by PolackTony » Mon Feb 17, 2025 1:09 pm
B. wrote: ↑Mon Feb 17, 2025 12:46 am
PolackTony wrote: ↑Sun Feb 16, 2025 10:44 pm
FWIW, I haven’t seen a bunch of Riberesi in Louisiana; from what I’ve seen, at least, it doesn’t seem to have emerged as a significant hub for Riberesi, despite having had a number of other Agrigentini. When researching Riberesi in Chicago, for example, I don’t note many close familial ties to Louisiana the way that one will very often see for other Sicilians. Relatedly, Riberesi seem to have not begun to arrive in numbers to the US until the late 1890s, by which time NYC was rapidly overtaking NOLA as the prime port of entry for Sicilians in the US; and many if not all of these early arrivals from Ribera arrived via NYC. Again, just based on what I have seen. I’ve analyzed many thousands of records of arrivals pre-1900, essentially all available records of Sicilian arrivals to the US where hometown of origin is known, and very few Riberesi appear in these records until around 1898 (this also would seem to align with the demography of Ribera, where a large increase in population occurred between the censuses of 1881 and 1901, with a subsequent drop in population from 1901 to 1911 due to a big surge in out migration). I could be wrong, and of course there will be some outliers, but this is what I have seen.
You would be familiar with the trajectories of settlement of the people in Alabama, for example. I would wonder when they mainly arrived and if it were via NOLA or NYC.
I can't remember coming across any Riberesi known to have actually settled in New Orleans either, especially early on. I would expect some to have lived there at some stage, even temporarily, but you're right that a lot of the immigrants from Ribera came during their paesan Crispi's term as Prime Minister circa 1890s when he encouraged it. Good thinking to check Ribera's population levels during that period.
Giuseppe Caterinicchia, a probable high-ranking member in Alabama, came via New Orleans in the mid-late 1890s. I recall some other Alabama Riberesi coming to the US via New Orleans but I'd have to double check. Pasquale Amari did come via New York and that was much later.
The "Maybe the DeCavalcantes trace themselves back to a Riberese/Agrigentino colony in early New Orleans" is a convoluted, crazy theory but it's seemingly the only way they could ever be reconciled as the first US Family. The likelihood that members of an NJ-NYC Family would see themselves as the heirs to an unknown, undocumented colony of pioneering mafiosi in New Orleans circa ~1850s because of campanilismo is beyond unrealistic even if a colony like that did exist. Another possible explanation is that the first Family in the NYC area was some early incarnation of the DeCavalcantes and the lore turned from "first NYC-NJ Family" to "first American Family" due to the importance of NYC in the American mafia.
More likely though is that D'Arco's hand-me-down story about "La Chiesa" in New Jersey and the DeCavalcante members' oral history are wrong, but then the question becomes why they were under that impression and if there are other elements of truth to it. We don't know either if D'Arco believed that this New Jersey "La Chiesa" group was the same thing as the DeCavalcante Family, if it was the Newark Family, or if he related "La Chiesa" to the existence of these other New Jersey Families at all. D'Arco would have been familiar with the DeCavalcantes but there's nothing to indicate he saw them as continuous with "La Chiesa". However, that high-ranking Lucchese members, two DeCavalcante captains, and a Boston underboss all believed variations of the "New Jersey Family = Early or First US Family" tells me they all heard variations of the same initial story or rumor and D'Arco was referring to the same thing the DeCavalcante members were, whatever that was in actuality.
Adding Gerry Angiulo to it, he says it was a shame Sam DeCavalcante was such a terrible guy because he ran one of the oldest Families in the country, like Sam didn't deserve that honor. Rotondo similarly testified it had once been considered an honor that the DeCavalcantes were the oldest Family. Sort of echoes what Joe Colombo told Scarpa about New Orleans, that they were given the honor of not reporting to the Commission (which certainly wasn't true for the DeCavalcantes haha). Angiulo doesn't say the DeCavalcantes are the single oldest Family but he believes they are "one" of the oldest. Even "one" of the oldest is a strange remark that's hard to fit into our understanding of where/when the American mafia developed.
