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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Riparola Franceso
1492–1515Known as Francisco de Riberol, he financed he Spanish conquest of La Palma and Tenerife, led by Alonso Fernández de Lugo, alongside other Genoese merchants, including Matteo Vigna and Francesco Palmario. He settled in La Palma, where he traded enslaved Guanche people and owned plantations on which they worked.
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Rizo Bartolo
1804–1819By 1819, his assets included two ranchos worth 8,097 pesos, four enslaved individuals, two pairs of oxen, five draught horses, a cart, and 1,000 pesos in cash. He provided credit to other Ligurians who wanted to buy land.
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Sacio Antonio
1798–1825He was a Genoese merchant in Lima who married Gertrudis Poleo, the daughter of another Genoese man named Bartolomé Poleo. She brought a dowry of around 13,000 pesos to the marriage, but in 1822 he claimed that her contribution was actually worth around 24,000 pesos — 11,000 pesos more than the dowry. His properties included four cajones (shops) on the Ribera, bodegas on Calle Aldabas, Mantas and Portal de Botoneros, as well as properties rented on Calle Pescadería and Calle Santo Toribio. In his early years of business, he traded brandy from the Ica Valley. He also owned two pulperías (grocery shops). In 1825 he married, as his third wife, Toribia Poleo, who brought him a dowry of about 16,000 pesos, including three enslaved people worth 780 pesos.
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Salvago Benedetto
1401–1500 (century)A fifteenth-century member of the Salvago merchant family, he owned an enslaved person engaged in domestic service. He appears with his relative Brunetto Salvago in the notarial records because he provided for the manumission of that person and assigned that person a share of the inheritance.
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Salvago Brunetto
1401–1500 (century)A fifteenth-century member of the Salvago merchant family, he owned an enslaved person employed in domestic service. He appears with his relative Benedetto Salvago in the notarial records because he provided for the manumission of that person and assigned that person a share of the inheritance.
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Salvago Luca
1490–1500Owner of a sugar plantation in Madeira.
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Salvago Tomasso
1450A member of the Salvago merchant family, on 28 April 1450 he purchased an enslaved person in Genoa from Geronimo de Carmarino, as documented by a notarial deed. He is a different person from the Tomasso Salvago active as factor for Ansaldo Grimaldi in Seville in 1530.
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A real cédula signed by the king in 1555 expressly authorised him to take with him to the Indies, to Puerto Rico, six enslaved Black people as personal servants. The document associates him with Antonio Merlo as a member of the same family of Italian origin.
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Secchi Jean
1878–1879Between 1878 and 1879 Secchi and his associates, Pantin, Lecavallerie, Texidor, Larrabide and Jimenez, transported to Cuba groups of seven to forty people at a time, of Indian, Chinese and Venezuelan origin, as indentured servants.
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Soderini Giovanni
1536–1556He was born in Florence on 27 July 1511. Following the beheading of his father, a republican, and the sequestration of the family's property, he was forced to leave the city. He moved to Seville, and from there to Santo Domingo around 1536. By 1543, he owned La Magdalena, a sugar mill located southwest of Santo Domingo. During this period, he met Alonso Hernández de Las Varas, a wealthy sugar entrepreneur whose family had been established in Hispaniola for many years. Shortly afterwards, he married Alonso's eldest daughter, Isabel, thereby entering the island's sugar oligarchy. Through this marriage, he became co-owner of the Santa Bárbara sugar mill near Azua la Vieja. Towards the end of his life, it is estimated that he owned around 200 enslaved people, with 53 registered at La Magdalena in 1556, 138 at Santa Bárbara in 1557, and nine in his domestic service. Despite having attained an excellent position, he diversified his business by trading with Cuba. In 1552, he organised an enterprise with the German Melchor Grubel to mine gold in the Colombian Andes.
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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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Terri Antonio
1755–1767Born in the Marquisate of Finale, in the Republic of Genoa, the legitimate son of Antonio Terri and Angela Adriano. In Cádiz he married Antonia Álvarez Campana Cardona, whose mother was a native of Finale (AGN, Protocolo 20, 1780). Between 1755 and 1767 he is documented in three transactions involving enslaved people.
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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.