People database
People from the Italian peninsula involved in the Atlantic slave trade and slavery, 15th–19th centuries. Search by name or filter by role, place, network and period.
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Baldase Bernardo
c. 1791–1810A merchant of Italian origin resident in Havana. With his brother Vicente Baldase, a merchant resident in Cádiz, he was joint owner of the sugar ingenio «La Santísima Trinidad», purchased in May 1795 from Juan de Sequeira. Between 1796 and 1797 the firm went bankrupt, and from the quiebra arose a long legal dispute between the Consulado of Havana and that of Cádiz over the settlement of the debts. The precautionary seizure of the plantation led to the drawing up of the inventory of assets and the detailed list of the enslaved people who worked there, including the family groups of Aldonza de Luca and Nicolasa Luca.
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Belgrano Peri (Pérez) Domingo
1757–1780A native of Oneglia, in 1750 he emigrated to Cádiz, where he Hispanicised his surname to Pérez, and a few years later he moved to Buenos Aires, where he became one of the richest Ligurian merchants of the Río de la Plata. He traded in enslaved people imported from Brazil and started commercial operations with the Banda Oriental, France and Great Britain.
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Capanegra Agustin
1816–1827Like other Genoese, he farmed rented land. He owned a house in a quinta in the Buenos Aires area and no fewer than fourteen enslaved people.
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Caracciolo Cipriani Amelia
until 1834She appears, together with her husband Cipriano Cipriani, among the beneficiaries of the compensation granted by Great Britain to slave owners after the abolition of slavery in the British colonies, in 1834. The Cipriani family owned the Moka plantation in Trinidad, in the British West Indies, and was also linked to the Ortinola property, in the Maracas region. In the Legacies of British Slavery Database her name appears in connection with compensation Trinidad no. 1017, for which £270 12s 0d was awarded.
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Castellon Tomas
1509–1527Brother of Jacome Castellon, after serving as agent of the Genoese community of Seville in Hispaniola he acquired a property in Puerto Rico, where he established the first sugar-cane plantation.
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Cipriani Cipriano
1770–1834He belonged to a family of Tuscan origin with commercial interests between Livorno and Corsica, in particular at Centuri. Brother of Matteo Cipriani and uncle of Leonetto Cipriani, he owned the Moka plantation in Trinidad, in the British West Indies, and was also linked to the Ortinola property, in the Maracas region. His name appears, together with that of his wife Amelia Caracciolo Cipriani, among the slave owners who received the compensation granted by Great Britain after the abolition of slavery in the British colonies, which came into force in 1834. For the Moka plantation (Trinidad compensation no. 997) he received £6,832 10s 5d; he also received the compensation awards Trinidad no. 1017 (£270 12s 0d) and Trinidad no. 1413 (£1,799 14s 7d).
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Cipriani Sebastiano
until 1834Of the Tuscan Cipriani family, brother of Cipriano, Matteo and Domenico, all with interests in the British colony of Trinidad. His name figures among the beneficiaries of the compensation granted by Great Britain to slave owners after the abolition of slavery in the British colonies, in 1834: it appears in connection with the compensation awards Trinidad no. 434 (Port of Spain) and Trinidad no. 1334 & B (perhaps Valsayn). Award no. 434, registered on 28 March 1836, concerned 19 enslaved people and provided for £900 12s 1d. The colony's registers also show that in 1834 he registered 20 enslaved people in his own name and that of his wife.
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de Andrade Antonio
1750–1760Born in the village of Ybaga, in the «Rivera de la Chebe», jurisdiction of Genoa, the legitimate son of Juan Bautista de Andrade and Catalina Chuena (AAL, Testamento, 163:5). In his will he declared that he owned an enslaved man named Ventura, to whom he granted freedom, without any encumbrance, from the day of his own death, in reward for his good services and loyalty.
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Gallino Domingo
1800–1826At the beginning of the nineteenth century, he appears in the census of enslaved people as a merchant and the owner of three enslaved individuals. Through trade (he opened a wholesale outlet) he purchased two buildings in the city, in calle Belgrano, and two properties in the vicinity of Buenos Aires: an estancia, where he raised cattle, sheep and horses, and a large plot with timber woods. During the war, he lent the government 408 cows, 123 horses, and eight enslaved people, worth 11,000 pesos. These were returned to the family in 1831.
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Gaso Nicolas
1800–1825Bartolo Gaso, born in the Kingdom of Genoa, the legitimate son of Nicolas Gaso and Maria Gaso (AGN, Protocolo 635, 1819). In his will he declared that he owned several enslaved people; for María Teresa, purchased for 490 pesos, he directed that she be sold for no more than 400 pesos and not outside the city, in reward for her good services. Between 1800 and 1818 he is also documented in eight transactions involving enslaved people.
