While we will never know how many small families existed in the first years of the US mafia, we have evidence of previously unidentified families and reason to speculate about others. Multiple families may have even existed in cities or territories, not unlike what we see with New York's five families on a smaller scale, before being merged into one group.
I've been putting this together for a while with the hope of describing how I see the formation and evolution of the early US families, as well as a chance to look at locations where other mafia families may have existed early on, or where multiple families were combined into one. It is a slow-burn, but hopefully it's of interest.
While some of these examples have substance, this is for the most part only a discussion, not a definitive "slam dunk". Hopefully others will contribute if they have bits and pieces to add or subtract. I post info on this board because I see this subject as a group effort.
Cities With Multiple Families
Philadelphia / South Jersey
- This statement comes from Philadelphia CI Harry Riccobene. In Celeste Morello's extensive interviews with Riccobene decades later, he made reference to this again and his info led her to conclude that there were three families sometime before Salvatore Sabella was installed as boss by D'Aquila (via Joe Traina). She states that these families were divided by compaesani, with separate families made up primarily of men from Belmonte Mezzagno, Caccamo, and Castrogiovanni (Enna). Riccobene gave her the name of the Caccamese boss, who would not have been known otherwise.
- Harry Riccobene was made in 1927, his father was made in Sicily, and he knew many men who were members prior to 1919/1920, when Sabella became boss. He was recalling the set-up before he was made so some of the details may have been lost on him, but he was in a position to have heard about it from older members.
- Riccobene's reference to each family having ~30 members is interesting. It would likely rule out the possibility that each family was purely compaesani, for one, but the groups still could have been dominated by each of the aforementioned compaesani groups. Three families totaling 90 would also match up with the general size of the Philadelphia family at its peak, though the ~90 members we know of later include a large number of non-Sicilians. We shouldn't necessarily take these estimates too seriously given he was not a member during the time he's referring to.
- This could explain why CI Rocco Scafidi believed Sabella was the first boss of the organization, as he may have been the first boss of the regional Philadelphia-South Jersey family formed by combining these smaller families of paesani. 1919/1920 may have also been when non-Sicilians were first allowed into the group, as Scafidi believed some of the prominent Calabrians and Abruzzesi were members around the time Sabella became boss.
- Rocco Scafidi also made an interesting mistake related to NYC, but is worth sharing in this context. He told the FBI that he believed "one-half" of the Genovese family was "formerly the family of Frank Costello." While this is a ridiculous mistake when taken at face value, it could indicate that to a second-generation Philadelphia member, whose older relatives were early members of the Philly family, the idea of a family being merged from multiple families was not an entirely foreign idea.
- The Philadelphia family maintained divided factions in later decades, though it was between Sicilians and Calabrians rather than within the Sicilians. Though they associated with the Sicilians, the Calabrian faction was said by informants to operate almost autonomously within the organization under consigliere Joe Rugnetta, who we know was a near-equal of Angelo Bruno in terms of administrative power. On his office bug, Angelo Bruno even referred to Rugnetta as the Calabrian "rappresentante", a term typically synonymous with boss. Though this divided arrangement was informal, it could suggest there was precedent for Philadelphia to have groups operating autonomously with their own "rappresentante".
- Philadelphia was not the port city that NYC was, nor was it equal in size or underworld opportunity. While New York City could sustain separate mafia families, it may have made more sense in terms of sustainability for Philadelphia to merge its separate families into one core family spread out over the Philadelphia-South Jersey territory. Something similar played out in the Chicago area.
Chicago / Chicago Heights / Indiana
- Chicago Heights has been confirmed by Nick Gentile as a separate mafia family from the Chicago family that was recognized by other mafia figures at least until the mid-1920s. Their leadership was murdered and by 1931 at the latest they were merged with the Chicago family. Available info shows they were like other small US families in that their prominent members were Sicilian compaesani. Chicago Heights had known members from Caccamo and Cinisi.
- Without key sources we might have never heard of the separate Chicago Heights family. This, and examples like Birmingham, show that without member sources with knowledge of the early years we can't be positive there was no family in a given area, or that a certain area always had one "regional" family opposed to multiple "colony" families.
