explains how the Welsers have continued to be an example for other “German colonial endeavors and fantasies.” The Welser Family saw its chance to participate in the conquest of the Americas in the early to mid-1500s. 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. By March 1528, they were also granted the province of Venezuela. The Welser merchants also contributed to the mining industry in Cuba, as they discovered copper there. German traders (Welsers and Fuggers) contributed to the importation of German products to Cuba, such as equipment for mining and building railways. 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.” The Venezuela purchase Bartholomeus V. Welser lent the Emperor Charles V a great sum of money for which, in 1528, he received as security the Province of Venezuela, developing it as Klein-Venedig (little Venice), but in consequence of their rapacious acts, the Welsers were deprived of their rule before the Emperor's reign was over. His son, Bartholomeus VI. Welser, explored Venezuela along with Philipp von Hutten and both were executed at El Tocuyo by local Spanish Governor Juan de Carvajal in 1546. From 1528 to 1556, seven entradas (expeditions) led to the plunder and exploitation of local civilizations, but these colonial foundations led to future trade within the Americas. 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. The Welsers contributed to the establishment of cities such as Coro, Maracaibo, and Bogotá. Caribbean slave trade 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. According to historian Julia Roth, “In 1532, the company purchased the sugar mill Santa Bàrbara in the department of San Juan de la Maguana through the Welser's overseas agent Sebastian Renz from Ulm for the price of 3427 Pesos, 202 Arrobas sugar, and 4 slaves.” Slaves were notably listed in the same category as animals, signaling the early dehumanization