List of slave owners

A

• William Aiken, founder and president of the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company
• William Aiken Jr., the 61st Governor of South Carolina, who also served in the state legislature and in the U.S. House of Representatives
• Gnaeus Julius Agricola, Roman general.
• Aleijadinho, Brazilian sculptor and architect.
• Askia Mohammad I, also known as Askia the Great, ruler of the Songhai Empire.
• Atahualpa, last Inca Emperor.
• David Rice Atchison, American politician from Missouri who served in the U.S. Senate

  B

• Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, self-proclaimed Caliph of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
• Vasco Núñez de Balboa, Spanish explorer and conquistador
• Elizabeth Swain Bannister, free woman of colour who owned 76 slaves in Berbice.
• Hayreddin Barbarossa, Ottoman corsair and admiral who enslaved the population of Corfu.
• Alexander Barrow, U.S. Senator and Louisiana planter.
• George Washington Barrow, Congressman and U.S. minister to Portugal, who purchased 112 enslaved people in Louisiana.
• Robert Ruffin Barrow, American plantation owner who owned more than 450 slaves and a dozen plantations.
• Zabeau Bellanton, Afro-French slave trader
• Judah P. Benjamin, Secretary of State for the Confederate States of America and a U.S. Senator from Louisiana
• Thomas H. Benton, American senator from Missouri
• John M. Berrien, U.S. Senator from Georgia
• William Wyatt Bibb, U.S. Congressman and 1st Governor of Alabama
• James Blair, British MP who owned sugar plantations in Demerara
• Simón Bolívar, wealthy slave owner who became a Latin American independence leader and eventually an abolitionist.
• Shadrach Bond, 1st Governor of Illinois.
• James Bowie, namesake of the Bowie knife, soldier at the Alamo, and slave trader.
• John C. Breckinridge, 14th Vice President of the United States and Confederate Secretary of War
• Brennus, a Gallic chieftain who led a sack of Rome in 387 BC
• Simone Brocard, a "free colored" woman of Saint-Domingue, a slave trader, and one of the wealthiest women of that French colony.
• Preston Brooks, veteran of the Mexican–American War and U.S. Congressman from South Carolina
• James Brown, 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
• Chang and Eng Bunker, Siamese twins who became successful entertainers in the United States.
• Pierce Butler, U.S. Founding Father and plantation owner.

  C

• Augustus Caesar, Roman emperor
• Julius Caesar, Roman dictator
• John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President of the United States
• Caligula, Roman emperor
• Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, hero of Cuban independence
• Landon Carter, Virginia planter
• Robert "King" Carter, Virginia landowner and acting governor of Virginia
• Girolamo Cassar, Maltese architect who owned at least two slaves
• Cato the Elder, Roman statesman
• Auguste Chouteau, co-founder of the city of St. Louis
• Pierre Chouteau, half-brother of Auguste Chouteau and defendant in a freedom suit by Marguerite Scypion
• Cicero, Roman statesman and philosopher
• Daniel Clark, Louisiana politician
• William Clark, American explorer and territorial governor famed for leading the Lewis and Clark expedition
• Claudius, Roman emperor
• Henry Clay, United States Secretary of State and Speaker of the House
• Howell Cobb, U.S. Congressman, Secretary of the Treasury, 19th Speaker of the House, and 40th Governor of Georgia
• Edward Coles, 2nd Governor of Illinois; an abolitionist, he inherited slaves from his father and freed them.
• Amaryllis Collymore, Barbadian slave and later slave owner and planter
• Alfred H. Colquitt, U.S. Congressman, 49th Governor of Georgia, and Confederate Army Major General
• Edward Colston, English merchant, philanthropist and slave trader
• Christopher Columbus, enslaved the Taíno and Arawak people and "sent the first slaves across the Atlantic."
• Philip Cook, U.S. Congressman and Confederate general
• Samuel Cooper, United States Army staff officer and Confederate general
• Hernán Cortés, Spanish conquistador who invaded Mexico.
• George W. Crawford, 21st U.S. Secretary of War, 38th Governor of Georgia, and U.S. Congressman

  D

• Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War
• Joseph Davis, eldest brother of Jefferson Davis and one of the wealthiest antebellum planters in Mississippi
• Demosthenes, Athenian statesman and orator who inherited at least 14 slaves from his father.
• Jean Noël Destréhan, Louisiana plantation owner at whose plantation one of the tribunals was held following the 1811 German Coast Uprising
• Henry Dodge, 1st and 4th Governor of the Wisconsin Territory
• Stephen A. Douglas, U.S. Senator from Illinois and 1860 U.S. Democratic presidential candidate
• Stephen Duncan, doctor from Pennsylvania who became the wealthiest Southern cotton planter before the American Civil War, with 14 plantations

  E

• Peter Early, U.S. Congressman and 28th Governor of Georgia
• Ninian Edwards, Governor of Illinois Territory and 3rd Governor of Illinois
• William Ellison, an American slave and later a slave owner
• Edwin Epps, plantation overseer and, for 10 years, owner of Solomon Northup, who authored Twelve Years a Slave.
• Erchinoald, mayor of the palace of Neustria. He introduced his slave, Balthild, to Clovis II who made her his wife and queen consort.

