List of last survivors of American slavery

Part of a series on
Forced labour and slavery
Contemporary Child Labour Child soldiers Conscription Debt Forced marriage Bride buying Child marriage Wife selling Forced prostitution Human trafficking Involuntary servitude Peonage Penal labour Contemporary Africa 21st-century jihadism Sexual slavery Wage slavery
Historical Antiquity Egypt Babylonia Greece Rome Medieval Europe Ancillae Black Sea slave trade Byzantine Empire Kholop Prague slave trade Serfs History In Russia Emancipation Thrall Genoese slave trade Venetian slave trade Balkan slave trade Muslim world Slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate Slavery in al-Andalus ‎ Baqt Contract of manumission Bukhara slave trade Crimean slave trade Khazar slave trade Khivan slave trade Ottoman Empire Avret Pazarları Barbary Coast slave trade pirates Sack of Baltimore Slave raid of Suðuroy Turkish Abductions Concubinage history Ma malakat aymanukum Avret Pazarları Harem Abbasid harem Ottoman Imperial Harem Safavid imperial harem Qajar harem Jarya/Cariye Odalisque Qiyan Umm al-walad Circassian slave trade Saqaliba Slavery in the Rashidun Caliphate Slavery in the Umayyad Caliphate Slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate Volga Bulgarian slave trade 21st century Atlantic slave trade Bristol Brazil Database Dutch Middle Passage Nantes New France Panyarring Spanish Empire Slave Coast Thirteen colonies Topics and practice Conscription Ghilman Mamluk Devshirme Blackbirding Coolie Corvée labour Field slaves in the United States Treatment House slaves Saqaliba Slave market Slave raiding Child soldiers White slavery Naval Galley slave Impressment Pirates Shanghaiing Slave ship
By country or region Sub-Saharan Africa Contemporary Africa Trans-Saharan slave trade Red Sea slave trade Indian Ocean slave trade Zanzibar slave trade Angola Chad Comoros Ethiopia Mali Mauritania Niger Nigeria Seychelles Somalia Somali slave trade South Africa Sudan Zanzibar North and South America Pre-Columbian America Aztec Americas indigenous U.S. Natives United States Field slaves female Contemporary maps partus prison labour Slave codes Treatment interregional Human trafficking The Bahamas Canada Caribbean Barbados British Virgin Islands Trinidad Code Noir Latin America Brazil Lei Áurea Colombia Cuba Haiti revolt Restavek (Encomienda) Puerto Rico East, Southeast, and South Asia Human trafficking in Southeast Asia Bhutan Brunei China Booi Aha Laogai penal system India Debt bondage Chukri System Bawi system Indonesia Japan comfort women Korea Kwalliso Malaysia Maldives Slavery in the Mongol Empire Thailand Yankee princess Vietnam Australia and Oceania Australia Human trafficking Blackbirding Slave raiding in Easter Island Human trafficking in Papua New Guinea Blackbirding in Polynesia Europe and North Asia Sex trafficking in Europe United Kingdom Penal Labour Slavery Denmark Dutch Republic Germany in World War II Malta Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russia Spain Sweden North Africa and West Asia Afghanistan Algeria Bahrain Egypt Human trafficking in the Middle East Iran Iraq Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Libya Morocco Oman Palestine Saudi Arabia Syria Tunisia Qatar Yemen United Arab Emirates
Religion Bible Christianity Catholicism Mormonism Islam Judaism Baháʼí Faith
Opposition and resistance Abolitionism U.K. U.S. Brussels Anti-Slavery Conference 1889–90 Temporary Slavery Commission 1926 Slavery Convention Committee of Experts on Slavery Advisory Committee of Experts on Slavery Ad Hoc Committee on Slavery Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery Abolitionists Anglo-Egyptian Slave Trade Convention Anti-Slavery International Blockade of Africa U.K. U.S. Colonization Liberia Sierra Leone Compensated emancipation Freedman Manumission Freedom suit Slave Power Underground Railroad songs Slave rebellion Slave Trade Acts International law Third Servile War 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom Abolition of slave trade in Persian gulf [fa]
Related Common law Indentured servitude Forced labour Fugitive slaves laws convention Great Dismal Swamp maroons List of slaves owners last survivors of American slavery List of slavery-related memorials and museums Slave marriages in the United States Slave narrative films songs Slave name Slave catcher Slave patrol Slave Route Project breeding court cases Washington Jefferson J.Q. Adams Lincoln Emancipation Proclamation 40 acres Freedmen's Bureau Iron bit Emancipation Day
v t e

Slavery existed in the United States from its inception in 1619 to its partial abolition with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on December 6, 1865, under which it was abolished nationally. The last known survivors who were born into legalized slavery or enslaved prior to the passage of the amendment are listed below. The list also contains the last known survivors in various states which abolished legal slavery prior to 1865. Some birth dates are difficult to verify due to lack of birth documentation for most enslaved individuals.