- Gary, Indiana had the important mafioso Paolo Palazzolo and his prominence in the area could suggest he headed a local group before his 1935 murder. I suspect he may have been part of the Chicago Heights family, though. He was from Cinisi like other prominent Chicago Heights figures and the later Chicago Heights crew was heavily involved in Indiana near the Chicago border. Chicago Heights figures also used Palazzolo's address at the Cleveland meeting they attended alongside Palazzolo.
- In Jimmy Fratianno's first book, he describes Gaspare Matranga as having previously been "boss of Calumet City." Chicago researchers have described Matranga as a former Chicago captain, though I haven't seen direct sources that confirm it, but Fratianno may have meant "boss" in an informal sense. Given Calumet City's proximity and ties to Chicago Heights, it seems unlikely there would have been a separate family there on top of the confirmed Chicago and Chicago Heights families, so I lean toward the theory that Matranga was a captain.
- The autonomy of later Chicago Heights captain Frank LaPorte may have been helped by the area's previous status as a separate family. The merging of separate Chicago and Chicago Heights families may have also impacted the Chicago family's overall tendency to give crews autonomy, similar to what we see in Philadelphia's acceptance of factionalism as an accepted part of family politics.
- While there appears to be only two known families in the Chicago area by the 1920s, it opens up the possibility of other earlier "colony" families of compaesani given the size and range of the later Chicago family. A Sicilian named Pietro Catalanotto was murdered in 1915 and alleged to be the leader of a "Black Hand gang" that included a lieutenant and fifteen other "members". This could have been an early decina/faction of the Chicago family, or Catalanotto may have been a soldier with a crew of associates; there are any number of possibilities given we only have outside sources on him. That's the problem with our lack of sources from the early era: we could be asking the same question about Chicago Heights bosses if we didn't have one or two inside sources who have confirmed them as a separate family.
- The fact that New York City, Chicago, and Philadelphia are all believed to have had multiple families in the area, with Chicago and Philadelphia merging theirs into one, lends itself to the idea of other "colony" families around the US being merged into larger groups. It is interesting, though, that NYC did not follow suit.
New York City
- New York, while exceptional to us through our post-1931 lens because it has maintained multiple families, shows that up to five families can co-exist in one city. Cloudy info and limited analysis from the early 1900s previously led researchers to believe there was one NYC family during the first decade of the 1900s, but deeper research and stronger analysis, particularly in the May 2014 Informer issue, revealed a convincing argument for at least three separate families by the early 1900s, if not earlier.
- Like the three families described by Morello/Riccobene in Philadelphia and the two families in Chicago, the three initial NYC familes appear to have been formed primarily by compaesani and mafiosi from neighboring villages, following a colony model closer to the neighborhood / village families of the Sicilian mafia. These families were not formed by recruiting local criminals, but through chain migration and blood/marital relation within the existing mafia subculture. This model continued to be used in smaller US families throughout the US until later generations, though New York City would adapt other approaches due to its unique environment.
- Using the traditional colony model as their base, the New York families widened their recruitment pool and split further into two more families for a total of five, and these groups generally overlapped in territory within NYC, NJ, and other areas. Though the NYC families quickly evolved from the Sicilian model that spawned them, certain factions within NYC families continued to maintain ties to Sicily or otherwise stayed close to the compaesani model. We can still see this today in the "zip" factions of the Gambino and Bonanno families, who continue to maintain relationships to areas of Sicily that helped fuel their formation in NYC.
- After the massive immigration of Sicilian mafiosi via New York beginning in 1898 and continuing through the 1920s, New York had significantly more mafiosi and mafia recruits than other cities. They also began inducting non-Sicilians by the mid-1910s. Many of the smaller US families stuck to the compaesani model or otherwise relied on transfers from other Sicilian-centric families, but also had far fewer immigrants coming directly to their area. Many US families also limited or even rejected recruitment from outside the traditional mafia subculture. These families withered under the influence of Americanization, especially in cities with a weak overall Italian community.
