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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Abo Nicola
1631He was the partner of Nicola Salvago and the captain of the slave ship Santísima Trinidad. The ship sailed from Cádiz to Luanda, and then on to Buenos Aires.
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Ardizone Joseph
1790–1793Co-partner of the firm Juan Bautista Eustaquio Pedemonte y Compañía, according to the company note entered in the register on 1 July 1790. With his brother Tomás he belonged to the Genoese group that held 52 shares of the Real Compañía de La Habana, deeply involved in the Cuban slave economy. The dividend, 1,300 pesos, was paid out on 13 April 1793 and collected on their behalf by their attorney Felipe Victorio de Ravara.
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Ardizone Tomás
1790–1793Brother 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.
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Ayrolo Pedro Maria
1631THe 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.
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Baroncini Cesare
1594He fitted out two ships for the transport of enslaved people and held licences for the slave trade.
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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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Berardi Giannotto
1482–1495He 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.
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Bieluto Alberto
1660–1679 (decade)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.
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Bustanzo Giuseppe
1663–1667Between 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.
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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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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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Cei Galeotto
1532–1560Born in Florence in 1513, like Soderini he was forced to leave the city because of his father's republican ideas. His father was executed and the family's large patrimony was confiscated. In 1532, he moved to Seville. In 1539, he sailed for Santo Domingo aboard the Concepción. After a few weeks, the ship put in at Cape Verde to purchase enslaved people to be transported to the Antilles. A total of 250 people were embarked (Cei bought 40 of them) at a price of 36 ducats each. During the voyage, 12 people died of smallpox. Prior to departure, he entered into a two-year accomandita with Luigi Ricasoli, a fellow Florentine based in Seville. Under this agreement, Ricasoli would supply Cei with goods to sell. Cei began selling his merchandise, but Ricasoli's death interrupted the shipments from Spain. After concluding his business with the Ricasoli heirs, he embarked on a caravel bound for Venezuela and Cabo de la Vela. In the nearby pearl-fishing area, he purchased three indigenous people to work as fishermen, who earned him 400 ducats in about ten months. In September 1542, he returned to Santo Domingo, where he resumed living with Giovanni Soderini and Mauro Fantoni. Over the next few years, he participated in various colonisation expeditions in Venezuela and the New Kingdom of Granada, reaching as far as Bogotá. In 1553, he returned to Seville, where he resumed and expanded his commercial activities to include Italy, Germany, and France. He returned to Florence in 1560, where he held several public offices, and he died there in 1579.
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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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Colombo Domingo
1765–1772He was captain and owner of the ship El Loreto, with which he took part in the Compañía Gaditana de Negros and made several voyages to Puerto Rico and Cuba.
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Dal Borgo Federico
1539Agent of the Strozzi company in Seville, in 1539 he received from the sovereign the licence to transport enslaved people and goods to America.
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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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Del Forno Pietro
1660–1679 (decade)A Genoese merchant settled in Cádiz, in the 1660s and 1670s he was a partner in the expeditions of the asiento ships bound for the Caribbean. The same network included Giovanni Battista Porrata, Giovanni Rolato, the brothers Giovanni Battista and Pantaleo Grasso, Giovanni Battista Priaruggia and Alberto Bieluto.
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Del Nero Neroso
1584–1586He sent to America 900 enslaved people under the São Tomé contract on behalf of his contractor, Giovanni Battista Rovellasca. He had been an employee of Lorenzo Del Rosso, also a slave trader.
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Del Rosso Lorenzo
1548–1570In 1548 Lorenzo del Rosso and Francisco “Rucho” obtained a licence to transport thirty-five enslaved Africans to the Indies, paid for in all 105,000 maravedís, equivalent to 280 ducats, and received silver in return. Between 1569 and 1579 Del Rosso transported a further 230 enslaved people to the Americas.
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Di San Giuliano Francesco
1569–1579Between 1569 and 1579 he sent 250 enslaved people to America.
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Enrile Jose Maria
1765–1779He was among the first partners of the Compañía Gaditana de Negros, which received from the Crown the exclusive privilege of the slave trade to the Americas from 1765 to 1779. The company, which operated first from Puerto Rico and then from Cuba, also invested in the buying and selling of grain, sugar, coffee, timber and other goods. Enrile also invested in a London company that imported enslaved people into Cuba.
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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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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.