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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Bassignana (Basiñana) Pedro Benito
1520–1540He 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.
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Carrega Esteban
1520–1540In 1526 he brought a cargo of 100 enslaved people from the African coasts to Santo Domingo. He then made further voyages between Seville, the African coasts and Hispaniola under Castro's licence.
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Castellon Jacome
1510–1535Son of a Genoese merchant resident in Toledo, he settled in 1510 in Santo Domingo, where he was the agent of the Genoese merchants of Seville for the trade in enslaved people and sugar. He also invested in land, in stock-raising and in the city's property market, and purchased an ingenio (sugar-cane plantation) on the island. In 1522 he was sent by the Spanish authorities to put down an indigenous rebellion at Cumaná, and subsequently obtained the title of superintendent of the fortress. This post allowed him to engage in the trade in enslaved indigenous people on the Venezuelan coast, employed above all in pearl fishing. He remained at Cumaná for seven years, until 1528, then returned to Santo Domingo, where he was the agent of Pedro Benito de Basiñana and of Geronimo Grimaldi, who were involved in the slave trade with the island. In 1534-1535 he was considered one of the most important entrepreneurs of the New World.
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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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Cattaneo Alessandro
1506–1550Son of Cesare Cattaneo, in 1506 he rented a house in Seville; around 1508 he was trading with Santo Domingo and in the 1510s with the Cape Verde archipelago. In 1512 he formed with Giuliano Calvi and Stefano Centurione a company that entrusted him with textiles, wine and ship's biscuit worth 1,000 gold ducats, to be taken to the island of Santiago, in Cape Verde, in exchange for enslaved people. In 1513 he sold some enslaved people brought from the African coast to another Genoese merchant of Seville, Giovan Francesco Grimaldi, who transported them to the New World. In 1550 he signed an asiento with the Crown, managed in Seville by two of his brothers, Nicolas and Visconte, who owned the ship Trinidad. Another relative, Jeronimo, handled the trade between Seville and Mexico and in turn had an agent, Juan, in Mexico City.
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Cattaneo Nicoluso (Nicolas)
1514–1550In June 1514 Francisco Garay, a member of the municipal council of Santo Domingo, authorised Nicoluso Cattaneo to procure for him twelve enslaved Christian people for Hispaniola. In 1536 he received permission to introduce 76 enslaved people into the Americas in exchange for the 226,400 maravedís that the government had confiscated from him that same year as a forced loan. In the 1540s and 1550s, with the vessel Trinidad and in partnership with Vivaldo, he made several voyages between the African coasts and Veracruz.
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Centurione (Centurion) Gaspar
1514–1526Together with Francisco Grimaldi (or Grimaldo), he bought a licence to send a small group of enslaved people to Hispaniola. He also undertook to ship the enslaved people for the Genoese company (Forne, Vivaldo and Vazquez) that had purchased Gouvenot's licence.
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Centurione (Centurion) Melchor
1518–1526Brother of Gaspar, he was the agent of Forne, Vivaldo and Vazquez in Santo Domingo, where he exchanged enslaved people for sugar.
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De Negron Carlos
1536–1540Son of a Genoese who had arrived in Seville at the beginning of the sixteenth century and been naturalised. A graduate in law, he was also active in the slave trade: he owned two galleons that sailed between Africa and Veracruz. He married a prominent member of the Sevillian nobility. He was later appointed legal adviser to the tribunal of the Inquisition, then fiscal of the Council of the Indies and finally of the Council of Castile. His seven children became important officials or landowners.
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Fornari (Forne) Domingo
1518–1526With his brother Tomas, 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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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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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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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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Rodriguez Juan
1520–1529A ship's captain of Genoese origin living in Seville, he was one of the most important agents of Grimaldi and Centurione in Santo Domingo. Although above all a seaman, he enjoyed their full confidence, and he also began to trade on his own account and to make profits. He made loans and went so far as to purchase vessels such as the Santa Maria and the Trinidad. He probably died in 1529.
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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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Vivaldi (Vivaldo) Augustin
1518–1526With Tomas and Domingo Forne 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.