  F

• Mary Faber, Guinean slave trader known for her conflict with the West Africa Squadron.
• Peter Faneuil, Colonial American slave trader and owner, and namesake of Boston's Faneuil Hall.
• Rebecca Latimer Felton, suffragette, white supremacist, and Senator for Georgia, she was the last member of the U.S. Congress to have been a slave owner.
• Mariana Franko, free person of color in Curaçao, in the Dutch West Indies. She is known as the central figure in a famous court case.
• Benjamin Franklin, American statesman and philosopher, who owned as many as seven slaves before becoming a "cautious abolitionist."
• Isaac Franklin, owner of more than 600 slaves, partner in the largest U.S. slave trading firm Franklin and Armfield, and abuser of female slaves
• Nathan Bedford Forrest, Confederate general, slave trader, and Ku Klux Klan leader.
• John Forsyth, U.S. Congressman, U.S. Senator, 13th U.S. Secretary of State, and 33rd Governor of Georgia who was involved with United States v. The Amistad

  G

• Ana Gallum, also called Nansi Wiggins, 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.
• Horatio Gates, American general during the American Revolutionary War. Seven years later, he sold his plantation, freed his slaves, and moved north to New York.
• Edward James Gay, U.S. Congressional representative from Louisiana
• Ghezo, King of the Dahomey in present-day Benin from 1818 to 1858
• Sir John Gladstone, British politician, owner of plantations in Jamaica and Guyana, and recipient of the single largest payment from the Slave Compensation Commission.
• Ulysses S. Grant, Union general and 18th President of the United States, who acquired slaves through his wife and father-in-law.

  H

• Hadrian, Roman emperor
• James Henry Hammond, U.S. Senator and South Carolina governor, defender of slavery, and owner of more than 300 slaves.
• Wade Hampton I, 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.
• Wade Hampton II, American soldier and planter with land holdings in three states. He held a total of 335 slaves in Mississippi by 1860.
• Wade Hampton III, U.S. Senator, state governor, Confederate lieutenant general, and planter
• John Hancock, 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.
• Hannibal, Carthaginian general during the Second Punic War.
• Benjamin Harrison IV, American planter and politician. Upon his death his each of his ten surviving children inherited slaves from his estate.
• Benjamin Harrison V, American politician, United States Declaration of Independence signatory, he inherited a plantation and the people enslaved upon it from his father.
• William Henry Harrison, 9th President of the United States, he owned eleven slaves.
• Patrick Henry, 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."
• Thomas Heyward Jr., 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.
• George Hibbert, 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.
• Thomas Hibbert, English merchant, he became rich from slave labor on his Jamaican plantations.
• Arthur William Hodge, British Virgin Islands planter, the first, and likely only, British subject executed for the murder of his own slave.
• Eufrosina Hinard, a free black woman in New Orleans, she owned slaves and leased them to others.
• Thomas C. Hindman, American politician, Confederate general, and planter
• Horace, Roman poet
• Sam Houston, U.S. Senator, President of the Republic of Texas, 6th Governor of Tennessee, and 7th Governor of Texas
• Hjörleifr Hróðmarsson, early settler of Iceland whose thralls rebelled and killed him.
• Eppa Hunton, U.S. Senator from Virginia and a Confederate officer

  I

• Ibn Battuta, Muslim Berber Moroccan scholar and explorer. He enslaved girls and women in his harem.

  J

• Andrew Jackson, 7th President of the United States, he enslaved as many as 300 people.
• William James, English Radical politician and owner of a West Indies plantation.

  L

• James Ladson, lieutenant governor of South Carolina, he enslaved over 100 people in that state.
• James H. Ladson, businessman and South Carolina planter.
• Henry Laurens, 5th President of the Continental Congress, his company, Austin and Laurens, was the largest slave-trader in North America.
• Fenda Lawrence, slave trader based in Saloum. She visited the Thirteen Colonies as a free black woman.
• Delphine LaLaurie, New Orleans socialite and serial killer, infamous for torturing and murdering slaves in her household.
• John Lamont, Scottish emigrant who enslaved people on his Trinidad sugar plantations.
• Marie Laveau, Louisiana Voodoo practitioner, she enslaved at least seven people.
• Richard Bland Lee, American politician, he inherited a Virginia plantation and 29 slaves in 1787.
• William Lenoir, American Revolutionary War officer and prominent statesman, he was the largest slave-holder in the history of Wilkes County, North Carolina.
• William Ballard Lenoir, mill-owner and Tennessee politician, he used both paid and forced labor in his mills.
• Edward Long, English colonial administrator and planter in Jamaica. He was a slave-owner and polemic defender of slavery.
• Toussaint Louverture Former slave, Haitian general, and best known leader of the Haitian Revolution
• William Lowndes, American politician

