The most basic question confronting the American Mafia historian is: "Does an American Mafia exist?" In our post-Valachi age, when books, movies and television shows about the Mafia are everywhere, it may seem a silly question. But it is important for the Mafia historian to acknowledge that there is some debate on the issue. Despite the weight of evidence, some continue to insist that "Mafia" is a figment of law enforcement imagination or an ethnic slur or a paranoid delusion of some xenophobic persons.
There have even been some significant published works contesting the existence of an American Mafia and the appropriateness of the Mafia terminology in discussions of organized crime. Schiavo's "The Truth About the Mafia" and Albini's "The American Mafia" can be counted among the skeptical volumes. (See the bibliography page for more info.)
In light of the revelations of Valachi, Gentile, Bonanno, Gravano and other mob informants, Schiavo's work may seem particularly ridiculous. "The Mafia is dead..." he wrote in 1962. "All that is left of it... is the name, which some thugs appropriate to give themselves importance and awe the ignorant people, with the unwitting complicity of reporters and politicians who toss the word around with utter recklessness." But, as defensive, whiny and illogical as his arguments were, Schiavo still has his followers.
There was also a political movement in the early 1970s, claiming to represent Italian-American interests, which denied the existence of the Mafia in the United States and challenged government agencies to rid themselves of the ethnic bias behind their belief in such an organization. (Interestingly, the instigator of that movement, Joe Colombo, is known to us today as a Mafia boss and a member of the national crime syndicate's ruling Commission.)
If we are to determine whether an American Mafia exists, it is important for us to decide what "Mafia" means and then to see if that term is appropriately applied to some layer of American society.
At its most basic, the word "mafia" conveys to the Sicilian and Italian a sense of freedom of spirit and sophisticated style and grace.At its most basic, the word "mafia" conveys to the Sicilian and Italian a sense of freedom of spirit and sophisticated style and grace. There are numerous insufficient explanations for how the term came to be applied to the secret criminal society - a close relation to and possible outgrowth of the Italian Camorra - which came to life on the Mediterranean island of Sicily.
In one often cited explanation, the title of Mafia is derived from the first letters of each word in "Morte alla Francia Italia anela" (Death to French, Italy cries). This statement was allegedly made during a 1282 rebellion in Palermo against French occupiers. The problems with this account are many. If the reader will grant me a few minutes, I would like to settle this particular issue before moving on.
In the first place, the reference to "Italia" is all wrong. Italy was regarded at the time as a geographic feature - a peninsula - not a nation. The peninsula was divided up into numerous individual states, many controlled by other European nations. The use of "Italy" in a rallying cry seems not to have occurred until the unification efforts of the 1800s. The Sicilian Vespers revolt of 1282 might have included a rallying cry to "Sicily" or - more likely - to "Palermo," but mentioning "Italy" would have been nonsensical.
The reference to "Francia" is similarly inappropriate. The Sicilians and southern Italians of the time were certainly aware that they were occupied not by "France" at all, but by "Anjou." The Second House of Anjou, apparently no relation to the First House which dominated sections of France and much of Britain many years earlier, was given the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily in 1266 by the pope. The Angevins controlled those areas as well as Anjou and Provence in France, but did not rule France itself. They did not consider themselves French and were not considered by others to be French. For a Sicilian opposed to Angevin occupation to declare "Death to the French" would have represented a vast widening of the conflict ahead of him.
If you subsitute Angevin for Francia and Palermo for Italia in the rebellious sentence quoted above, you will find that abbreviating it yields nothing even close to "Mafia."
Another account of the term's creation insists that it was an abbreviation for a revolutionary command from Giuseppe Mazzini to wreak havoc across the Sicilian countryside around 1850. Mazzini was known to be affiliated with a number of secret societies and to have founded some. But it seems far more likely that he fit his command to the existing term "Mafia" rather than fashioned the term from his command.