Name	Image	Birth	Death	Notes and References
Elizabeth Cash Green		June 2, 1862	February 20, 1975	Born, it is claimed, in Midland, Georgia in 1862, moved to Arkansas in 1882, and died Helena, Arkansas in 1975.[1]
Peter Mills		October 26, 1861	September 22, 1972	Born in Prince George's County, Maryland, and died after a pedestrian accident in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.[2]
Sylvester Magee		May 29, 1841?	October 15, 1971	Unverified and purportedly died at 130 years old in Columbia, Marion County, Mississippi.[3][4] Age is unverified, and such a claim would have made him the oldest person in the world, so his birthdate is likely after 1841.
William Casby		January 19, 1857[5]	August 17, 1970[6]	Photographed on March 24, 1963, by Richard Avedon in Algiers, New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, with multiple generations of his family.[7][8][9]
Mary Hardway Walker		May 6, 1848?	December 1, 1969	Purportedly lived to 121 years old; she had a child who died in his 90s, according to the family Bible on Ancestry.com.[citation needed] She moved from Union Springs, Bullock County, Alabama, to Chattanooga, Hamilton County, Tennessee, where a newspaper article was published about her learning to read in 1966 at age 116.[10]
Anna J. Cooper		August 10, 1858	February 27, 1964	Anna Cooper was a notable academic and activist who was born in slavery Raleigh, Wake County, North Carolina.[11][12]
Josephus		pre-1865	after August 28, 1963	Listed in a bulletin for Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 March on Washington as supposedly the last surviving American slave.[13]
Jeff Doby		February 6, 1858	March 26, 1963	Believed to be the oldest living person in South Carolina at the time of 1961 and one of the last living former slaves in South Carolina. Jeff was born in Camden, Kershaw County, and died at the age of 105 in 1963. He was featured in the local newspaper after his 103rd birthday and photographed. Two of his sons would also live to be nearly 100 years old.[14]
Fountain Hughes		1859	July 4, 1957[citation needed]	Former slave freed in 1865 after the American Civil War. Descendant of Betty Hemings, slave matriarch at Thomas Jefferson's plantation Monticello. Hughes was interviewed in June 1949 about his life by the Library of Congress as part of the Federal Writers' Project of oral histories of former slaves persons. The recorded interview is available online through the Library of Congress and the World Digital Library.
Alfred "Teen" Blackburn		April 26, 1842	March 8, 1951	Received a Confederate pension in 1929 for accompanying his owner during the Civil War; resided in North Carolina.[15]
John Wesley Washington		c. 1843	May 15, 1951[16]	Possibly last surviving former slave living in Washington, D.C.
Eliza Moore		1843	January 21, 1948	One of the last verified surviving American slaves; resided in North Carolina.[17]
William Andrew Johnson		February 8, 1858	May 16, 1943	Believed to be the last surviving person owned by a U.S. President (Andrew Johnson); visited FDR at the White House in 1937.[18][19]
Adeline Dade		1853	December 1941	Possibly one of the last living former slaves in New York.[20]
Harriet Wilson Whitely		March 15, 1855	April 26, 1941	The last living former slave in Fairmont, Fairmont County, West Virginia.[21]
Matilda McCrear		1857	January 1940	The last known survivor of the Clotilda in 1859–1860, the last trans-Atlantic slave ship to arrive in America from Africa.[22]
Redoshi		1848	1937	The next to last known survivor of the Clotilda, the last slave ship to arrive in America.[22]
Delia Garlic		1837	1937 at the earliest	Born in Virginia; was purportedly 100 years old during an interview with Margaret Fowler in the late 1930s.[23][24] Date of death is unclear.
Cudjoe Lewis		1841	July 17, 1935	One of the last survivors of the Clotilda, the last slave ship to arrive in America.[25]
Perry Lockwood		ca. 1844	1929	Allegedly one of the last living former slaves in lower Delaware; died aged 87.[26]
Reuben Freeman		c. 1835	c. 1915	One of the last slaves in Somerset County, New Jersey; lived in Somerville; was enslaved to William Annin of Liberty Corner.[27] Likely other later survivors because final slaves were not emancipated until 1865 in New Jersey.
Julius Lemons		c. 1850	after 1915	Possibly last survivor of the Wanderer[28]
David Hendrickson		1799	1900	Allegedly the last living former slave sold "on the block" in New Jersey.[29] Likely other later survivors because final slaves were not emancipated until 1865 in New Jersey.
Louise Tritton		ca. 1780	1891	One of the last living former slaves in Connecticut, and oldest person in New Haven, New Haven County.[30]
Adjua D'Wolf		1794	1868	Possibly the last surviving slave in Rhode Island. Adjua was enslaved in Africa, brought to Bristol, Bristol County, Rhode Island, in 1803 and sold to the D'Wolf family, a family of slave traders,[31] after new enslavement was made illegal in Rhode Island.[32] Her death in 1868 was noted in several newspapers around the country, including in the South.[33] James Howland (1758-1859) was also one of Rhode Island's last legal former slaves, and was enslaved until 1842.[34][35] D'Wolf and Howland are likely not the last slaves, due to RI's gradual emancipation with several legally slaves still listed in the 1840 census, and likely enslaved until the 1843 RI Constitution banned all slavery.
Hannah Kelley		ca. 1760	January 15, 1864	Died at 103 years old in Cross Creek, Cross Creek Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania, as possibly the last living former slave in Pennsylvania, formerly owned by John Gardner of Jefferson, Jefferson County.[36]
Margaret Pint		1778	1857	Purportedly the last living former slave in New York; she was born into slavery in Westchester County.[37] Likely not the last living former slave, because final emancipation in New York did not occur until July 5, 1827.
Venus Rowe		ca. 1754	1844	Purportedly one of the last living former slaves in Massachusetts, resided in Burlington, Middlesex County.[38]

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (June 2020)

• List of slaves
• Peter Fossett – Former slave (1815–1901), said to be the last survivor of enslavement by Thomas Jefferson^[42]

• Last slave ship descendants