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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Spinola Stefano
1526A Genoese merchant, in 1526 he concluded with the King of Portugal a contract for 600 peças of enslaved people, in which the Cremonese merchant Giovan Francesco Affaitati was also involved. He is a different person from his namesake Stefano Spinola, who in 1610 sold an enslaved person in Genoa to the Centurione enterprises.
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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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Suparo Santiago
1770–1804After emigrating to Buenos Aires in 1770, he got married and had nine children. He owned a farmhouse (quinta) and nine enslaved people.
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Usodimare Antoniotto
1455–1456A Genoese navigator in the service of the Portuguese, in 1455 he came into possession of 31 enslaved people from the Gambia. In 1456 he took part with Alvise Ca da Mosto in the expedition that reached the Casamance, the Bijagós Islands and Cape Verde.
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Genoese owner of the galleon on which, in 1591, Niccolò Parenti and the young Francesco Carletti embarked at Livorno for an expedition organised by Parenti to purchase enslaved Black people in Africa and transport them to America.
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Vigne Francis
1819–1820A Genoese ship's captain, his name appears in the records of the Mixed Commission at Freetown, Sierra Leone, in connection with the interception of the ship Marie by the Royal Navy.
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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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Vivaldi (Vivaldo) Augustin
1518–1526With Tomas and Domingo Forne and Fernan Vazquez he bought the licence that the King of Spain had granted to Gouvenot to bring 4,000 enslaved people to the Americas in eight years. It is not known how many people they sold, but they resold the licences at very high prices, making a profit of 300,000 ducats. The same company, with Genoese and Spanish capital, owned the ingenio of Sanctis Spiritu, just outside Santo Domingo.
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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.