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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Bacarreza Ambrosio
1769–1796Lieutenant of the Dragoon regiment of the Lima militia until 1790, when he requested royal licence to enter the Franciscan order (AGI, Lima, 689B, N. 10). Between 1770 and 1772 he is documented in three transactions involving enslaved people.
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Bacarreza Antonio
1763–1790Born in Genoa, son of Josef Bacarreza and Angela Conforte (AAL, Licencias matrimoniales, 1773). Between 1771 and 1787 he is documented in six transactions involving enslaved people.
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Bacarreza Cayetano
1778–1830Born in Genoa, the legitimate son of Jose Bacarreza and Lucía Conforte (AGN, Protocolo 60, 1830). In his will he declared that he owned four enslaved people. Between 1809 and 1817 he is documented in three transactions involving enslaved people. The deed by which he received his wife's dowry also included some enslaved people, entrusted to his administration.
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A Genoese merchant and banker. On his death, in 1665, he left to his wife all the enslaved people he owned.
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Baldase Bernardo
c. 1791–1810A merchant of Italian origin resident in Havana. With his brother Vicente Baldase, a merchant resident in Cádiz, he was joint owner of the sugar ingenio «La Santísima Trinidad», purchased in May 1795 from Juan de Sequeira. Between 1796 and 1797 the firm went bankrupt, and from the quiebra arose a long legal dispute between the Consulado of Havana and that of Cádiz over the settlement of the debts. The precautionary seizure of the plantation led to the drawing up of the inventory of assets and the detailed list of the enslaved people who worked there, including the family groups of Aldonza de Luca and Nicolasa Luca.
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Balestrieri Nicolau
1823–1830Registered as Italian and a merchant (negociante), on 1 October 1829 he moved to Porto Alegre with his wife, a daughter and an enslaved woman.
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Banfi y Montoto María Catalina
1781–1784Only daughter and universal heir of José Banfi y Parrilla, a banker of Genoese origin, knight of the Order of Calatrava and minister of the Supreme Council of the Indies. By an executory decree of the Council of Castile of 2 March 1781 she obtained full and independent administration of her dowry and of her father's estate. On 24 July 1784 she appeared in person at the offices of the Real Compañía de La Habana, deeply involved in the Cuban slave economy, and collected the dividends on her 14 shares, what remained of the 16 in her father's inventory.
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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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Barberi Lucas
1788–1821Lucas Barberi y Blanco, resident in Lima, was born in Arenzano, «five leagues from Genoa». In his will he declares that he owns three enslaved people (AGN, Protocolos notariales, no. 638, escribano Jose Maria de la Rosa, 1821). Between 1790 and 1819 he is documented in ten transactions involving enslaved people.
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Barbieri Esteban
1789–1804The Buenos Aires census of 1804 recorded that he arrived in the city in 1789. Aged fifty, he owned a grocery shop, a furnished house, five enslaved people, and 1,000 pesos.
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Basi Francisco
1764–1804The Buenos Aires census of 1804 records that he arrived in the city in 1764. He was a miller and owned two enslaved people and 2,000 pesos in silver. He lived in a rented house.
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Benzano y Dagnino Antonio
1800–1820Born in Sestri, in the Archdiocese of Genoa (AAL, Expedientes matrimoniales, 1811). In his will he declares that he owns four enslaved people.
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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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Princess of Asturias and wife of the future Charles IV of Spain, through the Farnese inheritance she was the beneficial owner of 3 and one-third shares of the Real Compañía de La Habana, deeply involved in the Cuban slave economy.
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Bunda Antonio
1770–1777Born in the place called Bendon, in the jurisdiction of Albenga, province of Genoa, son of Juan Bautista Bunda and Catalina Pana (AGN, Protocolo 559, 1776-1777). In his will he declared that he owned an enslaved man, José María, whom he left to the Convento Grande de San Francisco to serve the friars; if he were not considered suitable, the convent could sell him.
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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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Cambini Francesco e Bernardo
1461–1469Owners of two enslaved African women, Isabell and Giovanna, who arrived in Livorni from Lisbon in 1461 and 1469 respectively through Giovanni Guidetti, agent of the Cambini bank in Lisbon.
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Caneva Andrea
1776–1804He arrived in Buenos Aires in 1776 and married Juana Balerga there. He was a merchant and owned two shops, two houses, half a ship and nine enslaved people.
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Capanegra Agustin
1816–1827Like other Genoese, he farmed rented land. He owned a house in a quinta in the Buenos Aires area and no fewer than fourteen enslaved people.