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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2 people
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  • Cipriani Leonetto

    1812–1888
    Mediator Government and Diplomacy, Finance and Banking
    Origin
    Centuri
    Place of activity
    Livorno

    Born in Centuri, Corsica, on 16 October 1812, to Matteo Cipriani and Caterina Caracciolo, he died on 10 May 1888. Having moved with his family to Livorno in 1822, in 1831 he was sent by his father to Trinidad to look after the family's considerable commercial and financial interests in the Antilles. He made two stays in America (1831-1834 and 1835-1836), during which he operated in Trinidad, St. Thomas and Puerto Rico. In 1835, on news of the emancipation of enslaved people in the British colonies, he was sent to London and then to Trinidad to protect the family's mortgage claims on slave estates; the Cipriani family is among the beneficiaries of the compensation provided for by British law. On the death of his father, in 1837, he accepted the guardianship of his younger siblings and inherited agricultural estates in Tuscany and Corsica, in addition to the interests in the Antilles. An entrepreneur, soldier and politician, he took part in the wars of independence, was governor of Livorno, consul of the Kingdom of Sardinia in California (1852-1855), Governor General of the Romagna (1859) and senator of the Kingdom of Italy.

  • Cipriani Matteo

    1770–1837
    Slave owner, Investor, Mediator Transports and maritime activities
    Origin
    Centuri
    Place of activity
    Livorno

    Born in Centuri, Corsica, on 30 November 1770, he settled in Livorno and died in Pisa on 16 April 1837. A Corsican-Livornese merchant, during the Napoleonic Wars he accumulated a large fortune in colonial trade in the Antilles together with his brother Domenico, with interests in St. Thomas, Puerto Rico and Trinidad. His relatives Sebastiano and Cipriano Cipriani owned plantations and enslaved people in Trinidad. He had lent large sums on slave estates in Trinidad; after the British emancipation of 1834 he obtained, through his son Leonetto, that the mortgages be extended to the enslaved people as well. The Cipriani family indeed figures among the beneficiaries of the compensation granted after abolition. Among his correspondents was the Venezuelan general Mariño, owner of the largest hacienda in the province of Caracas.