26. The Unexpected Roots of the American Mafia
It is commonly assumed that the Italian-American mafia had its roots in New York City, home of the Five Great Crime Families, the Godfather. America’s melting pot extraordinaire was the first destination of millions of Italian immigrants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who disembarked and were processed into the US at nearby Ellis Island. However, what would become the American mafia first emerged not in NYC, or even Chicago, but much further south, deep in the heart of Dixie, in New Orleans.
In 1869, the New Orleans Times reported that the city’s Second District was overrun with “well-known and notorious Sicilian murderers, counterfeiters and burglars, who, in the last month, have formed a sort of general co-partnership or stock company for the plunder and disturbance of the city.” The favored destination of southern Italian immigrants back then was not America, but Argentina and Brazil. Their Latin culture, Romance languages, Catholic religion, and warmer climes were more hospitable and easier to adapt to than the US. New Orleans became a secondary destination in the nineteenth century because of its extensive traffic with those southern locales.