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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Centurione (Centurion) Gaspar
1514–1526Together with Francisco Grimaldi (or Grimaldo), he bought a licence to send a small group of enslaved people to Hispaniola. He also undertook to ship the enslaved people for the Genoese company (Forne, Vivaldo and Vazquez) that had purchased Gouvenot's licence.
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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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Owner, together with Claudio Picaluga and Giovanni Zangroni, 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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Cibo Carlo
1820–1860A Genoese, grocer in Regla, near Havana. His shop was a point of reference for the slave traders arriving on the island. He hosted in Cuba the slave trader of Franco-Italian origin Theodore Canot. He was also co-owner of the ship Areostatico, employed in the illegal slave trade, which in 1826 transported 108 enslaved people to Havana.
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Cipriani Leonetto
1812–1888Born in Centuri, Corsica, on 16 October 1812, to Matteo Cipriani and Caterina Caracciolo, he died on 10 May 1888. Having moved with his family to Livorno in 1822, in 1831 he was sent by his father to Trinidad to look after the family's considerable commercial and financial interests in the Antilles. He made two stays in America (1831-1834 and 1835-1836), during which he operated in Trinidad, St. Thomas and Puerto Rico. In 1835, on news of the emancipation of enslaved people in the British colonies, he was sent to London and then to Trinidad to protect the family's mortgage claims on slave estates; the Cipriani family is among the beneficiaries of the compensation provided for by British law. On the death of his father, in 1837, he accepted the guardianship of his younger siblings and inherited agricultural estates in Tuscany and Corsica, in addition to the interests in the Antilles. An entrepreneur, soldier and politician, he took part in the wars of independence, was governor of Livorno, consul of the Kingdom of Sardinia in California (1852-1855), Governor General of the Romagna (1859) and senator of the Kingdom of Italy.
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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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Compiano Francesco Maria
1663–1674An agent of Grillo and Lomellini, he distributed enslaved Africans to Spanish ports such as Veracruz, Portobelo, Caracas, Cartagena de Indias and Cumaná. Before joining the asiento he had organised illegal expeditions to sell enslaved people between Cádiz, the Canaries, Curaçao and Portobelo. In 1665, during the contracts between Grillo and Lomellini and the Company of Royal Adventurers, the English company that held the monopoly of trade with Africa, including the slave trade, he also travelled to Jamaica and Barbados.
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Cota Horacio
1633–1639He was appointed by Nicola Salvago as an agent in Buenos Aires, tasked with supervising the sale of enslaved people.
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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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D'Andrea Stefano
1668–1672He replaced Francesco Feroni as Grillo's agent in Amsterdam, where he bought enslaved people for the asiento and purchased other goods to be sent to America.
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dalla Man Isach
1763–1768From about 1763 he started a direct trade in glass beads between Venice and Liverpool, entering into relations with the Company of Merchants Trading to Africa and, in 1766-1767, with the slave-trading house William Davenport & Co., of which he was a supplier with shipments from Venice and from the Livorno branch. In 1768 the Venetian authorities excluded him from this trade, accusing him of having delivered beads of poor quality.
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De Luca Miguel
1751–1800 (part of century)He was sent to Buenos Aires to represent the trading company Patron y Cía, active in the slave trade. He married the daughter of Juan Bautista Patron and in 1778 took part in the failed Spanish expedition to colonise two islands in the Gulf of Guinea, Fernando Poo and Annobón, and to establish there a direct trade in enslaved people with the Río de la Plata.
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de Mari François
1702A Genoese nobleman active between Madrid and Paris, in 1702 he was registered as the holder, on behalf of Francesco Grillo, of a share of 150,000 livres in the Compagnie de Guinée et de l'Asiento. The subscription was actually carried out in Paris by the banker Jean Laurent Verzure, who represented him.
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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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Agent of the Cambini for the Pisa and Livorno branches, he was the owner of an enslaved African woman, Marta, who arrived in Livorno from Lisbon in 1461 through Giovanni Guidetti.
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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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Farnese Elisabetta
1784Queen Mother of Spain, originally from Parma. According to the coupons of 1784, the securities of the Real Compañía de La Habana, deeply involved in the Cuban slave economy, which passed to the Bourbon-Parma came from her estate: 3 and one-third shares each to the Infante Fernando, Duke of Parma, and to María Luisa, Princess of Asturias. The collections were handled in Madrid by the Italian trustees Juan Bautista Rossi and Francisco Antonio Paglia.
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Feroni Francesco
1660–1670Born in Empoli between 1614 and 1616, he moved to Livorno, where he worked for the merchant and senator Lorenzo Buonaccorsi, who probably sent him to Amsterdam. There he first took part in the grain trade to Italy, and above all to Livorno, where in 1645 he managed to send 1,650 tons of Baltic grain by chartering sixteen ships; further shipments followed. He became an important figure in the Italian community of Amsterdam, and Ferdinando II asked him to represent him before the States General. In the meantime he diversified his business: he entered the trade with Portugal, to which he exported linen and textiles and from which he imported Brazilian sugar and salt, and he was one of the main importers of Spanish wool into the United Provinces. His most profitable trade, however, was the slave trade. He invested part of the profits from the grain trade in the purchase of a ship, the Speranza, which carried textiles and alcoholic drinks to Guinea in exchange for enslaved people; after they had been sold in America, on the return voyage the Speranza carried sugar, cocoa, tobacco and gold ingots to Europe. His commercial successes depended on his good relations with the Dutch West India Company. From 1662 he took part in the Grillo and Lomellini asiento, bringing enslaved people from Guinea to the Caribbean.