List of presidents of the United States who owned slaves facts for kids
Slavery was a system where people were treated as property and forced to work without pay. It was legal in the United States from its very beginning as a country. This practice had been around in North America since the first European settlements. Slavery was officially ended in 1865 by the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, right after the American Civil War.
Many U.S. presidents owned enslaved people at some point in their lives. Twelve presidents owned slaves, and eight of them did so while they were in office. Out of the first twelve American presidents, ten owned slaves. The only two who did not were John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams, as they did not support slavery. George Washington was the first president to own slaves, even during his time as president. Zachary Taylor was the last president to own slaves while in office. Ulysses S. Grant was the last president who owned slaves at any point in his life. Among these presidents, Thomas Jefferson owned the most enslaved people, with over 600. George Washington also owned a large number.
Woodrow Wilson was the last president born into a family that used enslaved labor. However, the Civil War ended when he was still a child.
Presidents Who Owned Slaves
| No. | President | Approximate number of slaves held |
While in office? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | George Washington | 250–600+ | Yes (1789–1797) | Washington was a major slave owner before, during, and after his presidency. His will stated that his enslaved people would be freed after his wife, Martha Washington, passed away. However, she freed them within a year of his death. As president, Washington helped put the 1787 Northwest Ordinance into action. This law stopped slavery from spreading into new territories north of the Ohio River. This was the first time the U.S. government limited where slavery could expand.
See George Washington and slavery for more details |
| 3rd | Thomas Jefferson | 200–600+ | Yes (1801–1809) | Jefferson had children with Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman who was likely his late wife's half-sister. Even though he owned slaves his whole life, Jefferson often spoke against slavery. He tried to limit its growth and supported the idea of gradual emancipation, which meant slowly ending slavery over time. As president, he oversaw the end of the international slave trade.
See Thomas Jefferson and slavery for more details |
| 4th | James Madison | 100+ | Yes (1809–1817) | Madison sometimes criticized slavery and was against bringing more enslaved people from other countries. However, he strongly opposed any efforts to stop slavery from expanding within the U.S. Madison did not free his slaves during his life or in his will. Paul Jennings, one of Madison's enslaved people, worked for him during his presidency. Jennings later wrote the first memoir about life in the White House.
See James Madison and slavery for more details |
| 5th | James Monroe | 75 | Yes (1817–1825) | Like Thomas Jefferson, Monroe said slavery was wrong and supported ending it gradually. But he still owned many enslaved people throughout his adult life. He only freed one of them near the end of his life. As president, he oversaw the Missouri Compromise. This agreement allowed Missouri to join the U.S. as a slave state. In return, Maine joined as a free state, and slavery was banned north of the parallel 36°30′ north. Monroe supported sending freed slaves to the new country of Liberia. Its capital city, Monrovia, is named after him.
See James Monroe and slavery for more details |
| 7th | Andrew Jackson | 200 | Yes (1829–1837) | Jackson owned many enslaved people. During his presidency, there was a debate about his response to anti-slavery writings. When he was running for president in 1828, he was criticized for being involved in the slave trade. He did not free his enslaved people in his will.
See Andrew Jackson and slavery for more details |
| 8th | Martin Van Buren | 1 | No (1837–1841) | Van Buren's father owned six enslaved people. The only person Van Buren personally owned, named Tom, escaped in 1814. Van Buren did not try to find him. In 1824, Tom was found in Massachusetts. Van Buren agreed to sell him for $50, but only if he could be captured without violence. This didn't happen, and Tom remained free. This was likely Van Buren's intention. Later in life, Van Buren joined the Free Soil Party. This party was against slavery spreading into new western territories, but not against ending it immediately.
See Martin Van Buren and slavery for more details |
| 9th | William Henry Harrison | 11 | No (1841) | Harrison inherited several enslaved people. As the first governor of the Indiana Territory, he tried but failed to get Congress to make slavery in Indiana legal.
See William Henry Harrison and slavery for more details |
| 10th | John Tyler | 29 | Yes (1841–1845) | Tyler never freed any of his enslaved people. He always supported the rights of slave owners and the expansion of slavery during his time in government.
