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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Fornari (Forne) Tomas
1518–1526With his brother Domingo, Augustin de Vivaldo and Fernan Vazquez he bought the licence that the King of Spain had granted to Gouvenot to bring 4,000 enslaved people to the Americas in eight years. It is not known how many people they sold, but they resold the licences at very high prices, making a profit of 300,000 ducats. The same company, with Genoese and Spanish capital, owned the ingenio of Sanctis Spiritu, just outside Santo Domingo.
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Gaggero Pedro
1729–1741A Genoese active in the Spanish territories of America, he privately purchased enslaved people («compra particular de Negros») from Nicolás Alfonso Serrano in the years when the asiento de negros was managed by the English company.
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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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Before entering the service of Grillo and Lomellini he had served in the Armada Real and in the naval squadron of the Prince of Montesarchio. He began his career representing Grillo and Lomellini in Cádiz, where he supervised the work of other factors and organised the city's naval resources. In 1667, on the initiative of Ambrogio Lomellini, he left for the Indies as a factor; having reached Cartagena de Indias, he began to sail with the company's ships in the Caribbean. Between 1671 and 1672 he transported 1,563 enslaved people between the ports of Curaçao, Portobelo, Veracruz and Cartagena, always aboard the Santa Cruz.
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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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Giustiniano Giovanni Battista
1646–1671Agent of the Genoese Domenico Grillo between the 1650s and 1670s, he operated in Cádiz, Seville and Madrid to buy, sell and charter the ships of the asiento and to receive and manage the return cargoes, linking the decisions of the asentistas to port and commercial logistics.
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Grasso Giovanni Battista
1660–1679 (decade)A Genoese merchant active in Cádiz, in the 1660s and 1670s he took part in the expeditions of the asiento ships to the Caribbean together with his brother Pantaleo Grasso and the partners Giovanni Battista Porrata, Giovanni Rolato, Pietro Del Forno, Giovanni Battista Priaruggia and Alberto Bieluto, who formed a single Cádiz network.
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Grasso Pantaleo
1660–1679 (decade)A Genoese merchant active in Cádiz, in the 1660s and 1670s he took part in the expeditions of the asiento ships to the Caribbean together with his brother Giovanni Battista Grasso and the partners Giovanni Battista Porrata, Giovanni Rolato, Pietro Del Forno, Giovanni Battista Priaruggia and Alberto Bieluto.
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Grillo Agostino
1663–1674A distant relative of Domenico Grillo, he took part in the asiento as an agent, first in Portobelo (1663-1670) and then in Lima (1671-1673).
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Grillo Bartolome
1800–1820Born in San Maurizio di Genova, the legitimate son of Francisco Grillo and Francisca Calandra (AGN, Protocolo 84, 1808). Between 1805 and 1807 he is documented in three transactions involving enslaved people.
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Grillo Bartolomeo
1601–1700 (century)A Genoese merchant active in Cádiz, he was a partner of Francesco Ferrari, Domenico Recagno and Ambrogio Lomellini in organising the transport of enslaved people to American ports. Despite the surname, there is no firm evidence of a family relationship with Domenico Grillo.
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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 Giovanna
1701Sister of Domenico Grillo, holder with Ambrogio Lomellini of the asiento de negros from 1663 to 1674. In the 1640s she married Carlo Imperiale, her brother's trusted agent in Genoa for the business of the asiento. Her role went beyond mediation between Grillo and Imperiale: together with her brother Marco Antonio she personally handled the sale of American products in Genoa, and Domenico appointed her his representative in the city in the last years of his life.
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Grimaldi (Grimaldo) Francisco
1514–1518Together with Gaspar Centurione, he bought a licence to send a small group of enslaved people to Hispaniola.
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Guerci Bartolome
1783–1815Between 1783 and 1809 he is documented in Lima in at least eighteen transactions involving enslaved people, as buyer, seller and intermediary. The sources attest purchases and subsequent resales, and the sale on behalf of third parties of an enslaved bozal person, that is, born in Africa, who had been sent to him on consignment from Guayaquil. Other transactions concern enslaved people from Buenos Aires and Montevideo.
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A Cádiz firm described as a cartel of Ligurian investors, holder of 52 shares of the Real Compañía de La Habana, deeply involved in the Cuban slave economy. The company note of 1 July 1790 lists the brothers Joseph and Tomás Ardizone as co-partners.
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In 1670 Grillo and Lomellini appointed him agent in Puerto Rico, together with two other agents, one Andalusian and one Creole. He had previously resided in Seville.
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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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Lomellini Franco
1668On the death of Ambrogio Lomellini he purchased one sixth of the Grillo and Lomellini company and was appointed supervisor of the asiento's agents in the Caribbean. He had no previous experience in the slave trade or in Spanish America, but traded in Madrid in sugar produced in Málaga.
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Lomellini Leonardo
1540–1550In 1540 he arrived in the Canaries and imported enslaved people from the African coasts for the Americas. He formed with Tomas de Marin 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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Marin Juan Bautista
1540–1550An agent of the Marin-Lomellini company, he resided in Veracruz, where he exchanged enslaved people for sugar. In the years 1545-1547 the company's factors sent five shipments of sugar to Spain, with a profit of 7,986,789 maravedís.
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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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Maza Juan Maria
1775In Lima he owned a chocolate shop and three enslaved people.