  M

• Majid bin Said of Zanzibar, first Sultan of Zanzibar.
• Thuwaini bin Said, Sultan of Muscat and Oman
• James Madison, 4th President of the United States, by 1801 he enslaved more than 100 people on his Montpelier plantation.
• James Madison Sr., father of President James Madison, by the time of his death, he owned 108 slaves.
• Ferdinand Magellan, Portuguese navigator, he enslaved Enrique of Malacca.
• William Mahone, Confederate general and U.S. Senator from Virginia
• John Lawrence Manning, 65th Governor of South Carolina, in 1860 he kept more than 600 people as slaves.
• John Marshall, 4th Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, he owned between seven and sixteen household slaves at various times.
• Yaqub al-Mansur, the third Almohad Muslim Caliph.
• George Mason, Virginia planter, politician, and delegate to the US Constitutional Convention of 1787.
• James McGill, Scottish businessman and founder of Montreal's McGill University, was a slave owner.
• Henry Middleton, 2nd President of the Continental Congress, he enslaved about 800 people in South Carolina.
• John Milledge, U.S. Congressman and 26th Governor of Georgia, he enslaved more than 100 people in that state.
• Muhammad, Arab religious, social, and political leader and founder of Islam
• Robert Milligan, Scottish merchant and ship-owner. At the time of his death, he enslaved 526 people on his Jamaica plantations.
• James Monroe, 5th President of the United States, he enslaved many people on his Virginia plantations.
• Montezuma II, the last Aztec emperor
• Frank A. Montgomery, American politician and Confederate cavalry officer
• Jackson Morton, American politician
• Hercules Mulligan, tailor and spy during the American Revolutionary War, his slave, Cato, was his accomplice in espionage. After the war, Mulligan became an abolitionist.
• Mansa Musa, ruler of the Mali Empire

  N

• Nero, Roman emperor
• John Newton, British slave trader and later abolitionist.
• Nicias, Athenian politician and general. Plutarch recorded that he enslaved more than 1000 people in his silver mines.

  O

• Susannah Ostrehan, Barbadian businesswoman, herself a freed slave, she bought some slaves in order to free them, but kept others to labor on her properties.
• James Owen, American politician, planter, major-general and businessman, he owned the enslaved scholar Omar ibn Said.

  P

• John Page, Virginia merchant and agent for the slave-trading Royal African Company.
• Suzanne Amomba Paillé, African-Guianan slave, slave owner and planter.
• Charles Nicholas Pallmer British Member of Parliament and Jamaican plantation owner.
• William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, he owned many slaves.
• Richard Pennant, 1st Baron Penrhyn, owned six sugar plantations in Jamaica and was an outspoken anti-abolitionist.
• John J. Pettus, 20th and 23rd Governor of Mississippi, enslaved 24 people on his farm.
• Philip III of Macedon, king of Macedonia
• Thomas Phillips, founder of Llandovery College and a slave owner.
• Plato,, Athenian philosopher, reported to have owned several slaves.
• Susanna du Plessis, planter in Dutch Surinam, legendary for her cruelty.
• Vedius Pollio, a Roman aristocrat remembered for being exceedingly cruel to his slaves.
• James K. Polk, 11th President of the United States, he owned slaves most of his adult life.
• Leonidas Polk, Episcopal bishop and Confederate general, he enslaved people on his Tennessee plantation.
• Pompey
• Rachael Pringle Polgreen Afro-Barbadian hotelier and brothel owner. Emancipated herself, she had a violent temper and abused her own slaves.
• Ptolemy I of Egypt
• Ptolemy II of Egypt
• Ptolemy III of Egypt
• Ptolemy IV of Egypt
• Ptolemy V of Egypt
• Ptolemy VI of Egypt
• Ptolemy VII of Egypt
• Ptolemy VIII of Egypt
• Ptolemy IX of Egypt
• Ptolemy X of Egypt
• Ptolemy XI of Egypt
• Ptolemy XII of Egypt
• Ptolemy XIII of Egypt
• Ptolemy XIV of Egypt
• Ptolemy of Mauretania

  Q

• John A. Quitman, Mississippi politician and prominent member of the pro-slavery Fire-Eaters.

