenada, Trinidad, St. Lucia, and Jamaica. MP for Horsham in 1808 and Sandwich (1812–1824).{{cite encyclopedia |title=Marryat, Joseph |encyclopedia=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |date=6 October 2016 |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/107425 |quote=Marryat, Joseph (1757–1824), West Indian slave owner, ship owner, and politician ... An inheritance of £2000 from an uncle enabled him to set up as a merchant and to invest over time in plantations and enslaved people in Trinidad, Grenada, Jamaica, and St Lucia. ... At the time of emancipation his sons Joseph Marryat (1790–1876) and Charles Marryat (1803–1884), who had taken on the merchant house, received compensation of over £40,000 for 700 enslaved men and women in Trinidad, Jamaica, St Lucia, and Grenada.|last1=Hall |first1=Catherine }}
John Marshall (1755–1835), 4th Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, he owned between seven and sixteen household slaves at various times.{{cite book |last=Paul |first=Joel Richard |title=Without Precedent: Chief Justice John Marshall and His Times |date=2018 |publisher=Riverhead Books |isbn=978-1594488238}}
George Mason (1725–1792), Virginia planter, politician, and delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787.

{{cite book

| last1 = Copeland

| first1 = Pamela C.

| last2 = MacMaster

| first2 = Richard K.

| publisher = University Press of Virginia

| year = 1975

| isbn = 0813905508

| title = The Five George Masons: Patriots and Planters of Virginia and Maryland

| page = 162

}}

Thomas Massie (c. 1675–1731), Virginia planter and politician who served in the Virginia House of Burgesses.{{Cite web|url=https://archives.lib.duke.edu/catalog/massiefamily|title=Massie family papers, 1766–1920s - Archives & Manuscripts at Duke University Libraries|website=David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library}}
Thomas Massie (1747–1834), Virginia planter, military officer in the American Revolution, and son of burgess William Massie.
William Massie (1718–1751), Virginia planter and politician who served in the House of Burgesses. Son of burgess Thomas Massie.
Joseph Matamata (born 1953/4), Samoan chief convicted in New Zealand of enslaving fellow Samoans.{{Cite web |last=Hollingsworth |first=Julia |date=2020-07-29 |title=Samoan chief in New Zealand sentenced to 11 years in jail for slavery but experts say he is just the tip of the iceberg |url=https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/28/asia/slavery-matamata-new-zealand-intl-hnk/index.html |access-date=2023-08-10 |website=CNN |language=en}}
Catharine Flood McCall (1766–1828) was one of a couple of women—like Martha Washington and Annie Henry Christian—who oversaw significant business operations that relied on slave labor in the United States in the late 1700s and early 1800s.{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/podcast/accounting-for-women-in-the-business-of-slavery-with-alexi-garrett/ |title=Accounting for Women in the Business of Slavery with Alexi Garrett |last=Ambuske |first=Jim |type=Audio |publisher=Mount Vernon |language=English}}
Carrie Winder McGavock (1829-1905), caretaker of the McGavock Confederate Cemetery in Franklin, Tennessee. Her father, Van Perkins Winder, gave her one slave at marriage, Mariah Reddick,{{Cite web |last=Gilfillan |first=Kelly |date=2015-02-01 |title=WillCo History: Meet Mariah Reddick |url=https://www.thenewstn.com/community/willco_history/willco-history-meet-mariah-reddick/article_a136ca0c-8847-5ec6-98ac-82ae6ca11787.html |access-date=2024-01-26 |website=The News |language=en}}{{Cite web |last=Buffie |date=2022-03-08 |title=Linda Mora is the "Grave Walker" for Franklin, Tennessee's Cemeteries |url=https://lovelyfranklin.com/meet-linda-mora-the-grave-walker-and-take-a-tour-of-franklins-oldest-cemeteries/ |access-date=2024-01-26 |website=Lovely Franklin |publisher= Discover Historic Franklin Tennessee |language=en-US}} and four more a few years later.{{Cite web |title=The Enslaved at Carter House & Carnton |url=https://boft.org/the-enslaved-at-carter-house-carnton |access-date=2024-11-24 |website=The Battle of Franklin Trust |language=en-US}}
John McGavock (1815–1893), Louisiana plantation owner and private secretary to Attorney General Felix Grundy. Mariah Reddick was enslaved by McGavock and continued to work for his family after the Civil War.{{Cite web |last=Gilfillan |first=Kelly |date=2015-02-01 |title=WillCo History: Meet Mariah Reddick |url=https://www.thenewstn.com/community/willco_history/willco-history-meet-mariah-reddick/article_a136ca0c-8847-5ec6-98ac-82ae6ca11787.html |access-date=2024-01-26 |website=The News |language=en}}
James McGill (1744–1813), Scottish businessman and founder of Montreal's McGill University, was a slave owner.{{cite news | last = Everett-Green | first = Robert | date = May 12, 2018 | title = 200 Years a Slave: The Dark History of Captivity in Canada | url = https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/200-years-a-slave-the-dark-history-of-captivity-in-canada/article17178374/ | work = The Globe and Mail}}
Henry Middleton (1717–1784), 2nd President of the Continental Congress, he enslaved about 800 people in South Carolina.{{cite book |first=John G. |last=Van Deusen |chapter=Middleton, Henry |title=Dictionary of American Biography |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofamer6john/ |edition=revised |location=New York |publisher=Scribner's |year=1961 |volume=6 |page=600}}
John Milledge (1757–1818), U.S. Congressman and 26th Governor of Georgia, he enslaved more than 100 people in that state.{{cite journal |title=Slaveholding in Antebellum Augusta and Richmond County, Georgia |pages=165–177 |first1=Donnie D. |last1=Bellamy |first2=Diane E. |last2=Walker |journal=Phylon |volume=48 |number=2 |year=1987 |doi=10.2307/274780|jstor=274780 }}
Robert Milligan (1746–1809), Scottish merchant and ship-owner. At the time of his death, he enslaved 526 people on his Jamaica plantations.{{cite web |url=http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Members/AL11Clarend.htm |title=1811 Jamaica Almanac – Clarendon Slave-owners |website=Jamaicanfamilysearch.com |access-date=2016-01-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150810013502/http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Members/AL11Clarend.htm |archive-date=10 August 2015 |url-status=live}}
Moctezuma II ({{circa|1480}}–1520), the last Aztec emperor; he was reported to have condemned the families of unreliable astrologers to slavery.{{cite book|last=Agurilar-Moreno|first=Manuel|title=Handbook to Life in the Aztec World|year=2006|publisher=California State University, Los Angeles |page=46 |isbn=978-0195330830|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZseasJq3WzEC&pg=PA46}}
James Monroe (1758–1831), 5th President of the United States, he enslaved many people on his Virginia plantations.{{cite journal|first=Gerard W.|last=Gawalt|title=James Monroe, Presidential Planter|journal=Virginia Magazine of History and Biography|year=1993|volume=101|issue=2|pages=251–272}}
Indro Montanelli (1909–2001), Italian journalist, historian, and writer, he bought an Eritrean child and kept her as a sex slave.{{Cite news|date=15 June 2020|title=Statue of famous Italian journalist defaced in Milan|work=Al Jazeera|url=https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/statue-famous-italian-journalist-defaced-milan-200614183625275.html|access-date=15 June 2020}}
Frank A. Montgomery (1830–1903), American politician and Confederate cavalry officer.{{cite book |last=Montgomery |first=Frank A. |date=1901 |title=Reminiscences of a Mississippian in Peace and War |url=https://archive.org/details/reminiscencesam00montgoog |location=Cincinnati |publisher=The Robert Clark Company Press |page=[https://archive.org/details/reminiscencesam00montgoog/page/n30 6] |lccn=01023742 |oclc=1470413 |ol=6909271M}}
Jackson Morton (1794–1874), Florida politician. Five men whom he enslaved attempted to escape when he threatened to move them to Alabama.{{cite news |url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/when-florida-men-overcame-our-racists |title=When Florida Men Overcame Our Racists |first=Matthew |last=Clavin |date=1 January 2016 |newspaper=The Daily Beast |access-date=10 July 2021}}
William Moultrie (1730–1805), revolutionary general and Governor of South Carolina, he enslaved more than 200 people on his plantation.{{Cite web|url=https://allthingsliberty.com/2017/11/slavery-eyes-revolutionary-generals/|title=Slavery through the Eyes of Revolutionary Generals|date=November 7, 2017}}
Lydia Mugambe (born March 24, 1975), Ugandan lawyer who served as a judge at the High Court of Uganda as well as the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals enslaved a Ugandan woman.{{Cite web |title=Ugandan High Court Judge and a UN Criminal Tribunal Judge convicted of immigration and modern slavery offences - Oxfordshire |url=https://www.thamesvalley.police.uk/news/thames-valley/news/2025/march/10-03-2025/ugandan-high-court-judge-and-a-un-criminal-tribunal-judge-convicted-of-immigration-and-modern-slavery-offences---oxfordshire/ |access-date=2025-03-15 |website=www.thamesvalley.police.uk |language=en-GB}}
Muhammad ({{circa|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.{{cite web |title=Slavery in Islam |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/slavery_1.shtml |publisher=British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) |access-date=2009-09-07}}
Hercules Mulligan (1740–1825), tailor and spy during the American Revolutionary War, his slave, Cato, was his accomplice in espionage.Rose, Alexander during the American Revolutionary War. Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring. New York: Bantam Dell, a division of Random House, 2007. First published in hardcover in 2006. {{ISBN|978-0553383294}}. p. 226. After the war, Mulligan became an abolitionist.Chernow, Ron. [https://books.google.com/books?id=4iafgTEhU3QC&pg=PA185 Alexander Hamilton]. New York: Penguin Books, 2005. {{ISBN|978-0143034759}}. Originally published New York, Penguin Press, 2004. p. 214.
Mansa Musa ({{circa|1280|1337}}), ruler of the Mali Empire; 12,000 slaves reportedly accompanied him on his Hajj.de Graft-Johnson, John Coleman, [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Musa-I-of-Mali "Mūsā I of Mali"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170421200707/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Musa-I-of-Mali |date=2017-04-21 }}, Encyclopædia Britannica, 15 November 2017.

