Evolution of US Mafia Families + More Families Discussion

[Antiliar]

Great write up, B.

I look forward to your investigation into Norristown and early Philadelphia, and maybe Utica. I suspected Utica was an early borgata considering that Joe Aiello spent so much time there, and there was a large community from Bagheria. I don't know if there was any connection to Zarcone and other Bagheresi. I think there are too many gaps in our information to discover any, but if anyone can, it will be you. On Connecticut, no, I don't see evidence for any local borgate there.

Regarding Matranga, I think Fratianno or author Ovid Demaris (remember that Demaris often paraphrases and rephrases things that Fratianno said to make a narrative) is mistaken on Calumet City. Fratianno makes a couple other mistakes with Chicago. For example, on page 76 of the hard cover edition of The Last Mafioso, he says that John Franzone was the Northside capo who ordered Dominic Galiano to kill Nick DeJohn in San Francisco in 1947. There was no John Franzone, he was James Franzone, and according to FBI docs he was a capo in the San Francisco Family. He was from Chicago, so that connection is correct. I lean to the belief that Gaspare Matranga was an early Northside capo before James DeGeorge. I also lean to the belief that Gary, Indiana was a separate borgata that was later absorbed into the Chicago Outfit.

It's funny that you mentioned Pasquale Enea. While I don't have access to it right now, I think the FBN or a book that used the FBN as a source like Ed Reid's Mafia, claimed he was a "boss of bosses." I don't know much about him, but he may have been someone who was more important than we realize.

Excellent info!

Thank you for clarifying your take on Chicago and Matranga.

- If Gary was its own family, that lends itself to the theory of many more colony families existing in the US given Gary was close to other nearby families that were merged (Chicago and CH). Are you of the belief the Cinisi element in Chicago Heights was separate from Gary, where their compaesano Palazzolo appears to have been the leader? If so, it plays into one of my theories about the colonies, which is that compaesani in nearby colonies could be separate families despite the assumption they should be one. We see this with the Bagheresi in Madison and Milwaukee, and would fit with the idea of Toledo being a separate family of Terrasinesi even though it was near compaesani in Detroit. It could also explain why the Castellammarese in Endicott were with Pittston instead of their compaesani in Buffalo (whether or not they were ever a separate family as C.Morello thinks).

- Giovanni Zarcone could have a connection to Milwaukee consigliere Charles Zarcone. They were both from Bagheria / Santa Flavia area and I believe Charles' father was also named Giovanni, which would place his father (I think) in the same generation as the NYC/CT Giovanni. What's interesting about Bagheria is how there were prominent members from there in early NYC, but a couple of them were murdered in the first decade of the 1900s and from that point Bagheria has little to no presence in NYC, instead fanning out into many other US cities where they were dominant.

- While probably not a capo dei capi, I suspect Enea was important. He is mentioned as inducting a member with Cascio Ferro and he had marital ties to Buffalo boss Giuseppe DiCarlo, plus Enea appears to have been involved with the Petrosino murder -- the main conspirators of that murder all appear to have been high-ranking members. The arrows def point to him having stature.

- I don't have enough info on the members from Cinisi versus other towns in Gary and CH to make a judgment. Like I wrote, I lean to Gary having it's own borgata, but I can't say it's definitely the case. I can't rule out that Palazzolo wasn't originally under CH. Perhaps after San Filippo and the other CH Mafia leaders were killed Palazzolo turned his crew into a borgata until he was killed in 1935. There are a lot of possibilities, but currently not enough evidence to confirm or refute. I wish we had something clear like Montedore in Pittston.

- I looked into a relationship between Giovanni Zarcone and Charles and didn't find any biological relationship. This was several years ago, and many records are now available that weren't then, so it's possible to go back farther in time and possibly find one. At this point, however, the evidence isn't there.

- Yes, we know those facts about Enea, but I think there's more out there. There was a Pasquale Enea living in Milwaukee in 1908. I don't think it's the same person, but possibly a cousin.

[B.]

Other locations to consider:

Johnstown / Youngstown / Pittsburgh

- There was a Sicilian colony in Johnstown, PA, where future SF boss Anthony Lima was inducted in 1927. At the time of his induction, Johnstown was part of the Pittsburgh family, but we know from Gentile Pittsburgh had gone through a large overhaul in the 10+ years before this. Gentile never mentions other families in the area, but he didn't give an entire history of the region either. Pittsburgh proper had Caccamesi and Agrigentini elements, while Johnstown had Trabiesi.