  R

• J. G. M. Ramsey, American historian, physician, planter, and businessman.
• Edmund Randolph, American statesman. Eight of his slaves were freed by the Gradual Abolition Act of 1780.
• John Randolph, American statesman and planter, and one of the founders of the American Colonization Society.
• Stedman Rawlins, English Governor of Saint Christopher and plantation owner.
• John Reynolds, 4th Governor of Illinois, owned seven slaves whom he emancipated over 20 years.
• Isaac Ross, Mississippi planter who stipulated in his will that his slaves be freed and moved to Africa.
• Anne Rossignol, Afro-French slave trader.
• John Rutledge, 2nd Chief Justice of the United States, he enslaved as many as sixty people at one time.

  S

• Elisabeth Samson, Surinamese plantation owner and daughter of a formerly-enslaved woman.
• Ana Joaquina dos Santos e Silva, Afro-Portuguese slave trader in Angola.
• William K. Sebastian, American politician
• Sally Seymour, American pastry chef and restaurateur
• Ismail Ibn Sharif
• Benjamin Smith, slave trader
• Solomon, ancient King of Israel
• D. H. Starbuck, North Carolina lawyer, judge, and United States Attorney, he owned at least one enslaved person.
• Peter Burwell Starke, politician and Confederate general
• Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States of America and proponent for the expansion of slavery.
• J. E. B. Stuart, Confederate general. He and his wife enslaved two people.
• Sulla, Roman consul and dictator
• Mary Surratt, alleged conspirator in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the first woman executed by the U.S. federal government. She and her husband were slaveholders.

  T

• Clemente Tabone, Maltese landowner who owned at least two slaves
• Lawrence Taliaferro, soldier and Indian agent, he officiated the wedding between his slave, Harriet Robinson, and Dred Scott.
• Roger Taney, 5th Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, as a young man he inherited slaves from his father but quickly emancipated them.
• Zachary Taylor, 12th President of the United States, he enslaved as many as 200 people on his Cypress Grove Plantation.
• Tegbessou King of the Kingdom of Dahomey from 1740 until 1774.
• Edward Telfair, 19th Governor of Georgia and a slave owner.
• Tewodros I, Emperor of Abyssinia from 1413 until 1414.
• George Henry Thomas, Union General in the American Civil War, he owned slaves during much of his life.
• Tiberius Roman emperor
• Madam Tinubu, Nigerian aristocrat and slave trader.
• Tippu Tip, Zanzabari slave trader.
• Tiradentes, Brazilian revolutionary.
• Alex Tizon, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of "My Family's Slave".
• Robert Toombs, 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.
• George Trenholm, American financier, he enslaved hundreds of people on his plantations and in his household.
• George Troup, U.S. Congressman and 32nd Governor of Georgia
• Homaidan Al-Turki, Colorado resident convicted in 2006 of enslaving and abusing his housekeeper.
• John Tyler, 10th President of the United States, when he was 23 he inherited his father's Virginia plantation and 13 slaves.

  V

• Martin Van Buren, 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.
• James Vann, Cherokee chief and holder of more than one hundred slaves in Georgia
• Joseph H. Vann, Cherokee leader with hundreds of slaves in Indian Territory, some of whom revolted in 1842
• Jacques Villeré, Governor of Louisiana. 53 people he had enslaved were liberated by the British after the Battle of New Orleans.
• Elisabeth Dieudonné Vincent a Haitian-born free businesswoman of color who, along with her husband, owned slaves in New Orleans.

  W

• Joshua John Ward, Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina and "the king of the rice planters", whose estate was once the largest slaveholder in the United States
• Robert Wash, Missouri Supreme Court Justice. A slave-owner himself, he dissented in several important freedom suits.
• Augustine Washington, father of George Washington. At the time of his death he owned 64 people.
• George Washington, 1st President of the United States, who owned as many as 300 people.
• Martha Washington, 1st U.S. First Lady, inherited slaves upon the death of her first husband and later gave slaves to her grandchildren as wedding gifts.
• James Moore Wayne, U.S. Congressman and Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court who owned slaves and had three children by an enslaved woman.
• Thomas H. Watts, 18th Governor of Alabama and slave owner.
• John Wedderburn of Ballindean, Scottish landowner whose slave, Joseph Knight, successfully sued for his freedom.
• John H. Wheeler, 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.
• William Whipple, American general and politician, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and slave trader.
• George Whitefield, English Methodist preacher who successfully campaigned to legalize slavery in Georgia.
• John Witherspoon, Scottish-American Presbyterian minister, Founding Father of the United States, president of the College of New Jersey. At the time of his death, he owned "two slaves...valued at a hundred dollars each".
• John Winthrop, one of the leading figures in founding the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the 3rd Governor of Massachusetts. He enslaved two Pequot people.
• Joseph Wragg, 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.
• Wynflaed, an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman, she bequeathed a male cook named Aelfsige to her granddaughter Eadgifu.
• George Wythe, American legal scholar, U.S. Declaration of Independence signatory

  Y

• Marie-Marguerite d'Youville, the first person born in Canada to be declared a saint and "one of Montreal's more prominent slaveholders."