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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  • Mazzei Filippo

    1773–1788
    Slave owner
    Origin
    Firenze
    Place of activity
    Virginia

    A Tuscan who had grown rich in London in the trade in wine, oil, pasta, silks and cheeses, in 1773 he arrived in Virginia with a dozen Tuscan farmers and the following year founded an agricultural company whose shareholders included George Washington, George Mason and Thomas Jefferson. In presenting the company to the shareholders, he explicitly declared his intention to purchase enslaved labour. In his memoirs, completed in 1813, he admitted only to having “hired 2 good Moors” for some time on his arrival in Virginia. In a letter to the King of Poland of 1788 he recalled having sold all the enslaved people he owned when he left Virginia, and having invested most of the proceeds in government bonds.