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.
Advanced search
Filter
-
Di San Giuliano Francesco
1569–1579Between 1569 and 1579 he sent 250 enslaved people to America.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Durazzo Marcello
1765–1772He invested in the Compañía Gaditana de Negros, and thus in the slave trade, through José María Enrile.
-
Enrile Geronimo
1769–1782Born in Cádiz in 1730, son of José María, in 1769 he made his first voyage to Havana and Puerto Rico to look after the interests of the Compañía Gaditana de Negros, and in 1773 he returned to Cuba as director of the company. In 1776 he was again in Havana to oversee his father's investment in a London company that imported enslaved people. In 1778, still in Cuba, he obtained the title of Marquis of Casa Enrile. In 1782, during the American War of Independence, in which Spain was allied with France against England, he obtained a special permit to import enslaved people into Cuba on neutral ships.
-
Enrile Jose Maria
1765–1779He was among the first partners of the Compañía Gaditana de Negros, which received from the Crown the exclusive privilege of the slave trade to the Americas from 1765 to 1779. The company, which operated first from Puerto Rico and then from Cuba, also invested in the buying and selling of grain, sugar, coffee, timber and other goods. Enrile also invested in a London company that imported enslaved people into Cuba.
-
Falconi Bernardo
1641–1646A Genoese sailor, he agreed to transport the Capuchin friars to the Congo in exchange for permission to capture and enslave Africans in order to sell them in the Americas.
-
Famiglia Baldovino
c. 1801–1810A Genoese family resident in Buenos Aires, included in the early nineteenth century in the register of households that owned enslaved people.
-
Famiglia Ferrari
1804A Hispanicised Genoese family long settled in Buenos Aires, included in the city's 1804 register of slave owners. It lived in the most central districts, a sign of its integration.
-
Famiglia Marzano
c. 1801–1810A Genoese family resident in Buenos Aires, recorded in the early nineteenth century among the households that owned enslaved people.
-
Famiglia Parodi
c. 1801–1810A Genoese family resident in Buenos Aires, recorded in the early nineteenth century among the households that owned enslaved people.
-
Fantoni Mauro
1512–1550He was born in Seville, probably in 1512, to Iacopo from Florence and Antonia Gonçales from Portugal. His father had arrived in Andalusia in 1506 and entered the city's lucrative trade in collaboration with other Florentine merchants, becoming the go-to contact for many Tuscan traders active in Seville. In 1532, Iacopo sent his eldest son, Bernardo, to Florence, while Mauro continued to trade with the Americas. A few years later, to reduce the risk of seizures and confiscations, and to take advantage of opportunities in the New World, Iacopo decided to send Mauro to Santo Domingo. This seems to have been prompted by the heirs of Luigi Ricasoli wanting to send a representative to the island to conclude business begun with Galeotto Cei. Fantoni arrived in Santo Domingo between 1541 and 1542, probably spending the rest of his life in the Caribbean. In June 1543, he married Maria Giustiniani, who was from Genoa. He joined the company of Luigi da Lampugnano, Giovan Antonio Piccolomini, and Scipione Pecci to fish for pearls on the island of Cubagua. The company purchased the galleon San Andrés, commanded by Juan Sodo, and Fantoni sent four enslaved men to the Caribbean to work in the enterprise through him. Fantoni sent two of them — Alonso, aged twenty-four, and Juan Marcos, aged twenty — while Pecci assigned a black man named Francisco, aged about twenty-five, to the company. Juan Sodo chose Pedro, who was also twenty-five years old. The contract stipulated that the four men should receive a monthly wage of 1,000 maravedís, as well as food and drink.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Ferrari Cayetan
1822Although he was already deceased, he appears in the proceedings of the Juzgado de Secuestros in Lima. His assets, which were valued at 8,000 pesos, included money, jewellery, enslaved people, and the furnishings of his fonda on Calle de Mercaderes.
-
Ferrari Francesco
1601–1700 (century)A Florentine merchant resident in Amsterdam, in the seventeenth century he formed with the Genoese merchants of Cádiz Domenico Recagno, Bartolomeo Grillo and Ambrogio Lomellini a company that organised the transport of enslaved people to American ports.
-
Owner of an inn in central Lima, he left an estate comprising 8,000 pesos in cash, jewellery, enslaved people, and the inn's utensils and furnishings.
-
A physician, he owned two enslaved people.
-
Foresti Luiz
1823–1830Registered as Italian and a music teacher, on 9 April 1829 he departed for Buenos Aires with his wife Maria Foresti, his daughter Virginia, a minor, a maidservant (criada), an enslaved person and an Italian woman, probably also in service.
-
Fornari (Forne) Domingo
1518–1526With his brother Tomas, Augustin de Vivaldo 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.
-
Fornari (Forne) Tomas
1518–1526With his brother Domingo, Augustin de Vivaldo 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.
-
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.
-
Fragoso Jacom (Giacomo)
c. 1591–1621A merchant originally from Recco, he traded between Lima, Arequipa and Puno in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Alongside other goods he sold enslaved people procured for him by the Genoese Camilo Bonafante, resident first in Callao and then in Arica.
-
Francioni Joaquim
1823–1830Registered as Italian, on 31 October 1829 he departed from Rio de Janeiro for Porto Alegre with his wife, his son and nine enslaved people.