Welser family

By the early Age of Discovery, the Welser family had established trading posts in Antwerp, Lyon, Madrid, Nuremberg, Sevilla, Lisbon, Venice, Rome, and Santo Domingo.

[3] The history of the family can be traced back to the 13th century, when its members held official positions in the city of Augsburg.

In the Contract of Madrid (1528), King Charles V provided the Welsers with privileges within the African slave trade and conquests of the Americas as a reward for their financial contributions to his election in 1519.

Historians Álvarez Estévez and Guzmàn Pascual argue that the Welser and Fugger contributions in Cuba led to the island's "first contact with international finance capital," and that these interrelations opened Cuban trade up to the "financial powers of the world.

Welser, explored Venezuela along with Philipp von Hutten and both were executed at El Tocuyo by local Spanish Governor Juan de Carvajal in 1546.

The first governors of Venezuela, Ambrosius Alfinger (1529–1533), Nicolas Federmann, and Georg von Speyer captured and enslaved local amerindians after their failed attempts to find gold on the Venezuelan coast.

[5] The Welser's hold of the slave trade in the Caribbean began in 1523, as they had begun their own sugar production in Santo Domingo.

"[5] Slaves were notably listed in the same category as animals, signaling the early dehumanization of African enslaved workers.

[4] The Welsersche Familienstiftung (in English, the "Welser Family Foundation"), founded on 1 April 1539, still exists and has owned numerous castles in Germany.