Female Slave Owners

Men and women owned slaves in New York. The tag “FSO” designates a record as relating to a “Female Slave Owner.” The following table provides a count of the records also showing records that have other tags, so that we can identify, for example, female slave owners advertising for escaping enslaved persons, or emancipating them.

Most frequently women became slave owners by inheritance, particularly if a husband died.

The records are listed by county in New York state. If you click on the “Count of Tag” for a given county, you will see a detail listing of all of the cases.

In the detail listing, the “Search Tag” field may be of interest, as it reveals more about the case. For example, “INVI SHIP FSO” refers to a female slave owner who is an international investor in a slave ship. “ABN FSO” refers to a female slave owner abandoning custody for a child born to one of her enslaved mothers.

You can access the complete information on any record by clicking on the “View Details” field – the first column of each displayed record.

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