- Is there any truth to what Valachi said about the books being closed for around 20 years before the late 1920s? This can't be 100% true, but maybe the books were very rarely opened before that point... hell, possibly because they had fewer elderly members dying. Jack Dragna told Jimmy Fratianno he was made in 1914, but that was the year Dragna returned to the US from Sicily so he could have been made in Corleone.
It's ludicrous. By 1920 insiders estimated NYC membership to be 2-3000 total. I find that to be far too high but it still tells us there were alot... by 1920.
- When and where did the consigliere position come about? In a report I saw, Sicilian mafia informant Dr. Allegra claimed each family had a boss and consigliere, I believe, but didn't mention underboss, though it sounds like the consigliere he mentioned was actually more of an underboss. I think Valachi said the consigliere position was created after the Castellammarese war and that there was a separate committee/panel in the NYC area consisting of consiglieres from different families in the area. We hear about Maranzano and Luciano both creating it, but consiglieres pre-1931 have been mentioned. We know it was not a position the boss could appoint directly and that it was voted on by the entire membership, which gave the consigliere power distinct from the boss (in theory). We also have heard that the consigliere can't be promoted back to the position if he steps down. Informants like Fish Cafaro, DiLeonardo, and others have stressed the power of the position, some saying it was arguably the most powerful position after boss. Magaddino claimed he never named a consigliere, though he apparently did near the end of his reign for whatever reason.
I cannot go into details here, but there is evidence of "Consigliere" and "Capodecina" existing in Agrigento before 1900 along with a few names. I can't reveal my sources but it will come out at some later point. Here's an excerpt from 1820 in Italian relating to British government: translation:
In order to make the execution of justice exact and regular, he divided England into Counties, the Counties into Centine, and Centine into Tens (Capi). Every Head (Capo) of the house was the family, the slaves, and the guests, even if they lived with him for more than three days. Ten Heads of House, neighbors, formed a Guild, which was called Decina, Decennaria, or free township (borgata), was responsible for the conduct of each one, and presided over a Head (Capo) named head of ten (Capo Decina), Head Township (Capo Borgata), or Rector of the village. Anyone who had not registered in Decina was punished as a bandit, and no one could change his residence without a guaranty or certificate from the township head (Capo Borgata) to which it belonged.
^This was released in the 1820's and while not mafia related, it shows that these terms and form of government were A) not new in 1931 and B)that it was based/modeled on a government setup for members to politic over, not as an "army" of "soldiers" awaiting orders. And the English played an important port in Sicily's agriculture after the fall of the Bourbons. While not large in numbers they were landowners who hired en masse and left people in charge of their estates. British connections/influence to Sicily was linked to the citrus industry and when that industry died so did the connection. You know the image of rustic Italy with a old fashioned Italian Famiglia gathered together with bread, pasta, soup wine etc? Peasant Italians and Sicilians ate very poorly until the mid 20th century, the Family meal was a nuclear family tradition afforded only to the aristocracy who mixed and mingled with British landowners. So in other words, the British are accountable for Fine Italian Dining and for how the Mafia structured itself, not the Arabs.
It may also show why culturally, eating a shitload of food was a symbol of status and probably why the Mafia as a subject is so linked to it.
Each Family arrangement is a little different and some positions have been more influential in some families and not others and people occupying these positions aren't created equal. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.
--1 Perhaps the NYC Families were in different states of structure (Gen had consig but not capodecina, Mineo had capodecina but not underboss etc) and as unlikely as it is it's still a possibility and perhaps Maranzano aligned everything to match. Again I doubt it.
--2 Perhaps the role of Consigliere changed, maybe it took less of a Boss' intermediary/senior/messenger to more of a Family member arbitrator.
The more I go through this hierarchy subject, the evidence for and against. I'm convinced of two things:
---1 Something occurred in 1931 which lead to some political reform.
---2 But everything that was said to be created in 1931 there's evidence of existing earlier, including initiation rituals, associates and members, every single rank, national meetings, 'commissions' from multiple different sources. The only exception is the changeover of BOB to Commission, which if you go back to Sicily and the possibility that this rank did not exist there before the 1910's, there still existed a political bureaucracy and it could be just a case of history repeating itself.
- Who were the earliest NJ-based members of NYC families? We know of some examples like John Lupo, but I'd be curious when the first real, concrete NJ members of the 5 families started showing up. Angelo Bruno claimed the Newark family was split up and distributed among the other families and we can trace some NJ-based members back to the Newark family, but I wonder if there were Newark and NYC-based NJ members operating at the same time. In one report with info from Gentile, the D'Amico Newark family is called a "New York-New Jersey" family. Were they just referring to the greater NYC-NJ area, or did the Newark family have a NYC crew/faction like the Elizabeth family later would? If so, what happened to them after the family was disbanded?
No later than 1900 for both the Gambinos, no later than 1920's for the Genoveses and Bonannos. I don't know if full crews existed but members were there. Remember back then if you were wanted by the 19th precinct police you could move outside of NY to Jersey, Watertown, Rochester etc and you could avoid scruitiny and hide out for years. Mafiosi moved around alot more than they do now and when wanted by the police they certainly didn't ask the boss permission to relocate.
- When and how did the families get connected to areas outside of the immediate NYC area? The Gambinos and Connecticut, Baltimore, and Trenton; DeCavalcantes and Connecticut; Genovese and Springfield. CT isn't that far from CT, but why did those two families have crews there and not others, and why did the DeCavs have an underboss and captain there over relatively few members? I also wonder how early the NY families started branching out into FL. There was a family in Tampa and we know members like the Arcuris had bounced between both FL and NY, but curious when the families officially had a presence with members, crews, etc. in south FL.
Chain migration, America is 3000 miles to Sicily's 200 and the mafia was an exclusive society with a culture of mingling with each other. We've read about Vincenzo Troia, Salvatore Maranzano, Salvatore D'Aquila and Al Mineo from the American perspective. But then when you read things from the Sicilian side, from Allegra, Calderone, San Giorgi etc: Troia was heavily involved with the Palermitan Mafia as was Maranzano who was there in the 1920's. Not to mention that during the 1920's Palermo war these men were involved in mediating and D'Aquila even sent money to Palermo from NYC, and also during this time, Al Mineo's brother in law was a boss of one of these Families and arrived with him to America a decade prior. This was all within a 10 mile radius of Palermo, these men all appeared to know each other and have history. And yet 9 years later Maranzano plotted against Troia when people suggested him for BOB.