Wish Capeci had followed up with D'Arco a little bit more to clarify whether or not he felt the DeCavalcantes fit into "La Chiesa". Would be great if eventually Anthony Rotondo comes forward. He was an intelligent witness who could give at least a little more context on the DeCavalcantes' own lore.
I have a sample of >30,000 Sicilian entries to the US from 1880 to 1900. where comune of birth was recorded. I believe that I've discussed some of this with you before, but not on the board here. While missing data due to hometown not being recorded on passenger manifests reduces *sample size*, I don't see any strong reason to believe that it introduced a significant *bias* (unless, say, people from one town or province were more likely to not have their hometown recorded as compared to people from another town or province, which I doubt would be a serious issue here).
There are no entries for Riberesi recorded until the period between 1885 and 1890, when a very small number arrived to NYC. A tiny number, as in single digits, arrived to NOLA between 1895 and 1900. The great majority of Riberesi seem to have entered between 1900 and 1920, however, and mainly via NYC.
In general, Agrigentini made up a small proportion of early Sicilian arrivals, and their numbers began to rise in the 1890s. Earlier arrivals as a whole were primarily composed of Palermitani and, secondarily, Messinesi (who, in fact, composed the great majority of pre-1900 Sicilians in cities like Boston, Providence, and Philly, as well as considerable proportion in Brooklyn). Arrivals to NOLA were somewhere between 70% and 80% Palermitani, similar to Chicago, STL, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh in this period.
*Many more* Agrigentini arrived early to Manhattan (~18%),North Jersey (~15%), and -- most notably -- Brooklyn; in the latter, Agrigentini rivaled Palermitani in numbers, with each composing ~1/3 of the early Sicilian population. This was the only place in the US where this pattern played out (Boston Agrigentini were ~10% of the early Sicilian population, while in Chicago they were 3% -- in both cities, however, a great number of Agrigentini arrived after 1900, of course). In NOLA, Agrigentini were ~7% of the pre-1900 total.
The general trend, however, across the US, seems to have been that the influx of Agirgentini began to grow towards the second half of the 1890s, in both absolute and relative numbers. I have strongly suspected for some time that the origins of the mafia in the US -- talking about from like 1860 to 1890 -- were very strongly Palermitano in composition. In the cases where we know the origin of some early actors involved, we see this born out, as with the Monrealesi in NOLA and the Termitani/Trabiesi in 1880s Chicago and Pittsburgh. For these reasons, I have a hard time believing that the earliest manifestations of the mafia in the US -- from NOLA to STL, SF, Chicago, and NYC -- were likely to have been of significant Agrigentino origin or influence.
As noted, in the 1890s we do start to see the beginning of a larger influx of Agrigentini taking shape on the East Coast. This initial influx was very strongly composed of migrants from Sciacca, however, with other comuni in Agrigento seemingly only contributing comparatively tiny numbers until post-1900. We see this in the main early Agrigentino communities centered in NYC and Boston, as well as the small Sciaccatano colony in Norristown, PA (which seems to have been founded circa 1895).
Given the above, I would venture to guess (purely speculative) that sometime around 1890-1895, Sciaccatani may have founded a Family in the NYC area, which would probably have been based around Lower Manhattan and Northern Brooklyn, though likely with close ties to the smaller Sciaccatano community in North Jersey. We know that even several decades later, Nick Gentile still thought of the Masseria faction as the "Sciaccatani", which to me serves to underscore the likely strong early role that men from Sciacca would have played in founding the Agrigentino mafia network in the NYC area, a picture that closely aligns with the demography of early immigration to the US. I think it's very unlikely that this would have been the first Family in the NYC area, and certainly not in the US, of course, with the earliest organization around NYC presumably having been founded by Palermitani, same as in other early mafia phenomena in the US.