N

File:JohnNewton edited.jpg 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 ({{circa|1600}}–1687), Maltese noblewoman and art patron who also owned slaves.
John Newton (1725–1807), British slave trader and later abolitionist.

{{Citation

| last = Hochschild

| first = Adam

| title = Bury the Chains, The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery

| publisher = Pan Macmillan

| place = Basingstoke

| year = 2005

| page = 77

}}

Nicias ({{circa|470}}–413 BCE), Athenian politician and general. Plutarch recorded that he enslaved more than 1,000 people in his silver mines.Plutarch, The Lives, "Nicias"
Nikarete of Corinth ({{floruit|5th and 4th century BC}}), she bought young girls from the Corinthian slave market and trained them as hetaera.{{Cite book|title=Ancient Greek and Roman Slavery|last=Hunt|first=Peter|date=2018|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-1405188050|location=Hoboken, NJ|pages=104}}

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.{{Cite book|first1=Kit|last1=Candlin|first2=Cassandra|last2=Pybus|chapter=A Lasting Testament of Gratitude: Susannah Ostrehan and her nieces|title= Enterprising Women: Gender, Race, and Power in the Revolutionary Atlantic|publisher=University of Georgia Press|year=2015|pages=83, 89}}
James Owen (1784–1865), American politician, planter, major-general and businessman, he owned the enslaved scholar Omar ibn Said.{{cite web |url=http://www.lancs.ac.uk/jais/volume/docs/vol5/5_hunwick.pdf |first=John O. |last=Hunwick |author-link= John Hunwick|title=I Wish to be Seen in Our Land Called Afrika: Umar b. Sayyid's Appeal to be Released from Slavery (1819) |work=Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 5 |year=2004}}

