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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Ardizone Joseph
1790–1793Co-partner of the firm Juan Bautista Eustaquio Pedemonte y Compañía, according to the company note entered in the register on 1 July 1790. With his brother Tomás he belonged to the Genoese group that held 52 shares of the Real Compañía de La Habana, deeply involved in the Cuban slave economy. The dividend, 1,300 pesos, was paid out on 13 April 1793 and collected on their behalf by their attorney Felipe Victorio de Ravara.
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Ardizone Tomás
1790–1793Brother of Joseph Ardizone and, with him, co-partner of the firm Juan Bautista Eustaquio Pedemonte y Compañía. The group held 52 shares of the Real Compañía de La Habana, deeply involved in the Cuban slave economy. The total dividend, 1,300 pesos, was collected on 13 April 1793 through the attorney Felipe Victorio de Ravara.
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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.
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Banfi y Parrilla José
until 1781A banker of Genoese origin, knight of the Order of Calatrava and minister of the Supreme Council of the Indies, he died before 1784. His inventory included 16 shares of the Real Compañía de La Habana, deeply involved in the Cuban slave economy, with a nominal value of 500 scudi of 128 quarti each, later reduced to 14 and registered in the name of his daughter María Catalina.
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Bieluto Alberto
1660–1679 (decade)A Genoese merchant active in Cádiz, in the 1660s and 1670s he was a partner in the expeditions of the asiento ships to the Caribbean. The same network included Giovanni Battista Porrata, Giovanni Rolato, the brothers Giovanni Battista and Pantaleo Grasso, Pietro Del Forno and Giovanni Battista Priaruggia.
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Bonini Stefano
c. 1591–1610A minor investor in the Spanish asiento in the 1590s. In the early seventeenth century he was residing in Cartagena.
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Infante and Duke of Parma, beneficial owner of 3 and one-third shares of the Real Compañía de La Habana, deeply involved in the Cuban slave economy, which came from the estate of Elisabeth Farnese. The dividend, 83 and one-third pesos, was collected on 30 July 1784 by the trustee Juan Bautista Rossi. The coupons document the transfer of Cuban income to the courts of the Italian peninsula.
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Burlamacchi Benjamin
1665–1691A merchant and investor from Lucca, he settled in Amsterdam in 1665. Through his own trading house and his relations with the Genoese correspondents in Cádiz (Maffei, Ratto and Marien) and with the Tensini in Amsterdam, he financed operations connected with the slave trade of the asiento de negros and also corresponded with agents in Curaçao, such as Balthasar Beck. In 1691 he left for Bengal in the service of the VOC, the Dutch East India Company, and died there in 1697.
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Cadorna Esteban
1790–1818Between 1790 and 1818 he is documented in Lima in at least twenty-one transactions involving enslaved people, several times as buyer and as seller. In 1804 he also formed a company with two other partners, contributing 12,000 pesos to a capital of 36,000, intended for the purchase of 150 enslaved people in Buenos Aires and their resale in Lima.
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Centurione Giorgio
1737–1745A Genoese nobleman, son of Lorenzo Centurione. His will, drawn up in Genoa in 1737, provided for the division of assets and bequests consisting of shares of the South Sea Company, the company holding the asiento for the slave trade. Those assets were encumbered with legacies in favour of family members, fellow confraternity members and Genoese charitable institutions.
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Centurione Ottavio
1617A Genoese financier active in Madrid, in 1617 he received from the Crown 3,750,000 maravedís secured on the renta de los esclavos negros, the fiscal revenue generated by the slave trade, and later resold the credit in lots.
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Cernezzi Pietro
1666A merchant originally from Como and partner in Venice of Aurelio Rezzonico, in 1666 he took part in a loan of 9,180 ducats intended to pay, on the Amsterdam market, for a cargo of enslaved people for the asiento. The transfer of the funds also passed through the house of Giovanni Battista Benzi and Giovanni Gabriele Voet.
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Cipriani Matteo
1770–1837Born 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.
