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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Owner of the ship San Pedro, used in the slave trade by Cesare Baroncini.
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In 1634, he was among those who obtained licences to sail from the ports of Seville, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Cádiz, Lisbon and the Canary Islands. They were permitted to load enslaved people at Cape Verde, Guinea, São Tomé, Angola and Mina, before transporting them to New Spain and Tierra Firme (modern-day 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.