P

John Page (1628–1692), Virginia merchant and agent for the slave-trading Royal African Company.{{Cite web|url=http://www.rosewell.org/plantation-life---slavery.html|title=Plantation Life & Slavery|website=The Rosewell Foundation|language=en|access-date=2018-11-25}}
Suzanne Amomba Paillé ({{circa|1673}}–1755), African-Guianan slave, slave owner and planter.{{cite web|last1=Régnier|first1=Louis-Ferdinand|title=Suzanne Amomba Paillé, une femme guyanaise|url=https://www.blada.com/chroniques/2010/5222-Suzanne_Amomba_Paille_une_femme_guyanaise.htm|website=Blada|access-date=9 November 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160624041131/https://www.blada.com/chroniques/2010/5222-Suzanne_Amomba_Paille_une_femme_guyanaise.htm|archive-date=24 June 2016|location=French Guiana|language=fr|date=March 2010}}
Charles Nicholas Pallmer (1772–1848), British Member of Parliament and Jamaican plantation owner.{{cite book|last=Fisher|first=D.R.|title=The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1820–1832|date= 2009|publisher=Cambridge University Press|url=https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/pallmer-charles-1772-1848|isbn= 978-0521193146|access-date=4 April 2020}}
George Palmer (1772–1853), English businessman and politician. As a slave owner, he received compensation when slavery was abolished in Grenada.{{cite web | title=George Palmer: Profile & Legacies Summary| website=Legacies of British Slave-ownership | url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/10809 | access-date=8 December 2020}}
William Penn (1644–1718), founder of Pennsylvania, he owned many slaves.{{cite news |url=https://www.inquirer.com/philly/opinion/inquirer/20101220_Slavery_stained_some_unlikely_founders__too.html |title=Slavery stained some unlikely founders, too |first=Ron |last=Avery |date=December 20, 2010 |newspaper=The Philadelphia Inquirer}}
Richard Pennant, 1st Baron Penrhyn (1737–1808), owned six sugar plantations in Jamaica and was an outspoken anti-abolitionist.{{Cite web|url=http://www.spanglefish.com/sugarandslaverythepenrhyncastleconnection/pennants.asp|title=Penrhyn Castle Slavery | The Pennants|website=www.spanglefish.com}}
John J. Pettus (1813–1867), 20th and 23rd Governor of Mississippi, enslaved 24 people on his farm.{{cite book |editor1-last=Garraty |editor1-first=John A. |editor2-last=Carnes |editor2-first=Mark C. |date=1999 |title=American National Biography |volume=17 |location=New York and Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=414–415 |via=American Council of Learned Societies}}
Judith Philip (c. 1760 – 1848) was a free, Afro-Grenadian business woman who amassed one of the largest estates in Grenada. By the time Britain emancipated slaves in the West Indies she owned 275 slaves and was compensated 6,603 pounds sterling, one of the largest settlements in the colony.Candlin, Kit; Pybus, Cassandra (2015). Enterprising Women: Gender, Race, and Power in the Revolutionary Atlantic. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-4455-3.
Thomas Phillips, (1760–1851), founder of Llandovery College and a slave owner.{{Cite web|title=Summary of Individual {{!}} Legacies of British Slave-ownership|url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/25786|access-date=2020-06-11|website=www.ucl.ac.uk}}
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.{{cite book |last1=Pares |first1=Richard |date=1950 |title=A West India Fortune |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=XDIiAQAAIAAJ |publisher=Longmans Green & Co.}}{{Cite web |url=https://seis.bristol.ac.uk/~emceee/mountraversplantationcommunity.html |title=The Mountravers Plantation Community, 1734 to 1834 |website=Mountravers Plantation (Pinney's Estate) Nevis, West Indies |access-date=28 September 2020}}
Plato, (428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BCE), Athenian philosopher, reported to have owned several slaves.{{Cite book |last=Laërtius |first=Diogenes |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lives_of_the_Eminent_Philosophers/Book_III |title=Lives of the Eminent Philosophers}}
Susanna du Plessis (1739–1795), planter in Dutch Surinam, legendary for her cruelty.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=obFiAAAAQBAJ |page=121 |title=Creole Jews: Negotiating Community in Colonial Suriname |first=Wieke |last=Vink |year=2010 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-9004253704}}
Vedius Pollio (died 15 BCE), a Roman aristocrat remembered for being exceedingly cruel to his slaves.Dio [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/54*.html#23.2 52.23.2]; Pliny the Elder, Natural History [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plin.+Nat.+9.39 9.39]; Seneca the Younger, On Clemency 1.18.2.
James K. Polk (1795–1849), 11th President of the United States, he owned slaves most of his adult life.{{cite book|last=Dusinberre|first=William|year=2003|title=Slavemaster President: The Double Career of James Polk|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|url=https://archive.org/details/slavemasterpresi00dusi_0|isbn=978-0195157352}}
Leonidas Polk (1806–1864), Episcopal bishop and Confederate general, he enslaved people on his Tennessee plantation.Robins, Glenn. "Leonidas Polk." In Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History, edited by David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000. {{ISBN|978-0393047585}}.
Samuel Polk (1772–1827), father of President James K. Polk.{{cite web|url=https://www.whitehousehistory.org/enslaved-and-entrenched|title=Enslaved and Entrenched: The Complex Life of Elias Polk|last1=Kinslow|first1=Zacharie W.|website=White House Historical Association|access-date=January 23, 2021}}
Sarah Childress Polk (1803–1891), First lady, wife of James K. Polk, one of the first female plantation owners in Tennessee.{{Cite book |last=Greenberg |first=Amy |title=Lady First: The World of First Lady Sarah Polk |publisher=Knopf |year=2019 |language=English}}
Mattia Preti (1613–1699), Italian artist and Hospitaller knight, who while in Malta owned a slave who modelled for his paintings.
Rachael Pringle Polgreen (1753–1791), Afro-Barbadian hotelier and brothel owner. Emancipated herself, she had a violent temper and abused her own slaves.{{cite book|last1=Fuentes|first1=Marisa J.|editor1-last=Brier|editor1-first=Jennifer|editor2-last=Downs|editor2-first=Jim|editor3-last=Morgan|editor3-first=Jennifer L.|title=Connexions: Histories of Race and Sex in North America|date=2016a|publisher=University of Illinois Press|location=Champaign|isbn=978-0252098819|pages=143–168|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/1901318|chapter=Power and historical figuring: Rachael Pringle Polgreen's Troubled Archive|url-access=subscription |via=Project MUSE}}

Q

John A. Quitman (1798–1858), Mississippi politician and prominent member of the pro-slavery Fire-Eaters.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fPltPwhoDccC&pg=PA83 |pages=83–111 |title=The Fire-Eaters |first=Eric H. |last=Walther |publisher=Louisiana State University Press |year=1992 |isbn=978-0807141519}}

R

File:Rosas arenga a los morenos.jpg revived the slave trade and owned slaves himself.]]