[quote=B. post_id=289851 time=1739778405 user_id=127]
[quote=PolackTony post_id=289847 time=1739771072 user_id=6658]
FWIW, I haven’t seen a bunch of Riberesi in Louisiana; from what I’ve seen, at least, it doesn’t seem to have emerged as a significant hub for Riberesi, despite having had a number of other Agrigentini. When researching Riberesi in Chicago, for example, I don’t note many close familial ties to Louisiana the way that one will very often see for other Sicilians. Relatedly, Riberesi seem to have not begun to arrive in numbers to the US until the late 1890s, by which time NYC was rapidly overtaking NOLA as the prime port of entry for Sicilians in the US; and many if not all of these early arrivals from Ribera arrived via NYC. Again, just based on what I have seen. I’ve analyzed many thousands of records of arrivals pre-1900, essentially all available records of Sicilian arrivals to the US where hometown of origin is known, and very few Riberesi appear in these records until around 1898 (this also would seem to align with the demography of Ribera, where a large increase in population occurred between the censuses of 1881 and 1901, with a subsequent drop in population from 1901 to 1911 due to a big surge in out migration). I could be wrong, and of course there will be some outliers, but this is what I have seen.
You would be familiar with the trajectories of settlement of the people in Alabama, for example. I would wonder when they mainly arrived and if it were via NOLA or NYC.
[/quote]
I can't remember coming across any Riberesi known to have actually settled in New Orleans either, especially early on. I would expect some to have lived there at some stage, even temporarily, but you're right that a lot of the immigrants from Ribera came during their paesan Crispi's term as Prime Minister circa 1890s when he encouraged it. Good thinking to check Ribera's population levels during that period.
Giuseppe Caterinicchia, a probable high-ranking member in Alabama, came via New Orleans in the mid-late 1890s. I recall some other Alabama Riberesi coming to the US via New Orleans but I'd have to double check. Pasquale Amari did come via New York and that was much later.
The "Maybe the DeCavalcantes trace themselves back to a Riberese/Agrigentino colony in early New Orleans" is a convoluted, crazy theory but it's seemingly the only way they could ever be reconciled as the first US Family. The likelihood that members of an NJ-NYC Family would see themselves as the heirs to an unknown, undocumented colony of pioneering mafiosi in New Orleans circa ~1850s because of campanilismo is beyond unrealistic even if a colony like that did exist. Another possible explanation is that the first Family in the NYC area was some early incarnation of the DeCavalcantes and the lore turned from "first NYC-NJ Family" to "first American Family" due to the importance of NYC in the American mafia.
More likely though is that D'Arco's hand-me-down story about "La Chiesa" in New Jersey and the DeCavalcante members' oral history are wrong, but then the question becomes why they were under that impression and if there are other elements of truth to it. We don't know either if D'Arco believed that this New Jersey "La Chiesa" group was the same thing as the DeCavalcante Family, if it was the Newark Family, or if he related "La Chiesa" to the existence of these other New Jersey Families at all. D'Arco would have been familiar with the DeCavalcantes but there's nothing to indicate he saw them as continuous with "La Chiesa". However, that high-ranking Lucchese members, two DeCavalcante captains, and a Boston underboss all believed variations of the "New Jersey Family = Early or First US Family" tells me they all heard variations of the same initial story or rumor and D'Arco was referring to the same thing the DeCavalcante members were, whatever that was in actuality.
Adding Gerry Angiulo to it, he says it was a shame Sam DeCavalcante was such a terrible guy because he ran one of the oldest Families in the country, like Sam didn't deserve that honor. Rotondo similarly testified it had once been considered an honor that the DeCavalcantes were the oldest Family. Sort of echoes what Joe Colombo told Scarpa about New Orleans, that they were given the honor of not reporting to the Commission (which certainly wasn't true for the DeCavalcantes haha). Angiulo doesn't say the DeCavalcantes are the single oldest Family but he believes they are "one" of the oldest. Even "one" of the oldest is a strange remark that's hard to fit into our understanding of where/when the American mafia developed.
