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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Grillo Domenico
1663–1674Holder, together with Ambrogio Lomellini, of the asiento granted by the Crown from 1663 to 1674. The two bought enslaved people from the English and the Dutch, in Jamaica, Barbados and Curaçao, in exchange for silver and other colonial products, and resold them in the ports of Spanish America. During this period they officially sold about 22,000 of them, to which must be added those introduced through illegal trade, roughly twice as many.
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Grillo Francisco
1701Heir to the business house of his uncle Domenico Grillo, who with Ambrogio Lomellini had managed the asiento de negros, and Marquis of Villafranca. He was the only Spanish subject to enter the Real Compañía de Guinea y del Asiento, the French company which in 1701 obtained the monopoly of the slave trade to Spanish America. He took part in it through the Genevan banker Verzure, purchasing shares of 3,000 livres which entitled him only to the profits, without access to management or to the shareholders' meetings.
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Lercaro Stefano
1576–1587In 1576 he invested, together with the Florentine Giacomo Bardi, in the Mina company, opened by the Casa da Índia to administer the trade in enslaved people and raw materials in Guinea, one of the most profitable in Portugal. Meanwhile he carried out diplomatic activities between the Republic of Genoa and Portugal, at times in direct contact with the king. In 1587 he obtained with his partner Giulio Spinola authorisation to open an exchange bank in Lisbon, which gave him a monopoly position, since the agreement excluded for ten years the opening of similar banks by others.
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Lomellini Ambrogio (o Ambrosio)
1663–1674Holder, together with Domenico Grillo, of the asiento granted by the Spanish Crown between 1663 and 1674. It is estimated that in the eleven years of the asiento the two introduced about 22,000 enslaved people into the Spanish colonies, plus many others, almost twice as many, introduced illegally. He died in 1667, on the return voyage from Cartagena de Indias, where he had gone to renegotiate the asiento; Grillo achieved that aim in 1668, a few months after his death.
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Maffei Beltrame
1681–1689Partner of Carlo Andrea Maffei in Cádiz, he signed with him and handled the correspondence with Benjamin Burlamacchi in Amsterdam between 1681 and 1689. He was involved in the brokering of transatlantic shipments of enslaved Africans to the Spanish West Indies within the framework of the asiento de negros.
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Maffei Carlo Andrea
1681–1689A Genoese merchant, partner in the Maffei firm in Cádiz. Between 1681 and 1689 he maintained with Benjamin Burlamacchi in Amsterdam a business correspondence of thirty-eight letters, in which the trade in «negros» is explicitly discussed in relation to the asiento de negros of Balthasar Coymans and to the shipments to Curaçao, coordinated with the agent Balthasar Beck.
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Marin Tomas
1540–1550In 1540 he formed with Leonardo Lomellini a company for the exchange of enslaved people and sugar between Seville and Mexico. Two years later Charles V granted them a licence to introduce 900 enslaved people into the colonies in exchange for a loan of 6,300 ducats. Many of these people were transported to Veracruz on the Trinidad, the vessel of Nicolas Cattaneo; most were sold to Hernán Cortés for the sugar mills he had built at Tuxtla, near Veracruz, and at Tlaltenango, near Cuernavaca.
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Michelozzi Filippo
1750Agent of the Monte di Pietà of Florence in Spain, in 1750 he handled on behalf of the institution the collection of the arrears of the giurì di Spagna, connected with the trade in enslaved Black people, following the legal and accounting procedures at the Spanish court; he then left to Pietro Maria Fava the inventory of the records and receipts.
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Migliorucci Pietro Giuseppe
1720–1728Also known as Peter Joseph Migliorucci, a Tuscan merchant and banker active in London in the first decades of the eighteenth century. After the collapse of the banker Sir Justus Beck he was appointed assignee in bankruptcy and trustee of his estate, together with Gerrard Van Neck and Claude Jamineau. Among the assets seized was a portfolio registered in Beck's name but belonging to the merchant Jacob George Le Grand: 4,050 pounds sterling of government annuities converted into shares of the South Sea Company, holder of the asiento. In 1728 he was named as a defendant in a suit before the Court of Chancery, which accused him of having «combined and confederated» with the company's management to withhold shares and dividends.
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Mosti Joseph Antonio
1760–1789 (decade)A Genoese merchant naturalised Spanish, son of Esteban Mosti and with him agent in Cádiz of the Durazzo for maritime loans. In 1773 his house specialised in sea-loan contracts on shipments bound for Havana, Cartagena, Honduras and Buenos Aires. Through him and through Enrile, Giacomo Filippo Durazzo financed the expeditions of the Compañía Gaditana de Negros, Enrile's partner in the slave trade. He also kept Durazzo informed about the progress of the Compañía Gaditana de Negros and acted as intermediary between him and Enrile in the settlement of the balances, when in 1772 participation in the enterprise was ended.
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Treasurer to Her Royal Highness, in Madrid he looked after the financial interests of María Luisa of Bourbon-Parma, Princess of Asturias. On 9 July 1784 he collected on her behalf the dividend on 3 and one-third shares of the Real Compañía de La Habana, deeply involved in the Cuban slave economy: 83 and one-third pesos, equal to 1,268 reales de vellón. The securities came from the estate of Elisabeth Farnese.
