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
-
Feroni Francesco
1660–1670Born in Empoli between 1614 and 1616, he moved to Livorno, where he worked for the merchant and senator Lorenzo Buonaccorsi, who probably sent him to Amsterdam. There he first took part in the grain trade to Italy, and above all to Livorno, where in 1645 he managed to send 1,650 tons of Baltic grain by chartering sixteen ships; further shipments followed. He became an important figure in the Italian community of Amsterdam, and Ferdinando II asked him to represent him before the States General. In the meantime he diversified his business: he entered the trade with Portugal, to which he exported linen and textiles and from which he imported Brazilian sugar and salt, and he was one of the main importers of Spanish wool into the United Provinces. His most profitable trade, however, was the slave trade. He invested part of the profits from the grain trade in the purchase of a ship, the Speranza, which carried textiles and alcoholic drinks to Guinea in exchange for enslaved people; after they had been sold in America, on the return voyage the Speranza carried sugar, cocoa, tobacco and gold ingots to Europe. His commercial successes depended on his good relations with the Dutch West India Company. From 1662 he took part in the Grillo and Lomellini asiento, bringing enslaved people from Guinea to the Caribbean.