Wish Capeci had followed up with D'Arco a little bit more to clarify whether or not he felt the DeCavalcantes fit into "La Chiesa". Would be great if eventually Anthony Rotondo comes forward. He was an intelligent witness who could give at least a little more context on the DeCavalcantes' own lore.
[/quote]
I have a sample of >30,000 Sicilian entries to the US from 1880 to 1900. where comune of birth was recorded. I believe that I've discussed some of this with you before, but not on the board here. While missing data due to hometown not being recorded on passenger manifests reduces *sample size*, I don't see any strong reason to believe that it introduced a significant *bias* (unless, say, people from one town or province were more likely to not have their hometown recorded as compared to people from another town or province, which I doubt would be a serious issue here).
There are no entries for Riberesi recorded until the period between 1885 and 1890, when a very small number arrived to NYC. A tiny number, as in single digits, arrived to NOLA between 1895 and 1900. The great majority of Riberesi seem to have entered between 1900 and 1920, however, and mainly via NYC.
In general, Agrigentini made up a small proportion of early Sicilian arrivals, and their numbers began to rise in the 1890s. Earlier arrivals as a whole were primarily composed of Palermitani and, secondarily, Messinesi (who, in fact, composed the great majority of pre-1900 Sicilians in cities like Boston, Providence, and Philly, as well as considerable proportion in Brooklyn). Arrivals to NOLA were somewhere between 70% and 80% Palermitani, similar to Chicago, STL, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh in this period.
*Many more* Agrigentini arrived early to Manhattan (~18%),North Jersey (~15%), and -- most notably -- Brooklyn; in the latter, Agrigentini rivaled Palermitani in numbers, with each composing ~1/3 of the early Sicilian population. This was the only place in the US where this pattern played out (Boston Agrigentini were ~10% of the early Sicilian population, while in Chicago they were 3% -- in both cities, however, a great number of Agrigentini arrived after 1900, of course). In NOLA, Agrigentini were ~7% of the pre-1900 total.
The general trend, however, across the US, seems to have been that the influx of Agirgentini began to grow towards the second half of the 1890s, in both absolute and relative numbers. I have strongly suspected for some time that the origins of the mafia in the US -- talking about from like 1860 to 1890 -- were very strongly Palermitano in composition. In the cases where we know the origin of some early actors involved, we see this born out, as with the Monrealesi in NOLA and the Termitani/Trabiesi in 1880s Chicago and Pittsburgh. For these reasons, I have a hard time believing that the earliest manifestations of the mafia in the US -- from NOLA to STL, SF, Chicago, and NYC -- were likely to have been of significant Agrigentino origin or influence.
As noted, in the 1890s we do start to see the beginning of a larger influx of Agrigentini taking shape on the East Coast. This initial influx was very strongly composed of migrants from Sciacca, however, with other comuni in Agrigento seemingly only contributing comparatively tiny numbers until post-1900. We see this in the main early Agrigentino communities centered in NYC and Boston, as well as the small Sciaccatano colony in Norristown, PA (which seems to have been founded circa 1895).
Given the above, I would venture to guess (purely speculative) that sometime around 1890-1895, Sciaccatani may have founded a Family in the NYC area, which would probably have been based around Lower Manhattan and Northern Brooklyn, though likely with close ties to the smaller Sciaccatano community in North Jersey. We know that even several decades later, Nick Gentile still thought of the Masseria faction as the "Sciaccatani", which to me serves to underscore the likely strong early role that men from Sciacca would have played in founding the Agrigentino mafia network in the NYC area, a picture that closely aligns with the demography of early immigration to the US. I think it's very unlikely that this would have been the first Family in the NYC area, and certainly not in the US, of course, with the earliest organization around NYC presumably having been founded by Palermitani, same as in other early mafia phenomena in the US.