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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Abo Nicola
1631He was the partner of Nicola Salvago and the captain of the slave ship Santísima Trinidad. The ship sailed from Cádiz to Luanda, and then on to Buenos Aires.
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Antelmi Arrigo
1645–1675Captain of the ship Sant'Iacopo of Livorno. His account books and logbooks, covering the years from 1645 to 1657, record transactions relating to the crew and sales of enslaved people; among his papers there is also a register entitled «Ruolo delli schiavi che si trova in essere il S.or Capitano Arrigo Antelio a 20 di luglio 1657».
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Colombo Domingo
1765–1772He was captain and owner of the ship El Loreto, with which he took part in the Compañía Gaditana de Negros and made several voyages to Puerto Rico and Cuba.
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Copelo Esteban
1802Captain of the ship Nossa Senhora da Conceição, owned by the shipowner Benito Patron, sent to Mozambique to load 400 enslaved people.
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Fortunato Antonio
1835A Neapolitan ship's captain naturalised Spanish in Santiago de Cuba, he was the owner of the schooner La Caridad and its cargo. On 18 September 1835 the ship, on a voyage from Norfolk, in the United States, to Bonny, with New Orleans as its final destination, was intercepted by HMS Triculo, under the command of Richard Warren, off Saint Thomas on the equator, after a call at the island of Príncipe. There were 112 enslaved people on board, 107 of whom were emancipated. The case was judged by the Mixed Commission of Sierra Leone.
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Gallesio Franco
1669–1672Captain of the ships of the Grillo and Lomellini asiento. On 1 September 1671 the ship La Concordia Dorada, commanded by Franco Gallesio, arrived in Caracas with 259 enslaved people; the captain declared that he had left Curaçao on 1 August 1671 and that there had been no deaths during the voyage. In Caracas the enslaved people were handed over to the factor don Juan Antonio Blanco. Two years earlier the same commander had landed enslaved people in the port of Cartagena, after embarking them at Curaçao and Portobelo on the ship S. Nicolò da Tolentino. Between 1669 and 1672 he transported a total of 1,205 enslaved people to the ports of Veracruz and Portobelo.
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Before entering the service of Grillo and Lomellini he had served in the Armada Real and in the naval squadron of the Prince of Montesarchio. He began his career representing Grillo and Lomellini in Cádiz, where he supervised the work of other factors and organised the city's naval resources. In 1667, on the initiative of Ambrogio Lomellini, he left for the Indies as a factor; having reached Cartagena de Indias, he began to sail with the company's ships in the Caribbean. Between 1671 and 1672 he transported 1,563 enslaved people between the ports of Curaçao, Portobelo, Veracruz and Cartagena, always aboard the Santa Cruz.
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Patron Juan Bautista
1789–1803Captain of a ship that transported enslaved people to Buenos Aires on behalf of the merchant Ramón de Palacios, holder of the asiento for the supply of enslaved people to the Río de la Plata as agent of the English trading house Robert Main of Cádiz.
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Picaluga Claudio
1824–1826Born in Genoa and naturalised Dutch in Curaçao, ship's captain and shipowner. He was the owner, together with Giovanni Zangroni and Francischo (Francesco) Chichiola, of the ship Amable Claudina and its cargo. Having sailed from Bordeaux bound for La Guaira, the ship was intercepted by the Royal Navy and the case was judged by the Mixed Commission of Sierra Leone.
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Piuma Campodonico Giovanni Battista
1654–1657A Genoese resident in Cádiz, in 1654 he obtained licences to introduce 150 enslaved people into any port of the Spanish colonies in America. Captain and owner of a ship built in Livorno, the Nuestra Señora de Guapelo y Guadalupe, he probably departed from Genoa and called at Cádiz, where he embarked other Genoese resident in the city. The voyage was financed, among others, by Francesco Maria Imperiale and by Giovanni Battista Montovio, another Genoese resident in Cádiz, who as security for their investments had the latter's brother board the ship. Piuma arrived in Luanda between the end of 1654 and the beginning of 1655. He spent more than a year there trying to obtain permission to trade from the local authorities, and there he died, together with Montovio, in April 1656. His ship, with more than 100 enslaved people in excess of what the Spanish licences allowed, reached Santo Domingo at the end of 1657, although its final destination was Cartagena de Indias.
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Siccoli Pietro
1839Captain of the Bela Fiorentina (La Bella Fiorentina), a ship built in Genoa that sailed under the Portuguese or Brazilian flag. Having set out from Havana, she was captured by the British in 1839 near the coast of Sierra Leone.
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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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Visich Giuseppe
1780Also cited as Joseph Visich or Giuseppe Visick, a sea captain, he commanded the imperial ship San Francisco de Paula. In 1780, while sailing from Bordeaux to Fiume (Rijeka) with a cargo of powdered sugar and refining earth, the ship was captured by the British privateer Trimmer. The inventories record on board, among the goods, two enslaved people as well. Visich was detained and questioned as to who their owner was; the two people were confiscated as a prize of war.