Edmund Randolph (1753–1813), American statesman. Eight of his slaves were freed by the Gradual Abolition Act of 1780.{{cite web |url=https://www.ushistory.org/presidentshouse/slaves/washingtonand8.php |title=Washington, the Enslaved, and the 1780 Law |first=Edward Jr. |last=Lawler |work=The President's House, Philadelphia |publisher=USHistory.org |access-date=17 July 2020}}
John Randolph (1773–1833), American statesman and planter, and one of the founders of the American Colonization Society.David Lodge, [http://www.shelbycountyhistory.org/schs/blackhistory/jrandolphslave.htm "John Randolph and His Slaves"], Shelby County History, 1998, accessed 15 March 2011
John Reynolds (1788–1865), 4th Governor of Illinois, owned seven slaves whom he emancipated over 20 years.{{cite web |url=https://www.lib.niu.edu/2003/ih090315.html |title=Slavery in Illinois |first=Cinda |last=Klickna |work=Illinois Heritage |year=2003 |publisher=Illinois Periodicals Online}}
George R. Reeves (1826–1882), Texas sheriff, colonel, legislator, and Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, and was also the owner of Bass Reeves, who later became a notable lawman.{{cite book|last=Burton|first=Art T.|title=Black Gun, Silver Star: The Life and Legend of Frontier Marshal Bass Reeves|year=2008|publisher=U of Nebraska Press|location=Lincoln|isbn=978-0803205413}}
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.{{Cite book|last=Mackey|first=Frank|title=Done with Slavery: The Black Fact in Montreal, 1760–1840|publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press|year=2010|isbn=978-0773535787|pages=142}}
Thomas B. Robertson (1779 – 1828) American politician who served as Attorney General of the Orleans Territory, Secretary of the Louisiana Territory, a United States representative from Louisiana, the 3rd Governor of Louisiana. Purchased "Eliza" in 1817 from Austin Woolfolk.Schermerhorn, Jack Lawrence. "“THE MOST nOTORIOUS OF THE BALTIMORE NEGRO- BUYERS”". The Business of Slavery and the Rise of American Capitalism, 1815†“1860, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015, pp. 33-68. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300213898-004
William Barton Rogers (1804–1882), American scientist and founder of MIT, he enslaved at least six people, including Isabella Gibbons.{{cite web |author=Peter Dizikes | url = https://news.mit.edu/2018/mit-class-explores-institutes-connections-slavery-0212 | title = MIT class reveals, explores Institute's connections to slavery | publisher = MIT News Office| date = 2018-02-12 | access-date = 2018-02-12}}
Juan Manuel de Rosas (1793–1877), Governor of Buenos Aires Province who oversaw the revival of the slave trade in Argentina.{{cite book |last=Lynch |first=John |author-link=John Lynch (historian) |title=Argentine Caudillo: Juan Manuel de Rosas |edition=2 |year=2001 |publisher=Scholarly Resources |location=Wilmington, Delaware |isbn=0842028978 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/argentinecaudill0000lync |pages=53–54}}

Mary Johnston Rose (1718–1783), free person of color and hotelier on Jamaica, possibly born a slave, and later a slave owner herself.{{Cite web |title=Jamaica Ladies: Female Slaveholders and the Creation of Britain’s Atlantic Empire, by Christine Walker |url=https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article-abstract/137/588/1537/6702789?redirectedFrom=fulltext |access-date=2023-08-10 |website=academic.oup.com |doi=10.1093/ehr/ceac212}}
Isaac Ross (1760–1836), Mississippi planter who stipulated in his will that his slaves be freed and moved to Africa.Dale Edwyna Smith, The Slaves of Liberty: Freedom in Amite County, Mississippi, 1820–1868, Routledge, 2013, pp. [https://books.google.com/books?id=7U9UAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA15 15–21]
Anne Rossignol (1730–1810), Afro-French slave trader.Stewart R. King: [https://books.google.com/books?id=ESy9AQAAQBAJ&pg=PA81 Blue Coat Or Powdered Wig: Free People of Color in Pre-revolutionary Saint Domingue]
Isaac Royall Jr. (1719–1781), a colonial American landowner who played an important role in the creation of Harvard Law School.{{cite web |url=http://www.royallhouse.org/the-royalls/ |title=The Royalls |website=Royall House & Slave Quarters |date=2 October 2012 |accessdate=February 25, 2016}}
Peter Russell (1733–1808), gambler, government official, politician and judge in Upper Canada.{{cite web|last1=Peppiatt|first1=Liam|title=Chapter 41: A Sketch of Russell Abbey|url=https://landmarksoftoronto.com/chapters/41-a-sketch-of-russell-abbey/|website=Robertson's Landmarks of Toronto Revisited}}
John Rutledge (1739–1800), 2nd Chief Justice of the United States, he enslaved as many as sixty people at one time.{{cite web|url=http://library.sc.edu/digital/slaveryscc/intellectual-founders.html|title=Intellectual Founders – Slavery at South Carolina College, 1801–1865|publisher= University of South Carolina Libraries|access-date=October 18, 2016}}

S

File:First Slave Auction 1655 Howard Pyle.jpg]]

Elisabeth Samson (1715–1771), Surinamese plantation owner and daughter of a formerly enslaved woman.{{cite book |last1=Candlin |first1=Kit |title=Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro–Latin American Biography |title-link=Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography |date=2016 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0199935802 |editor1-last=Knight |editor1-first=Franklin W. |location=Oxford |chapter=Samson, Elisabeth (1715–1771), free colored Surinamese planter and businesswoman |editor2-last=Gates |editor2-first=Henry Louis Jr.}} {{subscription required|via=[http://www.oxfordreference.com/ Oxford University Press]'s Reference Online}}
Ana Joaquina dos Santos e Silva (1788–1859), Afro-Portuguese slave trader in Angola.Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong, [https://books.google.com/books?id=39JMAgAAQBAJ&dq=dona+rosa+portuguese+guinea&pg=RA1-PA38 Dictionary of African Biography, Volym 1–6]