- New York had more resources than most of the US and they were also willing to expand their horizons, both in terms of recruitment and influence over legitimate/illegitimate operations. They combined the traditional with the nontraditional which aided their ability to maintain five large groups in one city.
Evolution of Regional US Families
Mandamento vs. Cosca
- Some of the comparatively smaller US families did not wither as quickly nor to the degree that others did. While not as large as New York City, families like Chicago, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Detroit, Cleveland, and New England managed to sustain themselves and maintain greater influence than other US families and I don't believe it's a coincidence that these were larger regional families that covered a sprawling territory, more like a Sicilian mandamento (district) than a cosca (family). Families that were centered in a specific city with fewer outlying interests were more likely to fade quicker and maintain less influence in their area than the families who covered a larger region. These larger regional groups also tended to have a stronger voice in national mafia politics.
- While not a perfect comparison, I believe it is helpful to understand the mandamento system of the Sicilian mafia when looking at these larger regional families in the US. At some point, the Sicilian mafia adopted the mandamento system we know today. A mandamento is comprised of multiple cosce (i.e. families, which I will use instead for the sake of consistency) who neighbor one another. A mandamento is like a district and while the families within that district are separate, with their own leadership and distinct membership, they operate under a capomandamento, who represents the mandamento politically within the province. The province then has its own capoprovincia, elected from the mandamenti throughout the province.
- Families like Chicago, Buffalo, Detroit, Philadelphia, Cleveland, New England, and maybe others to some degree had a regional presence closer to a mandamento, though unlike a mandamento they were all technically a single family in the region and "outposts" were represented by captains or soldiers who were all part of the same family. The mandamento system may not have existed, or at least had little influence, when these regional families were established, but it is in some ways closer in structure to these regional families than the traditional Sicilian mafia family which was based in a single town, village, or neighborhood.
Cosca / Colony Model in the US
- It is unlikely that the early Sicilian mafia immigrants in the US would have established sprawling regional families upon arrival to those areas given that is not how families were defined in Sicily. Early Sicilian colonies in the US more likely established their own small families that mirrored the village / neighborhood families they pulled from in Sicily.
- In Sicily, the idea of a single mafia family being a larger regional entity is mostly foreign. Sicilian mafia families are generally centered in specific towns, or in specific neighborhoods in a larger city like Palermo. While members can move elsewhere or transfer, their affiliation is mostly based around individual towns or neighborhoods with sharp jurisdictional boundaries. Some small villages don't have their own family and members can be recruited into a nearby family, though these villages are extremely close and this is mostly a rural phenomenon -- it is not similar to the more mandamento-like sprawl of later US families where recruitment can span multiple US states.
- Given that the US mafia was spawned from the Sicilian mafia, with identical structure, rules, and protocol, it is likely that individual families in the US were created the same way a Sicilian mafia family would be, though in immigrant colonies opposed to villages. Pentito Leonardo Messina stated that a Sicilian mafia family required only ten members to form. It is important to remember that in the Sicilian tradition, simply being a made member is often a position of leadership within the wider mafia subculture. Our modern US view of these groups as pumped-up metropolitan "crime families" makes ten members sound like a joke, but traditionally each of these members would have been a representative in an international network and each man would have relatives, friends, associates, and other legitimate and illegitimate relationships / activities under him. In a growing Sicilian colony, this would mean ten "influencers" whose value would be based on quality rather than quantity.
- When we consider that any Sicilian colony with ten members could have its own family, it opens the doors to possile groups all over the US, though I still believe we should look at this conservatively and not assume there were mafia families in every single corner of the US. More work needs to be done to identify Sicilian labor colonies around the country, especially those that provided only temporary employment opportunities in the 1800s and early 1900s, and whether those colonies may have had mafia influence.