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Crosa (famiglia)
1751–1800 (part of century)The Crosa invested in the Compañía Gaditana de Negros, managed by the Enrile family.
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De Mari Stefano
c. 1560A Genoese banker resident in Naples, around 1560 he purchased through his brother Nicolò two galleys for 35,000 ducats, intended to be provided under asiento to the Spanish monarchy. The contract included fifty enslaved men per galley and an annual allowance of 6,000 gold ducats for each, secured on the fiscal payments of the Kingdom of Naples.
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de' Medici Francesco
1608–1610Nephew of Giovanni de' Medici, between 1608 and 1610 he purchased from his uncle the rights and proceeds of the giurì di Spagna, the taxes on the trade in enslaved people bound for the New World.
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de' Medici Giovanni
until 1608Natural son of Cosimo I, he held the rights to collect the giurì di Spagna, the duties on the trade in enslaved Black people to the Indies. In 1608 he submitted a petition to sell these rights to his nephew Francesco de' Medici.
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Del Forno Pietro
1660–1679 (decade)A Genoese merchant settled in Cádiz, in the 1660s and 1670s he was a partner in the expeditions of the asiento ships bound for the Caribbean. The same network included Giovanni Battista Porrata, Giovanni Rolato, the brothers Giovanni Battista and Pantaleo Grasso, Giovanni Battista Priaruggia and Alberto Bieluto.
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Doria Gio Stefano
c. 1631–1647He supported the company of his relative Nicola Salvago, active in the distribution and sale of enslaved people to Buenos Aires.
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Durazzo Giacomo Filippo
1770–1790A member of the Genoese aristocracy, son of Marcello Durazzo. Concerned about the sums invested by his father in the asiento of the Compañía Gaditana de Negros, he sought information from his agent in Cádiz, the naturalised Genoese Joseph Antonio Mosti, and in 1772 ended his participation in the enterprise. In 1779 he sought the intermediation of Francisco Cambiaso and his son José María, but the collaboration did not take hold. In 1783 he was receiving correspondence from José María Enrile from Havana. In 1784 Joseph Sigori entrusted him with the sale in Genoa of a cargo of indigo and American goods. He also attempted to establish himself as an importer of Portuguese goods in Genoa, turning to Giuseppe Salomone in Lisbon in order to enter the networks of the great merchants.
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Durazzo Marcello
1765–1772He invested in the Compañía Gaditana de Negros, and thus in the slave trade, through José María Enrile.
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Participation in the slave trade and in other business in Atlantic exchanges enabled his family to enter the Portuguese nobility in the mid-sixteenth century, to purchase the captaincy of Ilhéus and to win the favour of the Lisbon court, which appointed his natural son Francesco ambassador to England and France and, in 1588, Governor General (de iure) of Brazil.
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Grasso Giovanni Battista
1660–1679 (decade)A Genoese merchant active in Cádiz, in the 1660s and 1670s he took part in the expeditions of the asiento ships to the Caribbean together with his brother Pantaleo Grasso and the partners Giovanni Battista Porrata, Giovanni Rolato, Pietro Del Forno, Giovanni Battista Priaruggia and Alberto Bieluto, who formed a single Cádiz network.
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Grasso Pantaleo
1660–1679 (decade)A Genoese merchant active in Cádiz, in the 1660s and 1670s he took part in the expeditions of the asiento ships to the Caribbean together with his brother Giovanni Battista Grasso and the partners Giovanni Battista Porrata, Giovanni Rolato, Pietro Del Forno, Giovanni Battista Priaruggia and Alberto Bieluto.
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Grillo Francisco
1701Heir to the business house of his uncle Domenico Grillo, who with Ambrogio Lomellini had managed the asiento de negros, and Marquis of Villafranca. He was the only Spanish subject to enter the Real Compañía de Guinea y del Asiento, the French company which in 1701 obtained the monopoly of the slave trade to Spanish America. He took part in it through the Genevan banker Verzure, purchasing shares of 3,000 livres which entitled him only to the profits, without access to management or to the shareholders' meetings.