Ibn Saud (1875–1953), regulated slavery in Saudi Arabia in 1936{{cite journal |author1=Alaine S. Hutson |title=Enslavement and Manumission in Saudi Arabia, 1926-38 |journal=Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies |date=2002 |volume=11 |issue=1 |doi=10.1080/10669920120122243 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10669920120122243# |access-date=30 September 2023 |language=en |issn=1943-6149 |quote=1936, the same year in which King Abd al Aziz ibn Abd ar Rahman Al Saud (r. 1902-53) decreed the Saudi Arabian slave regulations}} and brought his slaves to his 1945 meeting with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.{{cite book |author1=Bruce Riedel |title=Kings and Presidents Saudi Arabia and the United States since FDR |date=12 March 2019 |publisher=Brookings Institution Press |isbn=9780815737162 |page=2 |url=https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Kings-and-Presidents_CH1.pdf |access-date=30 September 2023 |language=en |chapter=Fdr and Ibn Saud, 1744 to 1953 |quote=Ibn Saud had come from Jidda on an American destroyer, the USS Murphy, with an entourage of bodyguards, cooks, and slaves}}{{cite news |author1=Nicholas DeAntonis |title=Joe Biden is making clear that Saudi human rights violations won't be ignored |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/03/11/joe-biden-is-making-clear-that-saudi-human-rights-violations-wont-be-ignored/ |access-date=30 September 2023 |work=Washington Post |date=11 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210318211544/https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/03/11/joe-biden-is-making-clear-that-saudi-human-rights-violations-wont-be-ignored/ |archive-date=18 March 2021 |language=en |quote=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}}
Ernst Heinrich von Schimmelmann (1747–1831), Danish politician and planter, he opposed the Atlantic slave trade but supported slavery, owning enslaved people in both Copenhagen and his Saint Croix plantation.{{cite web |url=http://denstoredanske.dk/Danmarks_geografi_og_historie/Danmarks_historie/Danmark_1536-1849/Ernst_Schimmelmann |title=Ernst Schimmelmann |website=Den Store Danske, Gyldendal |first=Michael |last=Bregnsbo|access-date=1 October 2019}}
Sally Seymour (died 1824), American pastry chef and restaurateur, formerly a slave.Amrita Chakrabarti Myers, [https://books.google.com/books?id=FAgfQcy7augC&dq=Catharine+maria+sasportas&pg=PA104 Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston]David S. Shields, [https://books.google.com/books?id=joI5DwAAQBAJ&dq=Eliza+Seymour+Lee&pg=PA86 The Culinarians: Lives and Careers from the First Age of American Fine Dining]
J. Marion Sims (1813–1883), physician, founder of gynecology. He performed medical experiments on enslaved women whom he bought or rented.{{cite book|last1=Wylie|first1=W. Gill|title=Memorial Sketch of the Life of J. Marion Sims

|date=1884|url=https://archive.org/details/101310238.nlm.nih.gov/page/n1|publisher=D. Appleton and Company|location=New York}}

Philip Skene (1725–1810), Scottish British army officer and New York state patroon who fought in the Saratoga campaignPapers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, Volume 6, Tuttle, Morehouse, and Taylor: New Haven, 1900, "Negro Governors", Orville Platt, pp. 327–9
Ashbel Smith (1805–1886), physician, diplomat, slave owner, Republic of Texas official, Confederate officer and first President of the Board of Regents of the University of Texas. An anti-abolitionist, he helped lead efforts to keep Texas a republic and slave state.{{cn|date=February 2023}}
Emilia Soares de Patrocinio (1805–1886) was a Brazilian slave, slave owner and businesswoman.Franklin W. Knight and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro–Latin American Biography, Oxford University Press, 2016
Hernando de Soto ({{circa|1500}}–1542), explorer and {{lang|es|conquistador}}, he enslaved many of the indigenous people he encountered in North America. At the time of his death he owned four enslaved people.Davidson, James West. After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection Volume 1. McGraw Hill, New York 2010, Chapter 1, p. 3
Stephen the Great ({{circa|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.{{cite book |last=Achim |first=Viorel |year=2004 |title=The Roma in Romanian History |publisher=Central European University Press |isbn=963-9241-84-9 |pages=17, 35–36}}
Alexander H. Stephens (1812–1883), Vice President of the Confederate States of America and proponent for the expansion of slavery.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MmWOIC6J9dcC |title=Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia: A Biography |isbn=978-0807140963 |last=Schott |first=Thomas E. |year=1988 |publisher=Louisiana State University Press}}
Charles Stewart ({{floruit|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.Blumrosen, Alfred W. & Blumrosen, Ruth G. Slave Nation: How Slavery United the Colonies and Sparked the American Revolution. Sourcebooks, 2005.
J. E. B. Stuart (1833–1864), Confederate general. He and his wife enslaved two people.Wert, Jeffry D. Cavalryman of the Lost Cause: A Biography of J.E.B. Stuart. pp. 60–61. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008. {{ISBN|978-0743278195}}.
John Stuart (1740–1811) was an American Anglican minister who later practiced in Kingston, Upper Canada.[http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/stuart_john_1740_41_1811_5E.html John Stuart – Dictionary of Canadian Biography] Retrieved 2015-04-07
Peter Stuyvesant ({{circa|1592}}–1672), director-general of New Netherland, he organized Manhattan's first slave-auction and enslaved 40 African people himself.{{Cite web|date=2018-12-16|title=The Case Against Peter Stuyvesant|url=https://www.newyorkalmanack.com/2018/12/the-case-against-peter-stuyvesant/|access-date=2021-08-21|website=New York Almanack|language=en-US}}
Thomas Sumter (1734–1832), South Carolina planter and general, in the Revolutionary War he gifted slaves to new recruits as an incentive to enlist.{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/african-americans-in-the-revolutionary-war/ |title=African Americans in the Revolutionary War |encyclopedia=South Carolina Encyclopedia |first=Stephen D. |last=Smith |publisher=University of South Carolina, Institute for Southern Studies |date=12 October 2016 |access-date=21 August 2021}}
Mary Surratt (1823–1865), convicted conspirator in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the first woman executed by the U.S. federal government. She and her husband were slaveholders.Larson, Kate Clifford. The Assassin's Accomplice: Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln. p. 21. Basic Books, 2008. {{ISBN|978-0465038152}}

