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.
Advanced search
-
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.
-
Baroncini Cesare
1594He fitted out two ships for the transport of enslaved people and held licences for the slave trade.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Di San Giuliano Francesco
1569–1579Between 1569 and 1579 he sent 250 enslaved people to America.
-
Grimaldi (Grimaldo) Francisco
1514–1518Together with Gaspar Centurione, he bought a licence to send a small group of enslaved people to Hispaniola.
-
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.
-
Lapi Francesco
1536He was a partner in the Florentine Strozzi company and represented it in Seville. In 1536, he received authorisation from the sovereign to send goods, accompanied by enslaved people, to the West Indies.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Porcio Noce Nicolas
1679–1687Born in Crema, in the Venetian Terraferma, after his father's death he moved to Cádiz with his mother and his brother Pompeo. In Cádiz he married Teresa María Barroso del Pozo de la Oliva, daughter of Juan Barroso del Pozo. In January 1679 Porcio, on behalf of Juan Barroso, undertook to introduce 6,000 of the 10,000 enslaved people granted to the Consulado of Merchants of Seville, which then held the asiento: the two thus obtained 60% of the contract, which expired at the end of 1681. Through their agents in Amsterdam they negotiated with the Dutch West India Company (WIC) the delivery to Curaçao of 9,800 enslaved Africans by the end of 1681, on average 4,900 a year. In 1682 Porcio and Barroso obtained a new contract that made them sole holders of the asiento: for five years they were to introduce into Spanish America up to 10,000 toneladas (the fiscal unit of the asiento, corresponding to the 'pieza de Indias'), with the possibility of obtaining supplies directly in Jamaica and Curaçao, like Grillo and Lomellini, in exchange for silver or colonial products. Conflicts with the Dutch, and above all with the Coymans brothers, put an end to the asiento before 1687.
-
Ricasoli Luigi
1526In December 1526 Luigi Ricasoli and Giovanni Orsucci form Lucca, after declaring that they had resided in Spain for more than fifteen years, obtained from the sovereign the right to send goods accompanied by enslaved people to the West Indies.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Salvago Cristobal
1490–1500He traded in enslaved people with the Canary Islands.
-
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.