In any event, the Mafia organization within Sicily that can be traced at least as far back as the 1800s and perhaps all the way back to the 1200s (or earlier) has certain well-defined characteristics:
In addition to those characteristics, the Mafia in Sicily has existed and continues to exist by criminal activity. And, in its most benevolent manifestation, the Mafia provides leadership and aid to Sicilians who are in need, particularly those facing hostile or uncooperative governmental institutions.
All of these aspects found their way across the sea and into the Italian-Sicilian criminal organizations of the United States.
As early as 1891, a New Orleans grand jury, probing into the death of the local police chief, decided that a secret organization known as the Mafia was present in their community. "It found that the society was composed of Italians and Sicilians who had fled from their native land to avoid punishment for their crimes." (Cook - see bibliography page.) The grand jury learned first-hand about the concept of omerta: "The jury... reported that it had been 'strangely difficult, almost impossible' to secure witnesses." (Cook.)
Testimony from a New York trial in 1918 showed that the initiation rites of the secret societies on this side of the Atlantic were much the same as those practiced on the other side. Antonio Notaro was initiated as a member of the Brooklyn Camorra using virtually the same ceremony as practiced in Italy and Sicily. Notaro, unfamiliar with the traditions of the secret societies and quickly pressed into service to murder the leaders of a Manhattan Mafia group, spilled his guts to the authorities when threatened with the electric chair.
After much research and testimony, the Kefauver Committee in 1951 concluded that "There is a sinister criminal organization known as the Mafia operating throughout the country with ties to other nations... The Mafia is the direct descendant of a criminal organization of the same name originating on the island of Sicily." (Kefauver.)
In the 1960s, mob informant Joe Valachi provided details of the organization and initiation of American crime groups that paralleled those of the Sicilian Mafia, though he referred to the association of American gangs as "Cosa Nostra." Valachi outlined the Mafia's initiation rites, which precisely matched those described by Notaro in 1918 and those practiced by the Mafia and Camorra overseas. Valachi additionally provided insight into the concept of omerta.
But traditions are not all that is shared between the Sicilian and American Mafias. The groups have long shared common members and common interests as well.
Rosario Meli, convicted of murders in Sicily in 1867, escaped from authorities and fled to New Orleans. There, he was absorbed into the Mafia organization of Raffaelo Ajnello.
Giuseppe Esposito, boss of bosses in Sicily in the 1870s, fled police pressure and sailed to New York. He was warmly welcomed by members of the Sicilian community there and received another warm welcome and an immediate position at the head of the Joseph Macheca mob in New Orleans in 1878. Authorities noted that after Esposito's deportation in 1881, his New Orleans organization splits into two groups which begin importing Mafiosi and Stoppaglieri (another criminal society) from Sicily to enhance their strength.
In the early 1900s, New York supercop Joe Petrosino established connections between the criminals plaguing the Little Italies and Little Sicilies of Gothan and the secret criminal organizations in the old country. His 1909 assassination while on an evidence-gathering trip to Palermo, Sicily, should have proven conclusively that the organizations in America and Italy were strongly linked. It is now generally accepted that Sicilian Mafia boss of bosses Vito Cascio Ferro organized the hit on Petrosino and may have delivered the coup de grace shot. The murder was reportedly performed by and attended by representatives of the New Orleans Mafia and New York boss Ignazio Lupo.
In 1907, Sicilian Mafioso Nicola Gentile arrived in the U.S. He served in an advisory capacity to several Mafia leaders here and would travel the country - stepping into the role of boss in a number of cities - before returning to his mother country in the 1930s. Gentile was widely known in Mafia circles on both sides of the Atlantic as "Zu Cola" (Uncle Cola).
Raffaele Palizzolo was given a hero's welcome when his boat arrived in New York City in 1908. Palizzolo was an established Sicilian Mafia leader who fled murder charges. Petrosino forced him back out of the city.