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Giustiniani Esteban
1520–1535An agent of the company of Vivaldi, Forne and Grimaldi, he settled in Santo Domingo, where together with Pedro Vazquez de Mella he purchased a sugar plantation that became very productive. At the end of the 1520s he founded his own company, Giustiniani & Co., which traded in enslaved people and land. His partners were probably Melchor Centurione and Valian de Forne, already his partners in other operations.
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La Chiapella Geronimo
1769–1810Born in 1742, La Chiapella first engaged in the trade in goods and enslaved people between the French and Spanish islands of the Caribbean, including Saint-Domingue, Martinique and Cuba, before settling in New Orleans. His first documented sale in the city dates from 18 September 1769, when Manuel Roch bought from him for 200 dollars a three-year-old Creole boy named Joseph. Between 1783 and 1793 he appeared in numerous transactions and sold hundreds of enslaved people. In 1788 alone he appeared in 68 transactions, more than any other merchant in the city; among the twenty-five merchant-traders of New Orleans who dealt in enslaved people, he was the fifth most active. From 1790 he invested the wealth he had accumulated in real estate: he purchased several plantations in the vicinity of New Orleans, in Florida and in Mississippi, and became the owner of hundreds of enslaved people.
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Montar Francisco
1804–1827He farmed rented land and owned three enslaved people in the Buenos Aires area.
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Naon Luis
1843He declared that he owned four enslaved people, 700 silver pesos, and two quintas in San José de Flores, near Buenos Aires. As well as being involved in direct production, he had interests in retail trade; a census from the early nineteenth century lists him as a pulpero. Over time, he maintained and expanded both activities. Upon his death in 1843, his estate was valued at 698,216.5 pesos and included a pulpería, several warehouses, five quintas and other properties.
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Palmaro Francesco
1484–1507Resident in Valencia from 1484, he bought 87 enslaved Guanche people from Tenerife and resold them on the peninsula. He also bought from Alonso de Lugo, who had conquered the island, the ingenio (sugar plantation) of Agaete.
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Patron Lorenzo
1749–1790He owned three large properties and twelve enslaved people.
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Pellegrino Antonio
until 1613A native of Trapani, son of Giacomo and Angela Pellegrino, he lived comfortably in Potosí until his death in 1613. A breeder and trader of carneros de la tierra, he owned 3,300 head, a house with valuable goods, a leased farm, pack animals, work tools and two enslaved Black people, recorded in the testamentary inventory.
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Riparola Franceso
1492–1515Known as Francisco de Riberol, he financed he Spanish conquest of La Palma and Tenerife, led by Alonso Fernández de Lugo, alongside other Genoese merchants, including Matteo Vigna and Francesco Palmario. He settled in La Palma, where he traded enslaved Guanche people and owned plantations on which they worked.
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Rizo Bartolo
1804–1819By 1819, his assets included two ranchos worth 8,097 pesos, four enslaved individuals, two pairs of oxen, five draught horses, a cart, and 1,000 pesos in cash. He provided credit to other Ligurians who wanted to buy land.
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Secchi Jean
1878–1879Between 1878 and 1879 Secchi and his associates, Pantin, Lecavallerie, Texidor, Larrabide and Jimenez, transported to Cuba groups of seven to forty people at a time, of Indian, Chinese and Venezuelan origin, as indentured servants.
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Soderini Giovanni
1536–1556He was born in Florence on 27 July 1511. Following the beheading of his father, a republican, and the sequestration of the family's property, he was forced to leave the city. He moved to Seville, and from there to Santo Domingo around 1536. By 1543, he owned La Magdalena, a sugar mill located southwest of Santo Domingo. During this period, he met Alonso Hernández de Las Varas, a wealthy sugar entrepreneur whose family had been established in Hispaniola for many years. Shortly afterwards, he married Alonso's eldest daughter, Isabel, thereby entering the island's sugar oligarchy. Through this marriage, he became co-owner of the Santa Bárbara sugar mill near Azua la Vieja. Towards the end of his life, it is estimated that he owned around 200 enslaved people, with 53 registered at La Magdalena in 1556, 138 at Santa Bárbara in 1557, and nine in his domestic service. Despite having attained an excellent position, he diversified his business by trading with Cuba. In 1552, he organised an enterprise with the German Melchor Grubel to mine gold in the Colombian Andes.
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Spinola Tolomeo
from 1547With other Genoese (Pinelli, Negron, Fiesco) he formed a company with a capital of 12,000 ducats, one third of which was his. The company sold enslaved people in New Spain in exchange for sugar. The link between the slave trade and sugar became ever closer, and sugar became the second largest export after silver. The partners also invested in sugar production in Hispaniola and Puerto Rico in the first quarter of the sixteenth century.
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Suparo Santiago
1770–1804After emigrating to Buenos Aires in 1770, he got married and had nine children. He owned a farmhouse (quinta) and nine enslaved people.