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Clemente Tabone ({{circa|1575}}–1665), Maltese landowner who owned at least two slaves.{{cite journal |last1=Bugeja |first1=Anton |title=Clemente Tabone: The man, his family and the early years of St Clement's Chapel |journal=The Turkish Raid of 1614 |date=2014 |pages=42–57 |url=https://www.academia.edu/9430538 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180620141601/https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/35672725/chapter04_final_Clemente_Tabone.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1529504613&Signature=grPUX4FKDtCqw60ifLpaEPlCqew%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DClemente_Tabone_The_Man_his_family_and_t.pdf |archive-date=20 June 2018}}
Lawrence Taliaferro (1794–1871), Indian agent who enslaved Harriet Robinson and officiated her marriage to Dred Scott.{{cite web |url=https://oxfordaasc.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195301731.001.0001/acref-9780195301731-e-35930 |title=Scott, Harriet Robinson |work=African American National Biography |year=2013 |publisher=Oxford African American Studies Center |doi=10.1093/acref/9780195301731.013.35930|last1=Gardner |first1=Eric |isbn=978-0195301731 }} The largest slaveholder in what is now Minnesota, Taliaferro leased slaves to officers at Fort Snelling.{{Cite web|title=Enslaved African Americans and the Fight for Freedom|url=https://www.mnhs.org/fortsnelling/learn/african-americans|access-date=2022-02-11|website=Historic Fort Snelling – Minnesota Historical Society}}
Roger Taney (1777–1864), 5th Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, as a young man he inherited slaves from his father but quickly emancipated them.McNeal, J., [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14442c.htm "Roger Brooke Taney"], The Catholic Encyclopedia, New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. Retrieved May 28, 2009 from New Advent.
John Tayloe II (1721–1779), Virginia planter and politician, he enslaved approximately 250 people.{{cite book|last1=McCusker|first1=John J.|author1-link = John J. McCusker|last2=Morgan|first2=Kenneth|title=The early modern Atlantic economy|url=https://archive.org/details/earlymodernatlan00|url-access=registration|accessdate=16 October 2011|year=2000|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0521782494|pages=[https://archive.org/details/earlymodernatlan00/page/347 347]–}}
George Taylor ({{circa|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.{{cite news |url=https://www.mcall.com/news/mc-xpm-1984-07-15-2436116-story.html |newspaper=The Morning Call |title=George Taylor: A Historical Perspective Founding Father's Patriotic Beliefs Cost Him Everything |first=Frank |last=Whelan |date=15 June 1984 |access-date=21 August 2021}}
Zachary Taylor (1784–1850), 12th President of the United States, he enslaved as many as 200 people on his Cypress Grove Plantation.Stanley Nelson, [http://www.hannapub.com/concordiasentinel/article_e62bf2da-1d86-11e4-9b77-001a4bcf6878.html Taylor's Cypress Grove Plantation], The Ouachita Citizen, August 6, 2014
Edward Telfair (1735–1807), 19th Governor of Georgia and a slave owner.Edward Telfair Papers, 1764–1831; 906 Items & 5 Volumes; Savannah, Georgia; "Papers of a merchant, governor of Georgia, and delegate to the Continental Congress".
Thomas Thistlewood (1721–1786), British planter in Jamaica, he recorded torturing and raping slaves in his diary.Douglas Hall, In Miserable Slavery: Thomas Thistlewood in Jamaica, 1750–86, Macmillan, 1999, {{ISBN|0333480309}}
George Henry Thomas (1816–1870), Union General in the American Civil War, he owned slaves during much of his life.Einolf, Christopher J. George Thomas: Virginian for the Union. p. 19. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007. {{ISBN|978-0806138671}}.
Madam Tinubu (1810–1887), Nigerian aristocrat and slave trader.{{cite news|url=http://thenationonlineng.net/madam-tinubu-inside-political-business-empire-19th-century-heroine/|title=Madam Tinubu: Inside the political and business empire of a 19th century heroine|publisher=The Nation|access-date=July 29, 2016}}
Tippu Tip (1832–1905), Zanzabari slave trader.{{cite book |last=Sheriff |first=Abdul |title=Slaves, Spices & Ivory in Zanzibar: Integration of an East African Commercial Empire into the World Economy, 1770–1873. |location=Athens, Ohio |publisher=Ohio University Press |year=1987|page=108}}
Tiradentes (1746–1792), Brazilian revolutionary.{{Cite web|url=http://www.sjdr.com.br/historia/celebridades/tiradentes.html|title=São João del-Rei On-Line / Celebridades / Joaquim José da Silva Xavier|website=www.sjdr.com.br|access-date=2018-11-25}}
Alex Tizon (1959–2017), Pulitzer Prize winner and author of "My Family's Slave".{{Cite news|url=http://observer.com/2017/05/my-familys-slave-criticism-the-atlantic/|title='Disgusted' Women, Minorities Criticize Viral Atlantic Story 'My Family's Slave'|date=2017-05-16|work=Observer|access-date=2017-05-17|language=en-US}}
Robert Toombs (1810–1885), U.S. Congressman, 1st Confederate Secretary of State, and brigadier general in the Confederate Army. He owned many slaves on his plantations, including Garland H. White, William Gaines and Wesley John Gaines.{{Cite web|url=http://www.news-reporter.com/news/2017-09-21/Front_Page/Jackson_Chapel_to_celebrate_150_years_in_special_s.html|title=Jackson Chapel to celebrate 150 years in special service with Bishop Jackson – www.news-reporter.com – News-Reporter}}
George Trenholm (1807–1876), American financier, he enslaved hundreds of people on his plantations and in his household.{{Cite web |author = Betty Myers| title = Annandale Plantation | work = National Register of Historic Places – Nomination and Inventory | date = August 1973| url = http://www.nationalregister.sc.gov/georgetown/S10817722007/S10817722007.pdf | access-date = 7 July 2012}}
Homaidan Al-Turki (born 1969), Colorado resident convicted in 2006 of enslaving and abusing his housekeeper.{{cite news|title=Saudi linguist gets reduced sentence in sex slave case |url=http://www.kdvr.com/news/kdvr-saudi-linguist-seeking-new-sentence-in-sex-slave-case-20110225,0,4320471.story |access-date=10 May 2013 |newspaper=KDVR |date=February 25, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111006082236/http://www.kdvr.com/news/kdvr-saudi-linguist-seeking-new-sentence-in-sex-slave-case-20110225%2C0%2C4320471.story |archive-date=6 October 2011 |location=Centennial, Colo. |url-status=dead }}
John Tyler (1790–1862), 10th President of the United States, was 23 when he inherited his father's Virginia plantation and 13 slaves.{{cite book |last=Crapol |first=Edward P. |title=John Tyler, the Accidental President |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |year=2006 |isbn=978-0807830413 |url=https://archive.org/details/johntyleracciden00edwa |page=61}}

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Umayya ibn Khalaf (died 624), Arab slaveholder and tribal leader who enslaved Bilal ibn Rabah

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File:Histoire des Chevaliers Hospitaliers de S. Jean de Jerusalem - appellez depuis les Chevaliers de Rhodes, et aujourd'hui les Chevaliers de Malthe (1726) (14593919270).jpg]]

