People database

Origin

Firenze

Place of activity

Lisbona

Having settled in Lisbon in 1470 as agent of the Cambini bank of Florence, in 1486 he obtained from the Portuguese Crown the contract to import enslaved people from the Rio dos Escravos (Benin coast); in the same year he received from the Spanish sovereigns the licence to trade in enslaved people with Castile and Aragon. It has been calculated that between 1486 and 1493 Marchionni imported at least 1,648 of the 3,589 enslaved people who arrived in Lisbon, that is 45.9%. He then re-exported some of them to Seville (through Giannotto Berardi), to Valencia (through Cesare Barzi) and to Livorno (through Francesco Guidetti).

Origin

Firenze

Place of activity

Virginia

A Tuscan who had grown rich in London in the trade in wine, oil, pasta, silks and cheeses, in 1773 he arrived in Virginia with a dozen Tuscan farmers and the following year founded an agricultural company whose shareholders included George Washington, George Mason and Thomas Jefferson. In presenting the company to the shareholders, he explicitly declared his intention to purchase enslaved labour. In his memoirs, completed in 1813, he admitted only to having “hired 2 good Moors” for some time on his arrival in Virginia. In a letter to the King of Poland of 1788 he recalled having sold all the enslaved people he owned when he left Virginia, and having invested most of the proceeds in government bonds.

Origin

Firenze

Place of activity

Pisa

Owner of two enslaved African people, a woman and a girl, who arrived in Livorno from Lisbon in 1467 through Giovanni Guidetti.

Origin

Firenze

Agent of the Monte di Pietà of Florence in Spain, in 1750 he handled on behalf of the institution the collection of the arrears of the giurì di Spagna, connected with the trade in enslaved Black people, following the legal and accounting procedures at the Spanish court; he then left to Pietro Maria Fava the inventory of the records and receipts.

Origin

Firenze

Place of activity

London

Also known as Peter Joseph Migliorucci, a Tuscan merchant and banker active in London in the first decades of the eighteenth century. After the collapse of the banker Sir Justus Beck he was appointed assignee in bankruptcy and trustee of his estate, together with Gerrard Van Neck and Claude Jamineau. Among the assets seized was a portfolio registered in Beck's name but belonging to the merchant Jacob George Le Grand: 4,050 pounds sterling of government annuities converted into shares of the South Sea Company, holder of the asiento. In 1728 he was named as a defendant in a suit before the Court of Chancery, which accused him of having «combined and confederated» with the company's management to withhold shares and dividends.

Origin

Firenze

Place of activity

Firenze

He bought an enslaved African woman from Giovanni Guidetti, who had brought her to Livorno from Lisbon.

Origin

Firenze

A Florentine merchant, in 1591 he organised a voyage from Livorno to Africa to purchase enslaved Black people and transport them to America. The expedition was joined by the eighteen-year-old Francesco Carletti, who embarked in his service on a galleon belonging to the Genoese shipowner Pietro Paolo Vassallo.

Origin

Firenze

Place of activity

Seville

In 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.

Origin

Firenze

Place of activity

Firenze

A Florentine marquis, in 1601 he obtained from Philip III the privilege of the so-called giurì di Spagna, that is, the right to collect the duties on the sale and trade of enslaved Black people transported to the West Indies. The proceeds and credits connected with this duty later passed into the assets of the Monte di Pietà of Florence.

Origin

Firenze

Place of activity

Firenze

Owners of an enslaved African woman, one of the three whom Giovanni Guidetti sent from Lisbon to Livorno on the caravel Santo Spirito at the end of 1464.

Origin

Firenze

Place of activity

Santo Domingo

He was born in Florence on 27 July 1511. Following the beheading of his father, a republican, and the sequestration of the family's property, he was forced to leave the city. He moved to Seville, and from there to Santo Domingo around 1536. By 1543, he owned La Magdalena, a sugar mill located southwest of Santo Domingo. During this period, he met Alonso Hernández de Las Varas, a wealthy sugar entrepreneur whose family had been established in Hispaniola for many years. Shortly afterwards, he married Alonso's eldest daughter, Isabel, thereby entering the island's sugar oligarchy. Through this marriage, he became co-owner of the Santa Bárbara sugar mill near Azua la Vieja. Towards the end of his life, it is estimated that he owned around 200 enslaved people, with 53 registered at La Magdalena in 1556, 138 at Santa Bárbara in 1557, and nine in his domestic service. Despite having attained an excellent position, he diversified his business by trading with Cuba. In 1552, he organised an enterprise with the German Melchor Grubel to mine gold in the Colombian Andes.

Origin

Firenze

Place of activity

Seville

Owner of the ship San Pedro, used in the slave trade by Cesare Baroncini.

Origin

Firenze

Place of activity

Goa

A missionary, he sent enslaved people from Goa to Cosimo III.

Origin

Firenze

An agent of the Cambini bank, from the early 1460s he took part in the importation of enslaved Black people from Lisbon to Florence. He operated in the same network as Giovanni Guidetti, who in 1461 brought to Tuscany Isabell, Barbera and Marta, destined respectively for the Cambini family, Giovanni degli Albizzi and Ridolfo di ser Gabriello.

Origin

Firenze

He transported 232 enslaved Indigenous people from the Bahamas and sold the 200 survivors in Cádiz.