There were a number of recorded visits in the 1900s of Cascio Ferro to criminal leaders in New York and New Orleans. Some sources indicate that Cascio Ferro was exporting trusted Mafiosi from Sicily into the United States in order to set up a nationwide criminal network which he planned to take over. Federal investigators also believed Cascio Ferro was cooperating with New York gangsters on a counterfeiting racket in addition to narcotics smuggling.
New York crime boss Joe Bonanno's autobiography states a strong link between the Mafia groups on both sides of the Atlantic. He notes that his extended family, a Mafia powerhouse in the old country, actively participated in the American underworld and established Mafia organizations in this country. Bonanno shows that his family members traveled back and forth across the ocean to deal with "Family" matters as they arose.
Selvaggi (see bibliography page) indicates that under the reign of New York boss Ignazio Lupo, the U.S. Mafia and Sicilian Mafia relationship became more of a partnership than a child-parent relationship. But the author notes the new world organization continued to pay an annual cash tribute to its old world counterpart.
In the 1920s, as pressure mounted in Sicily from the anti-Mafia Fascist government, Mafia leaders escaped to the United States, bringing portions of their organizations with them. Salvatore Maranzano was immediately recognized as a Mafia chieftain by groups across the U.S. virtually the moment he arrived in New York.
After his deportation in 1945, Charlie Luciano, once boss of bosses of the American Mafia, is said to have taken a role as a leader in the Sicilian Mafia, overseeing drug smuggling into the United States.
In his autobiography, Bonanno described his view (and the other "conservative" bosses' views) of the boss role as that of "father" to a community. He saw his job primarily as an advocate of the community's interests and an arbiter of disputes.
The Sicilian and American Mafia organizations have long held the same traditions, the same terminology, the same ideals. They have exchanged and shared members and leaders. They have cooperated on illicit enterprises. The closeness of the relationship between the two organizations - if one insists that they are two organizations rather than one, large multi-national organization - is further illustrated by visits between them, common actions against common enemies and the traditional American payment of a formal tribute to a supreme Mafia leader in Palermo, Sicily.
The term "don" was never indicative of involvement in the Mafia until ignorant tabloid journalists got hold of it.Though American members have adopted various other names for their organization, including Cosa Nostra (which, translated as "this thing of ours," is less a name than an attempt to refer to the organization WITHOUT naming it), Outfit, Syndicate (more properly used with regard to the extended organized criminal enterprise which involves non-Italian groups), Combination (similar to Syndicate), the organization is essentially the same in structure, membership, function and tradition as the Mafia in Sicily. As a result of the transplantation of numerous Mafiosi from Sicily to the United States, the two societies may also be viewed as genetically identical. It is not inappropriate to call this American organization by its hereditary name.
That is not to say that every use of Italian terminology when dealing with American organized crime is appropriate. Employing the respectful Romance language title of "don" as a synonym for "crime boss" is one of the more careless, improper and bigotry-inspired shorthands to find its way into crime reporting. The term "don" was never indicative of involvement in the Mafia until ignorant tabloid journalists got hold of it. It fit easily into headlines, even when the headline type was enlarged to eye-popping sizes.
The term "Mafia" itself ought not be used by us as a synonym for "The Syndicate" or for the generic "organized crime" term. Organized crime in America is composed of a variety of elements. The Italian-Sicilian Mafia is merely one component (but certainly one of the more influential and likely the most influential component). It is highly inappropriate - and, I believe, profoundly disrespectful to those of Italian/Sicilian descent (including myself) - to use the term "Mafia" as a generic term for organized crime or to link it with ethnic criminal groups and secret societies that do not share the heritage that produced the term. While there certainly are organized criminal groups of different ethnic and racial backgrounds, there is no "Mexican Mafia" or "Jewish Mafia" or "Irish Mafia." Such things exist only in the copy of writers for whom the desire to be colorful outweighs the desire to be accurate and fair.
Copyright © 2002
All Rights Reserved
Thomas P. Hunt
New Milford, CT
thunt@onewal.com