Martin Van Buren (1782–1862), 8th President of the United States and later a vocal abolitionist, owned at least one enslaved person and apparently leased others while he lived in Washington.{{cite web |url=https://www.whitehousehistory.org/the-enslaved-households-of-martin-van-buren |title=The Enslaved Households of President Martin Van Buren |first=Matthew |last=Costello |website=The Whitehouse Historical Association |date=27 November 2019 |access-date=16 July 2020}}
Joseph H. Vann (1798–1844), Cherokee leader with hundreds of slaves in Indian Territory.{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/joseph-vann-1798-1844 |encyclopedia=New Georgia Encyclopedia |title=Joseph Vann (1798–1844) |first=N. Michelle |last=Williamson |date=21 November 2013 |access-date=7 July 2021}}
Diego Velázquez (1599–1660), Spanish painter, he enslaved Juan de Pareja who was his assistant and a notable painter himself.{{Cite book|title=The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume III|last=Stoichita|first=Victor|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=2010|isbn=978-0674052611|editor-last=Bindman|editor-first=David|location=Cambridge, Mass.|pages=226|chapter=The Image of the Black in Spanish Art: Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries|oclc=555658364|editor-last2=Gates, Jr|editor-first2=Henry Louis}}
Hugues Loubenx de Verdalle (1531–1595), French Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller and cardinal, who owned 230 slaves at the time of his death.{{cite journal |language=fr |last1=Brogini |first1=Anne |date=2002 |title=L'esclavage au quotidien à Malte au XVI |url=http://cdlm.revues.org/26 |journal=Cahiers de la Méditerranée |volume=65 |pages=137–158 |doi= 10.4000/cdlm.26}}
Amerigo Vespucci (1451–1512), Italian explorer and eponym of America, his estate held five slaves at his death.{{cite book |last1=Fernández-Armesto |first1=Felipe |title=Amerigo: The Man Who Gave His Name to America |date=2007 |publisher=Random House |location=New York |pages=178–180}}
Jacques Villeré (1761–1830), Governor of Louisiana. 53 people he had enslaved were liberated by the British after the Battle of New Orleans.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=flMYDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA181 |title=Slavery's Metropolis: Unfree Labor in New Orleans During the Age of Revolutions |first=Rashauna |last=Johnson |year=2016 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1107133716 |page=181}}
Elisabeth Dieudonné Vincent (1798–1883), a Haitian-born free businesswoman of color who, along with her husband, owned slaves in New Orleans.{{cite book |last1=Scott |first1=Rebecca J. |last2=Hébrard |first2=Jean M. |title=Freedom Papers: An Atlantic Odyssey in the Age of Emancipation |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LDUiYEKg5FkC&pg=PA75 |date=2012 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |isbn=978-0674065161 |page=77}}
Caterina Vitale (1566–1619), Maltese pharmacist and chemist who owned slaves;{{cite journal|last1=Lanfranco|first1=Guido|title=Xogħol tal-Iskjavi fost il-Maltin|journal=Programm Tal-Festa|date=2007|url=http://www.kappellimaltin.com/XogholTasSkjaviFostIlMaltin.pdf|publisher=Għaqda Mużikali San Leonardu|location=Kirkop|language=mt|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160415104337/http://kappellimaltin.com/XogholTasSkjaviFostIlMaltin.pdf|archive-date=15 April 2016}} upon her death most of her estate was bequeathed to the Monte della Redenzione degli Schiavi, a charity which funded the ransoming of slaves.{{cite journal|last1=Cassar|first1=Paul|title=The concept and range of charitable institution until World War I|journal=Malta Medical Journal|date=March 2006|volume=18|issue=1|pages=48–49|url=http://www.um.edu.mt/umms/mmj/PDF/132.pdf|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20160328091508/http://www.um.edu.mt/umms/mmj/PDF/132.pdf|archivedate=28 March 2016}}

W

File:Junius Brutus Stearns - George Washington as Farmer at Mount Vernon.jpg: 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.{{cite book|title=Beneath These Red Cliffs|author=Ronald L. Holt|publisher=USU Press|url=http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1048&context=usupress_pubs|page=25}}Larson, Gustive O. "Walkara's Half Century". Western Humanities Review; Salt Lake City Vol. 6, Iss. 3, (Summer 1952): 235.Williams, Don B (2004). Slavery in Utah Territory: 1847-1865. Mt Zion Books, ISBN 0974607622
Joshua John Ward (1800–1853), Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina and "the king of the rice planters", whose estate was once the largest slaveholder in the United States (1,130 slaves).[http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ajac/biggest16.htm The Sixteen Largest American Slaveholders from 1860 Slave Census Schedules] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130719043247/http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ajac/biggest16.htm |date=2013-07-19 }}, Transcribed by Tom Blake, April to July 2001, (updated October, 2001 and December 2004 – now includes 19 holders)
Robert Wash (1790–1856), Missouri Supreme Court Justice. A slave-owner himself, he dissented in several important freedom suits.{{cite web |title=United States Census (Slave Schedule), 1850 |url=https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-DCX9-Y7B?i=59&cc=1420440 |website=FamilySearch |access-date=7 September 2018}}{{cite book |last1=Wong |first1=Edlie L. |title=Neither Fugitive nor Free |date=2009 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-0814794555 |page=140}}
Augustine Washington (1694–1743), father of George Washington. At the time of his death he owned 64 people.[http://www.nps.gov/archive/gewa/bowden&history.htm "Slavery at Popes Creek Plantation"], George Washington Birthplace National Monument, National Park Service, accessed April 15, 2009
George Washington (1732–1799), 1st President of the United States, who owned as many as 300 people.{{cite news|url=https://247wallst.com/special-report/2019/02/26/the-net-worth-of-the-american-presidents-washington-to-trump-2/|title=The Net Worth of the American Presidents: Washington to Trump|date=November 10, 2016|work=24/7 Wall St.|access-date=June 11, 2020|publisher=247wallst.com|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190410142809/https://247wallst.com/special-report/2019/02/26/the-net-worth-of-the-american-presidents-washington-to-trump-2/|archive-date=April 10, 2019|url-status=live}} In his last will and testament he set all his slaves free.
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.{{cite encyclopedia|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905135455/http://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/martha-washington/martha-washington-slavery/|archive-date=September 5, 2015|url=http://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/martha-washington/martha-washington-slavery/|title=Martha Washington & Slavery|encyclopedia=George Washington's Mount Vernon: Digital Encyclopedia|publisher=Mount Vernon Ladies' Association|year=2015|access-date=December 4, 2015}}
John Wayles (1715–1773), English slave trader and father-in-law of Thomas Jefferson.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eKUoCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA33 |title=Martha Jefferson: An Intimate Life with Thomas Jefferson |last=Hyland|first=William G. |date=2015 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1442239845 |pages=33–34 |language=en}}
James Moore Wayne (1790–1867), U.S. Congressman and Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court who owned slaves and had three children by an enslaved woman.{{cite web |url=https://slavery.princeton.edu/stories/james-moore-wayne |first=Trip |last=Henningson |work=Princeton and Slavery |title=James Moore Wayne |publisher=Princeton University |access-date=15 July 2020}}
Thomas H. Watts (1819–1892), 18th Governor of Alabama and slave owner.{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1630 |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Alabama |title=Thomas Hill Watts (1863–65) |first=Henry M. Jr. |last=McKiven |date=30 September 2014 |publisher=Alabama Humanities Foundation |access-date=15 July 2020}}
John Wedderburn of Ballindean (1729–1803), Scottish landowner whose slave, Joseph Knight, successfully sued for his freedom.[http://www.nas.gov.uk/about/071022.asp National Archives of Scotland website feature – Slavery, freedom or perpetual servitude? – the Joseph Knight case] Retrieved May 2012
Richard Wenman ({{circa|1712}}–1781). Nova Scotia politician and brewer. One of his slaves, Cato, attempted to escape in 1778.{{cite dcb |first=Judith |last=Fingard |title=Wenman, Richard |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/wenman_richard_4E.html}}
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.[http://www.librarycompany.org/JaneJohnson/ "The Liberation of Jane Johnson"], One Book, One Philadelphia, story behind The Price of a Child, The Library Company of Philadelphia, accessed 2 March 2014{{cite news|last=Bosman|first=Julie|title=Professor Says He Has Solved a Mystery Over a Slave's Novel|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/19/books/professor-says-he-has-solved-a-mystery-over-a-slaves-novel.html?hp|access-date=19 September 2013|newspaper=The New York Times|date=18 September 2013}}
William Whipple (1730–1785), American general and politician, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and slave trader.{{cite web|url=http://whipple.org/william/thiswasaman.html|access-date=January 18, 2003|date=February 26, 1964