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Rezzonico Aurelio
1666A merchant originally from Como and partner in Venice of Pietro Cernezzi, in 1666 he contributed to the loan of 9,180 ducats sent to Amsterdam to pay for a cargo of enslaved people for the asiento. The operation passed through the house of Giovanni Battista Benzi and Giovanni Gabriele Voet and combined Venetian capital with payments to the suppliers of the Dutch market.
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Rondinelli Piero
1485–1520A Florentine merchant, he was called by Donato Nicolini to direct in Seville the trading company that had belonged to Giannotto Berardi and that, on the latter's death, had passed to Amerigo Vespucci. He traded in enslaved people on behalf of Marchionni and Cesare Barzi. Besides the slave trade, he dealt in Canary sugar, English woollen cloth, Italian silk fabrics and many other products.
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Rossi Juan Bautista
1784A trustee and business agent, in Madrid he collected the income from the Real Compañía de La Habana, deeply involved in the Cuban slave economy, due to the Infante Fernando, Duke of Parma: 3 and one-third shares, which came from the estate of Elisabeth Farnese. The dividend, 83 and one-third pesos, equal to 1,268 reales de vellón, was collected on 30 July 1784.
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Saluzzi Giacomo
1632–1636Through his representative, Antonio Balbi, he claimed the dividends of a shipment of enslaved Africans undertaken together with Antonio del Campo and Benavidez. He also claimed 84,500 ducats for the cargoes shipped to the Indies in 1632. He appears also to have benefited from the licences granted by the court of Philip IV in the 1630s, which links him directly to those granted to Nicola Salvago.
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Salvago Ambrogio (o Ambrosio)
1603–1609At the beginning of the seventeenth century he invested, together with Francesco Serra, in the asiento of the Portuguese Gonzalo Baez Coutinho.
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Salvago Carlo
1639–1659On the death of his brother Nicola, in 1639, he inherited all his property and sought to obtain further licences to bring enslaved people to Buenos Aires. With his brother Enrico he used the Regia Camera of Milan to exchange the silver he brought from the Americas, and he entered the wool trade between Spain and Genoa.
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Salvago Cristobal
1490–1500He traded in enslaved people with the Canary Islands.
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Salvago Nicola
1630–1649In 1630 Nicola Salvago purchased from the Cardinal-Infante, who in turn had obtained them from his brother Philip IV, a batch of licences to sell 1,500 enslaved people in Buenos Aires. In 1634 he obtained from the Casa de la Contratación of Seville permission to bring another 1,000 to the same city, and in 1638 he purchased a further 335 licences for the same traffic. He also introduced many enslaved people into Buenos Aires illegally, often on his own ships such as the Santísima Trinidad.
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Salvago Stefano
1530–1539 (decade)A Genoese businessman and factor in Seville for the banker Ansaldo Grimaldi, in the 1530s he took part in trading and credit companies between Madrid, Valladolid and Seville and became an influential asentista. The sources expressly mention his asientos for the slave trade. He also operated with Antonio Grimaldi and with Tomasso Salvago, another factor of the same network.
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Salviati Lorenzo
1601A Florentine marquis, in 1601 he obtained from Philip III the privilege of the so-called giurì di Spagna, that is, the right to collect the duties on the sale and trade of enslaved Black people transported to the West Indies. The proceeds and credits connected with this duty later passed into the assets of the Monte di Pietà of Florence.
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Owners of an enslaved African woman, one of the three whom Giovanni Guidetti sent from Lisbon to Livorno on the caravel Santo Spirito at the end of 1464.
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Sauli Franceso Maria
1620–1699Francesco Maria Sauli operated in Genoa on behalf of Grillo and Lomellini: he received and sold the goods arriving from Cádiz, procured credit and insured the asiento ships. His activity, however, went far beyond this: he invested in Roman and Neapolitan public debt, traded in grain, silver, silk textiles and marble, and invested in the Genoese shipyards. In 1666 he supplied Grillo and Lomellini with galleons of 500 tons each for the slave trade. In 1667 he procured for Feroni, in Amsterdam, funds to buy enslaved people for the asiento. At the beginning of 1668 Grillo asked him to insure the ship Santa Cruz, of 500 tons, with 34 guns and a crew of 70 men, commanded by Giovanni Francesco Garibaldo: the ship was to sail from Cádiz to Angola, load enslaved people there and carry them to Curaçao, Santo Domingo and Puerto Rico, perhaps also to Cumaná and Caracas, and then transport silver from Cádiz to Genoa. In March 1668 Sauli won the tender for the insurance.
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Serra Francesco
1603–1609He invested in the slave asiento of the Portuguese Gonzalo Báez Coutinho together with Ambrogio Salvago, but did not take part in the logistical management of the activities.
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Vanni Bartolomeo
1460–1469 (decade)An agent of the Cambini bank, from the early 1460s he took part in the importation of enslaved Black people from Lisbon to Florence. He operated in the same network as Giovanni Guidetti, who in 1461 brought to Tuscany Isabell, Barbera and Marta, destined respectively for the Cambini family, Giovanni degli Albizzi and Ridolfo di ser Gabriello.