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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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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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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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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Cota Horacio
1633–1639Appointed by Nicola Salvago as agent in Buenos Aires, with the task of 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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d’Este Isabella
1491Marchioness of Mantua, in 1491 she instructed her agent in Venice, Giorgio Brognolo, to procure for her an African girl, «una moreta», aged between one and a half and four years.
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d’Este Luigi
1580A cardinal of the House of Este, he owned eighty enslaved people at his villa in Tivoli. After their revolt, in 1580, he purchased another fifty.
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da Noli Antonio
1460–1469 (decade)A Genoese navigator in the service of the Portuguese Crown, in the 1460s he was commissioned by Afonso V to colonise the Cape Verde Islands. The commission included authorisation to carry on the slave trade in the indigenous populations.
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Dal Borgo Federico
1539Agent of the Strozzi company in Seville, in 1539 he received from the sovereign the licence to transport enslaved people and goods 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 Andrade Antonio
1750–1760Born in the village of Ybaga, in the «Rivera de la Chebe», jurisdiction of Genoa, the legitimate son of Juan Bautista de Andrade and Catalina Chuena (AAL, Testamento, 163:5). In his will he declared that he owned an enslaved man named Ventura, to whom he granted freedom, without any encumbrance, from the day of his own death, in reward for his good services and loyalty.
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De la Terola y Jordan Agustín
1753–1763Also known as Agustín de la Terola or Agustín Jordan, he was born in Finale, in the Republic of Genoa, the legitimate son of Joseph de la Terola y Jordan and Ana Maria Gordona y Graterola. Between 1755 and 1763 he is documented in three transactions involving enslaved people.
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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 Negron Carlos
1536–1540Son of a Genoese who had arrived in Seville at the beginning of the sixteenth century and been naturalised. A graduate in law, he was also active in the slave trade: he owned two galleons that sailed between Africa and Veracruz. He married a prominent member of the Sevillian nobility. He was later appointed legal adviser to the tribunal of the Inquisition, then fiscal of the Council of the Indies and finally of the Council of Castile. His seven children became important officials or landowners.
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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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de’ Medici Cosimo I
1555Duke of Florence and later Grand Duke of Tuscany, he owned enslaved people employed on the Medici galleys. A list of 1555 of the oarsmen in his possession includes a man described as «moro negro», employed on board as a trumpeter.
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de’ Medici Cosimo III
1680–1699 (decade)Grand Duke of Tuscany, between the 1680s and 1690s he had purchased for his court Eustachio, an African man skilled in the preparation of sweets «all'indiana», who remained his property. He also asked his agent Lorenzo Ginori to procure for him a young Black or Brazilian man skilled in the processing of sugar cane.
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Owner of an enslaved African woman named Barbera, who arrived in Livorno from Lisbon in 1461 through Giovanni Guidetti.
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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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Del Nero Neroso
1584–1586He sent to America 900 enslaved people under the São Tomé contract on behalf of his contractor, Giovanni Battista Rovellasca. He had been an employee of Lorenzo Del Rosso, also a slave trader.
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Del Rosso Lorenzo
1548–1570In 1548 Lorenzo del Rosso and Francisco “Rucho” obtained a licence to transport thirty-five enslaved Africans to the Indies, paid for in all 105,000 maravedís, equivalent to 280 ducats, and received silver in return. Between 1569 and 1579 Del Rosso transported a further 230 enslaved people to the Americas.