|location=New Hampshire|title=This Was a Man: A Biography of General William Whipple|first=Dorothy Mansfield|last=Vaughan|publisher=The National Society of The Colonial Dames in the State of New Hampshire|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030118201003/http://whipple.org/william/thiswasaman.html|archive-date=18 January 2003}}

George Whitefield (1714–1770), English Methodist preacher who successfully campaigned to legalize slavery in Georgia.{{cite book

|last=Dallimore

|first=Arnold A.

|year=2010

|orig-year=1990

|title=George Whitefield: God's Anointed Servant in the Great Revival of the Enlightened Century

|location=Westchester, Illinois

|publisher=Crossway Books

|isbn=978-1433513411

|page=148

}}

James Matthew Whyte ({{circa|1788}}–1843), Canadian banker, he enslaved at least a dozen people on a plantation in Jamaica.{{cite dcb |first=David G. |last=Burley |title=Whyte, James Matthew |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/whyte_james_matthew_7E.html}}
James Beckford Wildman (1789–1867), English MP and owner of Jamaican plantations.Great Britain Committee on Slavery (1833), [https://books.google.com/books?id=pVoSAAAAIAAJ "Select Committee on the Extinction of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions, Report"], J. Haddon.
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".{{Cite web|url=http://libguides.princeton.edu/c.php?g=84056&p=544524|title=LibGuides: African American Studies: Slavery at Princeton|last=Knowlton|first=Steven|website=libguides.princeton.edu|language=en|access-date=2017-09-15}}
John Winthrop (1587/88–1649), one of the leading figures in founding the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the 3rd Governor of Massachusetts. He enslaved two Pequot people.Manegold (January 18, 2010), New England's scarlet 'S' for slavery; Manegold (2010), Ten Hills Farm: The Forgotten History of Slavery in the North, 41–42 Harper (2003), Slavery in Massachusetts; Bremer (2003), p. 314
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.Jon Butler, Becoming America: The Revolution Before 1776, p. 38, 2000
Wynflaed (died {{circa|950/960}}), an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman, she bequeathed a male cook named Aelfsige to her granddaughter Eadgifu.S 1539 Will of Wynflæd, circa AD 950 (11th-century copy, BL Cotton Charters viii. 38)Christine Fell, Women in Anglo-Saxon England: and the Impact of 1066, p 49, {{ISBN|0714180572}}
George Wythe (1726–1807), American legal scholar, U.S. Declaration of Independence signatory. He freed his slaves late in his life.[https://books.google.com/books?id=jaoC2BtS4OIC&pg=PA52 Philip D. Morgan, "Interracial Sex in the Chesapeake"], in Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson: History, Memory and Civic Culture, Eds. J.E. Lewis and P.S. Onuf. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999, pp. 55–60.

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.{{EB1911|wstitle=Yancey, William Lowndes|volume=28|page=902|noprescript=1}}
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".{{cite book | last = Walker | first = James W. St. G. | title = "Race," Rights and the Law in the Supreme Court of Canada: Historical Case Studies | publisher = Wilfrid Laurier University Press | year = 2006 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=91RrDs9H4YUC&pg=PP1 | page = 137| isbn = 978-0889205666 }}
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.{{cite web |title=David Levy Yulee: Conflict and Continuity in Social Memory |url=https://fch.ju.edu/FCH-2006/Wiseman-David%20Levy%20Yulee.htm |publisher=Jacksonville University |last=Wiseman |first=Maury |access-date=7 December 2021}}

Z

Juan de Zaldívar (1514–1570), Spanish official and explorer, he enslaved many people on his farms and mines in New Spain.{{cite web | first1 = Richard | last1 = Flint | first2 = Shirley Cushing | last2 = Flint |title=Juan de Zaldívar |url=http://newmexicohistory.org/people/juan-de-zaldivar |website=Office of the State Historia, Commission of Public Records, State Records Center and Archives | accessdate=29 August 2015}}

References

Category:Lists of people by activity

Category:Slavery-related lists