Goals of an Early Mafia Family
- It's important to understand that the early mafia would have been more focused on gaining and maintaining influence within the Sicilian colony and maintaining their place in the network than becoming "crime syndicates". Activities outside of the Sicilian / Italian colony would be an afterthought and were most likely a steep uphill pursuit for early mafia immigrants. The Dallas family was a small group who held little local influence outside of their own network even at their peak, and the same appears true for the short-lived Birmingham family, where even legitimate Italians could do little to assert their cultural influence in the community. The Pittston family was created by men with mining experience in Sicily and they gained a greater foothold in the area by dominating local mining laborers from Italy, much like the DeCavalcantes would do with construction labor in NJ. US mafia families were not formed as dominant "crime syndicates", but as small secret societies of Sicilians who were looking to ruthlessly take advantage of any legitimate or illegitimate opportunity they could find. Their greatest asset was their phenomenal networking ability.
- Despite their networking ability and willingness to travel, limitations in communication and travel technology during the early years of the US mafia make it more likely these small mafia colonies had their own rappresentante (boss) who could settle matters within the group, and for that matter the entire Sicilian colony, which would have included other non-member compaesani familiar with the mafia subculture. While they were willing to write letters, arrange distant meetings, and take train rides to further the mafia's goals and settle disputes, certain issues required immediate arbitration. Early Italian authorities noted that the rural mafia families of Agrigento for example were smaller and more likely to operate directly under the absolute authority of a single boss opposed to the more political-oriented mafia families in Palermo. It would make sense that rural Sicilian colonies would have mirrored their hometown villages and have been comprised of a small membership who received direct arbitration from a local boss who was readily accessible to them.
- At this early stage in US history, it was also less clear which towns and cities would be major economic centers, leaving immigrants to do more guess work and take opportunities as they came, temporary or not. Giuseppe Morello, already a made member in Corleone, was a migrant laborer in Bryan, Texas, just years before becoming capo dei capi over the entire US mafia in NYC. This was not part of some Machiavellian strategy to appear more humble than he was -- Morello was simply following opportunities as they came. He was part of the Corleonesi mafia network that established itself early in Texas, then Morello followed the network to New York, where a much better opportunity presented itself. It was the same network, but the opportunities varied based on timing and circumstance. It's likely Morello was affiliated with a mafia family in Texas, possibly one that would later fall under his Corleone compaesani the Piranios in Dallas, before he became part of the Corleonesi mafia family in NYC.
First Steps Toward Americanization
- With families being centered in specific towns in Sicily, this meant that most early US mafia members were used to belonging to a family comprised mostly of compaesani, many of whom were probably related by blood and/or marriage. Even though the US families within Sicilian colonies would have been similar to Sicilian mafia families in terms of size and scope, it may have been a strange adjustment period as mafiosi joined men from other Sicilian hometowns as part of one family. In New York City, plus early Philadelphia and Chicago, it appears they preferred to stay formally separate to some degree, though this may have been an advantage available only to larger metropolitan cities with more sub-groups of compaesani. A Sicilian colony in the rural US likely wouldn't have been able to sustain multiple families even if the colony included immigrants from different villages and even the compaesani in metropolitan areas couldn't stay completely insular.
- Immigrant mafioso would have known and respected each other as men of honor in Sicily, but merging into singular families with members from different villages may have been a source of growing pains in America. Though this happened in the Tunis mafia family as well, bringing different compaesani together into one family in the US would have been an early step toward Americanization long before Calabrians and Neapolitans were allowed in. This should not be dismissed as a casual development even though it was still a strictly Sicilian affair, as we know preference for one's own compaesani was strong. Historians of the Sicilian colonies in Birmingham, Alabama, where an early mafia family existed, noted that the different groups of compaesani maintained a competitive spirit and had a popular boast in Sicilian that translated to "my town is better than your town." They noted that the Birmingham Sicilians also preferred to live in their own separate colonies. While Birmingham was likely too limited to have more than one mafia family, this attitude could also be seen in New York City, where the Castellammarese carried an attitude of superiority and where Nick Gentile described the Schiacchitani faction as an insular and semi-autonomous group within the Mangano family.
- One informant told the FBI that the US mafia originally allowed only Sicilian-born members to become part of US mafia families. He said they then loosened up and began allowing American-born members with Sicilian parents to join, before ultimately allowing Calabrians and Neapolitans. If this account is accurate, allowing even a full-blooded Sicilian born on American soil required a deliberate rule change. Girolamo Asaro and Giuseppe Morello's letters with other mafiosi from the early 1900s show that early induction protocol required extensive checks with a proposed member's compaesani in Sicily, but Morello notes that this was disregarded by a couple of prominent mafia figures, perhaps an early sign of inevitable Americanization and possibly a byproduct of increasing family co-affiliation between men from different hometowns.
