People database

Origin

Cremona

Place of activity

Lisbona

A merchant from Cremona who arrived in Lisbon around 1494, he entered the circuits linking the Iberian Peninsula, Italy and northern Europe and concluded contracts with the Portuguese Crown for sugar, spices and enslaved people. In 1526 he was involved in the contract concluded by Stefano Spinola with the king for 600 peças of enslaved people.

Origin

Firenze

Place of activity

Madeira

He acted as a procurator for various Florentine merchants in Lisbon, including Marchionni, Morelli and Sernigi, as well as for Portuguese merchants. He also maintained ties with other Florentines based on the Iberian Peninsula: in 1506, for instance, he sent an enslaved boy of thirteen from Madeira to Andrea Canigiani, who was living in Valencia.

Origin

Genova

Place of activity

Cadiz

Brother of Joseph Ardizone and, with him, co-partner of the firm Juan Bautista Eustaquio Pedemonte y Compañía. The group held 52 shares of the Real Compañía de La Habana, deeply involved in the Cuban slave economy. The total dividend, 1,300 pesos, was collected on 13 April 1793 through the attorney Felipe Victorio de Ravara.

Origin

Genova

Place of activity

Seville

THe financed the voyage of the slave ship Santísima Trinidad, owned by Nicola Salvago, together with Benito Vitale. The ship sailed from Spain to Luanda, and then transported enslaved people to Buenos Aires.

Origin

Genova

Place of activity

Lima

Born in Genoa, son of Josef Bacarreza and Angela Conforte (AAL, Licencias matrimoniales, 1773). Between 1771 and 1787 he is documented in six transactions involving enslaved people.

Origin

Genova

Place of activity

Lima

Born in Genoa, the legitimate son of Jose Bacarreza and Lucía Conforte (AGN, Protocolo 60, 1830). In his will he declared that he owned four enslaved people. Between 1809 and 1817 he is documented in three transactions involving enslaved people. The deed by which he received his wife's dowry also included some enslaved people, entrusted to his administration.

Place of activity

La Habana

A 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.

Origin

Rio de Janeiro

Place of activity

Porto Alegre

Registered as Italian and a merchant (negociante), on 1 October 1829 he moved to Porto Alegre with his wife, a daughter and an enslaved woman.

Origin

Milano

Place of activity

London

Agent of the Grillo and Lomellini asiento. In 1666 he was sent to London to conclude an agreement with the Company of Royal Adventurers for the shipment of enslaved Africans to the Caribbean.

Origin

Arenzano

Place of activity

Lima

Lucas Barberi y Blanco, resident in Lima, was born in Arenzano, «five leagues from Genoa». In his will he declares that he owns three enslaved people (AGN, Protocolos notariales, no. 638, escribano Jose Maria de la Rosa, 1821). Between 1790 and 1819 he is documented in ten transactions involving enslaved people.

Origin

Genova

Place of activity

Buenos Aires

The Buenos Aires census of 1804 recorded that he arrived in the city in 1789. Aged fifty, he owned a grocery shop, a furnished house, five enslaved people, and 1,000 pesos.

Origin

Firenze

Place of activity

Lisbona

Together with Stefano Lercaro he obtained the concession for the trade in enslaved people and raw materials with the port of Mina, in present-day Ghana.

Origin

Firenze

Place of activity

Valencia

Marchionni's agent in Valencia. Between 1489 and 1497, he imported an average of 268.5 enslaved Black people into Valencia each year, totalling 2,148. In the 1490s, he was the city's leading slave trader. He was also a marine insurer, typically insuring cargoes of sugar bound for the Mediterranean (Pisa) or Flanders, either on his own behalf or on behalf of other operators, primarily Italians or conversos. In 1510, he founded a trading company in Lyon with several other partners, including Venturi, Carnesecchi and Boninsegni.

