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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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 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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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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Rondinelli Piero
1485–1520A Florentine merchant, he was called by Donato Nicolini to direct in Seville the trading company that had belonged to Giannotto Berardi and that, on the latter's death, had passed to Amerigo Vespucci. He traded in enslaved people on behalf of Marchionni and Cesare Barzi. Besides the slave trade, he dealt in Canary sugar, English woollen cloth, Italian silk fabrics and many other products.
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Salvago Cristobal
1490–1500He traded in enslaved people with the Canary Islands.
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Salvago Stefano
1530–1539 (decade)A Genoese businessman and factor in Seville for the banker Ansaldo Grimaldi, in the 1530s he took part in trading and credit companies between Madrid, Valladolid and Seville and became an influential asentista. The sources expressly mention his asientos for the slave trade. He also operated with Antonio Grimaldi and with Tomasso Salvago, another factor of the same network.
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He was among those who in 1634 obtained licences to sail from the ports of Seville, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Cádiz, Lisbon and the Canaries, load enslaved people at Cape Verde, in Guinea, at São Tomé, in Angola and at Mina, and transport them to New Spain and Tierra Firme (Colombia and Venezuela).
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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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Vitale Benito
1631He financed the voyage of the slave ship Santísima Trinidad, owned by Nicola Salvago, together with Pedro María Ayrolo. The ship sailed from Spain to Luanda, and then transported enslaved people to Buenos Aires.
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Vivaldo Adamo
1518A Genoese merchant, in the 1510s and 1520s he purchased from Laurent de Gouvenot, together with Tomas de Fornari, the licences to introduce enslaved people into the Spanish Indies and exploited them through a company.