- Combining compaesani from different villages into one family would be one early form of Americanization, and this process may have helped ease the way for small colony-based families of compaesani to merge into larger regional families made up of men who otherwise would not have been affiliated with the same family. As mafiosi became used to being part of the same family as men from other villages, they may have warmed up to the idea of families based on larger regional territories as well, which could be considered an American innovation given its departure from the village and neighborhood families of Sicily.
Colonies Become Regional Families
- As more mafiosi entered the US and rules loosened to allow more members inducted on US soil, certain colonies of mafiosi would have become larger and contact between the colonies more frequent and easily managed. Technological changes would have also eased communication and travel throughout the US mafia as a whole. At some point, it appears some US mafia families veered away from colony-based families and became the sprawling regional groups we are more familiar with today.
- It is highly unlikely that multiple mafia groups across the US each independently decided to become larger territorial groups under a single rappresentante in the region without direct approval from higher authorities. Nick Gentile's memoir and the letters of Giuseppe Morello show that national mafia decisions were carefully considered and voted on via the capo dei capi, the Grand Consiglio, and National Assemblies. Local groups could not make major administrative decisions, even in electing their own boss, without guidance or approval from the national leadership. If smaller mafia colonies were merged into larger regional families, this would have required explicit participation from the national leadership as well as support among colony membership.
- If my theory is true that smaller mafia colonies were combined into larger regional families, the question is why? Despite some evidence that the mafia is a bureaucratic, complicated system of smoke and mirrors, there is plenty of evidence that shows they prefer to simplify when possible. Sicily is a tiny fraction of the US in terms of size and the western half of the island is densely populated with mafiosi, plus there is a long tradition of separate families in Sicilian villages and neighborhoods with their own individual rappresentante, not to mention the bloodlines associated with those villages and neighborhoods. The US was far larger, with greater distance between families and less traditional grounding in each area, so the change would have been practical and may have had less resistance.
- It may have simplified national politics by establishing a central rappresentate in certain regions, with technology and other societal developments making it easier for the different "outposts" in a region to operate as one family under the central authority of one boss, while simultaneously giving national leaders fewer rappresentanti to contact. It may have also helped settle regional conflicts and cut down on tyranny and in-fighting within Sicilian colonies by having a regional rappresentante over multiple colonies.
- Another question is when this might have happened. Did it happen all at once, during a gradual period of time (i.e. ten years), or was it a response to unique developments in a given colony / region? I personally suspect that great changes happened in the 1920s, possibly leading up to 1931 or even continuing for several years after. Philadelphia-South Jersey looks to have been merged around 1919/1920 under the direction of capo dei capi Toto D'Aquila and Chicago had two families through the mid-1920s that were merged by 1931, with Chicago's situation impacted by violent conflict and both local and national politics.
Changes and Further Americanization
- While the goals for many mafiosi didn't shift substantially, the larger metropolitan families began to greatly expand their size, influence, and ability to generate income both legally and illegally. They became more settled in their respective areas and dominance in the Sicilian and greater Italian communities increased. Influence outside of the Italian community also increased in certain areas and we see influence and even infiltration into local politics. First counterfeiting and later bootlegging gave mafiosi incentive to do constant underworld business with each other, especially those in the same general region.
- Between the mid-1910s and throughout the 1920s some of the US families also began to induct a larger number of non-Sicilians and Sicilian-Americans without mafia backgrounds. While the colony-style mafia families were based on shared hometown, blood/marital relation, and other factors that did not relate to America itself, members began to be inducted based on relationships formed locally within America. The families that grew more sprawling and regional not only appear to have recruited members from different Sicilian colonies, but also from a wider pool of non-Sicilians and Sicilian-Americans outside of the tradition. This is true for Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland, New England, Pittsburgh, and to some degree Buffalo. Interestingly, Detroit would be similarly sprawling but remain primarily Sicilian.