Origin

Genova

Place of activity

Seville

He formed a partnership with the cleric Alvaro de Castro at Concepción (Hispaniola), who had obtained permission to introduce 200 enslaved people into the island for the plantations of the area, including those of Castro himself. When the agreement with Castro ended, Bassignana obtained further licences to bring enslaved people to Cuba as well, where in two voyages he introduced 115 of them, whereas the licence provided for 80: 35 were therefore introduced illegally. This gave rise to a clash with the governor of the island, which led to Bassignana's imprisonment.

Origin

Oneglia

Place of activity

Buenos Aires

A 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.

Origin

Sestri (Génova)

Place of activity

Lima

Born in Sestri, in the Archdiocese of Genoa (AAL, Expedientes matrimoniales, 1811). In his will he declares that he owns four enslaved people.

Origin

Firenze

Place of activity

Seville

He was a Florentine merchant who lived in Seville and ran the Seville branch of the Medici bank. Along with Marchionni and Giovanni, his brother, he obtained permission to trade enslaved people from the Canary Islands and the African coast in the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile. He also played a key role in financing exploration and conquest enterprises, including the conquest of the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands with the Genoese banker Francisco de Riberol, and Columbus's first voyage. During his second voyage, it was precisely to Berardi that Christopher Columbus sent the first known shipment of enslaved indigenous people to cross the Atlantic. In 1495, he signed an agreement with the Spanish monarchs to dispatch twelve caravels to the West Indies to supply Hispaniola. However, he did not live to see the results as he died in January 1496, before the caravels set sail. Moreover, the caravels never reached the New World as they were wrecked in the Strait of Gibraltar a few days after setting off. Following his death, the company was inherited by Amerigo Vespucci, who sold it a few years later to another Florentine entrepreneur, Donato Nicolini. Nicolini then entrusted Piero Rondinelli with the management of the Seville business.

Origin

Genova

Place of activity

Cadiz

A Genoese merchant active in Cádiz, in the 1660s and 1670s he was a partner in the expeditions of the asiento ships to the Caribbean. The same network included Giovanni Battista Porrata, Giovanni Rolato, the brothers Giovanni Battista and Pantaleo Grasso, Pietro Del Forno and Giovanni Battista Priaruggia.

Origin

Genova

Place of activity

Callao

A Genoese, resident first in Callao and then in Arica, he procured enslaved people for the merchant Jacom Fragoso, originally from Recco and active between Lima, Arequipa and Puno, who sold them alongside other goods.

Place of activity

Amsterdam

Agent of Grillo and Lomellini in Amsterdam. Thanks to his mediation, on 15 September 1662 Grillo and Lomellini signed with the Dutch West India Company (WIC) a contract providing for the annual delivery of 1,200 enslaved people to Curaçao.

Origin

Albenga

Place of activity

Lima

Born in the place called Bendon, in the jurisdiction of Albenga, province of Genoa, son of Juan Bautista Bunda and Catalina Pana (AGN, Protocolo 559, 1776-1777). In his will he declared that he owned an enslaved man, José María, whom he left to the Convento Grande de San Francisco to serve the friars; if he were not considered suitable, the convent could sell him.

Origin

Genova

Place of activity

Cartagena de Indias, Cadiz

Between 1663 and 1667 he organised the networks of the Grillo and Lomellini asiento in the Caribbean from his base in Cartagena de Indias. In the 1650s he had founded in Cádiz, with his brother Giovanni, a trading house that had already dealt with Grillo and Lomellini before the asiento was granted.

Origin

Venezia

He purchased licences to export enslaved people from Cape Verde. From Lisbon he moved to Brazil, where he prospered by transporting enslaved Africans destined for the sugar plantations.

Origin

Milano

Place of activity

Lima

Between 1790 and 1818 he is documented in Lima in at least twenty-one transactions involving enslaved people, several times as buyer and as seller. In 1804 he also formed a company with two other partners, contributing 12,000 pesos to a capital of 36,000, intended for the purchase of 150 enslaved people in Buenos Aires and their resale in Lima.

Origin

Firenze

Place of activity

Firenze

Owners of two enslaved African women, Isabell and Giovanna, who arrived in Livorni from Lisbon in 1461 and 1469 respectively through Giovanni Guidetti, agent of the Cambini bank in Lisbon.