See John Tyler and slavery for more details |
| 11th | James K. Polk | 56 | Yes (1845–1849) | Polk became the Democratic candidate for president in 1844 partly because he was okay with slavery, unlike Van Buren. As president, he generally supported the rights of slave owners. His will said that his enslaved people would be freed after his wife, Sarah Childress Polk, died. However, the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution ended up freeing them long before her death in 1891.
See James K. Polk and slavery for more details |
| 12th | Zachary Taylor | 300 | Yes (1849–50) | Even though Taylor owned slaves his whole life, he generally did not want slavery to expand into new territories. Taylor was against the Compromise of 1850. This agreement allowed California to join the U.S. as a free state and banned the slave trade in Washington, D.C. In exchange, most of the land taken from Mexico could decide on slavery themselves. It also included a federal law that required states to help capture and return escaped slaves. Taylor died in office before he could stop the bill. His successor, Millard Fillmore, then signed it into law. Taylor did not free any of his enslaved people in his will.
See Zachary Taylor and slavery for more details |
| 17th | Andrew Johnson | 9 | No (1865–1869) | Johnson owned a few enslaved people and supported James K. Polk's policies on slavery. As military governor of Tennessee, he convinced Abraham Lincoln to keep the Emancipation Proclamation from applying to that area. Johnson later freed all his own enslaved people on August 8, 1863. On October 24, 1864, Johnson officially freed all enslaved people in Tennessee.
See Andrew Johnson and slavery for more details |
| 18th | Ulysses S. Grant | 1 | No (1869–1877) | Although Grant later became a general in the Union Army fighting against slavery, his wife Julia had control of four enslaved people during the American Civil War. Her father had given them to her. It's not clear if she legally owned them or just had them temporarily. All of them would have been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, even though it didn't directly apply to her state of Missouri. Grant personally owned one enslaved man, William Jones. Grant's father-in-law gave him William, and Grant freed him shortly after, on March 29, 1859.
See Ulysses S. Grant and slavery for more details |
Images for kids
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John Trumbull's 1780 portrait George Washington also shows a man believed to be Washington's enslaved valet William Lee
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This photo from around 1937 shows William Andrew Johnson. He had been enslaved by Andrew Johnson and was thought to be the last person still alive who had been enslaved by a U.S. president. Andrew Johnson paid $500 for William A. Johnson's mother Dolly Johnson.
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Elias Polk was enslaved by James K. Polk at his farm in Maury County, Tennessee
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In 1875, the St. Louis Globe newspaper published this interview with Moses Key, who had been enslaved by James Monroe.
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Anna Judge, who was almost 100 years old and had been enslaved by William Henry Harrison, died in a kitchen fire accident in 1899.
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In 1862, Zachary Taylor's daughter asked the U.S. government for money to make up for the value of Jane Webb. Jane Webb was a formerly enslaved woman who had gone with her father to the White House during his presidency.
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Alfred Jackson (1812–1901) lived at The Hermitage longer than anyone else.
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Henry Hawkins (1819–1917) went with Zachary Taylor on his Mexican-American War campaigns. He was buried at the mausoleum of Dick Taylor in Metairie Cemetery, New Orleans (Natchez Democrat, July 6, 1917).
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This is the 1870 federal census from Ross County, Ohio. The person recording the census made a special note that Madison Hemings was "the son of Thomas Jefferson."
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Madison's brother and fellow enslaved person of Thomas Jefferson, Eston Hemings, moved to Wisconsin and changed his name to Jefferson. Eston's son John Wayles Jefferson (pictured) was an officer in the U.S. Army during the Civil War.
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Paul Jennings wrote A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison and helped plan what became known as the Pearl incident.
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See also
- Abolitionism in the United States
- District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act (1862), which ended slavery in Washington, D.C.
- John Quincy Adams and abolitionism
- Lists of United States public officials who owned slaves
- Slavery in the District of Columbia
- Treatment of slaves in the United States
- Polk Taylor, reportedly owned by Zachary Taylor's daughter
- Eva Bates, reportedly employed by both John Adams and James Monroe