- These factors could have influenced the more influential families to expand their position further from the old colony model and into sprawling regional families, though I'm hesitant to say it was simply money or underworld factors alone. Mafia politics appear to have played a crucial role in the existence of families and mafia politics are not "one size fits all", so if multiple families were merged into this more regional-based set-up, it is difficult for me to believe it all happened for the same reason, though given that these were all branches of the same organization there no doubt would have been common factors.
The Late-1920s and Early-1930s Conflicts
- Conflicts from the late-1920s through 1931 appear to have had a substantial impact on both local and national mafia politics. While there were earlier wars and changes, this late-prohibition period appears to have set certain foundations of the US mafia in stone for decades to come and this has led to endless myth, lore, and uninformed speculation.
- Researchers have debunked myths that "Cosa Nostra" was created in 1931 and that the mafia's rules and structure were fundamentally changed around this time. While these popular myths are wrong, I have a tendency to believe that changes did take place, only that they were misrepresented by sources who weren't in a position to understand what actually took place.
- While the "Mustache Petes" weren't ritually executed across the country on the same day and "La Cosa Nostra" wasn't created from loose-knit "Italian gangs", where there's smoke there still might be fire. The radical changes that are alleged to have taken place in 1931 may have been more subtle, with a shift from smaller, colony-based families to the sprawling regional families gradually taking place during previous years (or decades) and 1931 being the final cap on this process. (Along with the switch from a capo dei capi / Grand Consiglio to a Commission, which was a big change, but not as big as lore has made it out to be.)
Why Not New York?
- It would make sense to merge smaller "colony" families in other areas of the US into larger territories under one boss given the membership was spread out and only concentrated in certain areas, but it would have been a challenge to merge the growing five families into one massive family in the NYC metro area where there was an unprecedented concentration of members. Not only did New York not merge its families, it split into even more families.
- Depending on whether the DeCavalcantes were officially separate from Newark from the start, there may have been seven separate families in the NYC/NJ area before 1931. Newark was disbanded in the mid-late 1930s for political reasons, but the decision to break the group up and spread it among the NYC families is an interesting decision, as it shows that the national leadership was willing to disband an existing family and re-assign its membership to expand the reach of existing families. It's worth considering how this would have played out in another part of the US.
- While New York was a unique American beast, they may have also been influenced by Palermo to some degree. Given the high number of mafiosi immigrants coming into NYC during this period, the number of different compaesani, and the growing recruitment pool of other Italians, it may have made more sense to maintain separate political affiliations in a model closer to Palermo.
- Palermo is a major exception in Sicily, as it is one city with a large number of separate families. It might be compared to NYC, except there are many more families and they are more strictly defined by geographical boundaries than NYC, where the families continually overlap. Palermo mafia families are mostly rooted in historical neighborhoods and even when members of different groups live in a common area, like Palermo Centro, their jurisdiction remains fairly distinct. The same is true for non-Palermitani who live in Palermo, as evidenced by capoprovincia Salvatore Maranzano living in Palermo: he did not suddenly become a Palermo boss but remained the representative of Trapani's interests.
- While not an exact comparison, New York became an American Palermo as far as the US mafia is concerned. It is no coincidence that New York City had a higher concentration of members from metropolitan Palermo, while other US cities typically had members from smaller towns and villages. The Palermitani mafiosi in NYC would have been accustomed to more groups with larger membership concentrated in one area with separate political affiliations given that NYC, like Palermo, was the center of US mafia politics.
- For comparison's sake, if Philadelphia was closer to New York as a port of immigration and pool of Sicilian recruits, Philadelphia may very well have maintained separate mafia families and today we'd be referring to the Belmonte, Caccamo, and Castrogiovanni networks the same way we think of the Corleone, Castellammare/Camporeale, and Palermo networks that became the Lucchese/Genovese, Bonanno, and Gambino/Colombo families. Because Philadelphia could not provide this kind of environment, it made sense to centralize its activities in South Philly and unify control over factions spread throughout Philadelphia and New Jersey. The fact that New York has sustained five families to this day is a testament to the environment that created them.
