Jane Minor

Jane Minor (c. 1792 – 1858), also known as Gensey (or Jensey[1]) Snow, was an African-American healer and slave emancipator, one of the few documented enslaved healing practitioners in United States history.

[2] Minor "was apparently skilled medically and a very gifted, nurturing healer, someone patients really responded to," according to historian Susan Lebsock.

In the manumission deed, he notes that he freed Minor "for several acts of extraordinary merit in nursing at the imminent risk of her own health and safety, exercising the most unexampled patience and attention in watching over the sick beds of several individuals of this town, as well as on account of my belief that she will in the future continue ... to perform similar acts ... "[5] In 1826, she met and married Lewis Minor, a free laborer.

The money Jane Minor earned as a medical practitioner, usually from $2-$5 per visit, allowed her to purchase and free at least sixteen slaves, some of whom cost over $2,000.

[9] More than 30 years after her manumission, Petersburg newspapers printed reports of operations performed by physicians in "the Hospital of the well-known nurse Jinsey Snow.