- Youngstown had a large number of mainlanders and the few Sicilians I can think of offhand were transplants or affiliated with other cities by the time we learned of them. A couple of the local Sicilians, Cavallaro and Vizzini, were from Agrigento province, like Cleveland's early membership, but Cavallaro had been a member of both the Pittsburgh and Gambino-NYC families, though I'm not sure which family he was officially with when he was killed. I think Vizzini was with Cleveland. Was there an early Youngstown Sicilian colony?

Denver / Wyoming / Pueblo / Trinidad

- Both the Denver and Wyoming underworld appear to have been mostly if not entirely mainlanders who were absorbed into the Pueblo Sicilian mafia colony, forming a weaker version of a regional mafia family. The only known Wyoming mafia member was a senator (Louis Boschetto) from far-northern Italy but he was connected to other northern Italians criminals in Wyoming who may have been members as well. They were likely part of the Colorado family. Denver's first known leader was a Calabrian and the Smaldones were also mainlanders, not sure if there was much of a Sicilian colony there.

- The Sicilian mafia element was in Pueblo and Trinidad. I assume they were one family, as they were compaesani both located in the lower part of the state, though sometimes compaesani appear to have created separate families in the same region even when we would assume otherwise.

New Orleans

- Given its role as the original epicenter of the US mafia and the main immigration port, New Orleans had many different groups of compaesani pass through and settle in the area from all over western Sicily. The known early mafiosi were from many prominent mafia towns in Sicily. While it sustained only a single small family by the 1960s, in the 1800s NO easily could have been like New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago in providing an environment that could sustain multiple families made up of separate compaesani.

- We lack sources within New Orleans who can tell us what the organization's deeper history was, but if compaesani were initially prone to create their own distinct families before Americanizing into single families of multiple groups of compaesani, it seems highly likely New Orleans had multiple families. Chris Christie has suggested this before as well.

Miami / Florida

- Surprised I forgot to mention this in the original post. Miami and South Florida were "open territory" by the time the FBI began thoroughly investigating the mafia, with Tampa remaining a colony family of compaesani from Alessandria della Rocca, Santo Stefano, and nearby Agrigento towns. It is interesting Tampa didn't become a regional "Florida family" and stuck primarily to compaesani in the immediate Tampa area.

- Bill Bonanno says Tampa was one of the first families after New Orleans and this appears to have some truth to it based on immigration patterns. Given that mafiosi were traveling to Florida after coming through New Orleans, it's possible other Sicilian mafiosi could have lived in other parts of Florida though I'm not familiar with Miami's history or whether there is evidence of other Sicilian colonies around Florida aside from the one in Tampa. Later mafia members certainly showed no hesitation in establishing themselves in South Florida.

--

Another point to consider that should have been part of the original post:

- The mafia rarely makes "cold calls" when setting up an outpost in an area. We have this idea that most mafia outposts were established by sending a member there who strong-arms the local underworld, but deeper research generally reveals earlier connections to the area. What we see as later outposts in families may have been formed out of the remnants of earlier colonies where families existed.

[B.]

Adding to Toledo, Harold Konigsberg also told the FBI that "Johnny" (Yonnie) Licavoli had been the "real boss" of Detroit even while he was in prison. He said Zerilli and Tocco were not the boss, but "real movers". This is strange as the Cleveland informant (who was def a separate Cleveland area informant and not a coded CL cover for Konigsberg) I mentioned earlier used the same exact phrase, "real boss" of Detroit, to describe Yonnie Licavoli.

So we have three sources, Frank Bompensiero (a member with close ties to the Licavolis) saying Yonnie Licavoli had been "LCN Boss" of Toledo before it was absorbed into Detroit, while two associates, one in Cleveland and the other in New Jersey, believed Yonnie was the "real boss" of Detroit.

I'm really thinking there is something to the idea of Licavoli being boss of a short-lived Toledo family that was absorbed into Detroit. Bompensiero would have understood his status as boss pertained to Toledo, while the associates seem to have confused Licavoli's stature as boss of Detroit.

[Hailbritain]

Absolutely fantastic piece B

[Antiliar]

- There may never have been a Denver Family. Before Colorado boss Scotty Spinuzzi of Pueblo went to prison he made Chauncy Smaldone a capo. The Smaldones were a crew that answered to the boss in Pueblo: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.htm ... h=smaldone

- New Orleans does seem to have established an outpost in Houston, Texas. Notice that Biaggio Angelica of Houston answered to Vincent Genna of DeRidder, Louisiana, which is between Houston and New Orleans. (I haven't proven that Genna was with New Orleans, but I don't have many New Orleans FBI files.)

[B.]

- There may never have been a Denver Family. Before Colorado boss Scotty Spinuzzi of Pueblo went to prison he made Chauncy Smaldone a capo. The Smaldones were a crew that answered to the boss in Pueblo: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.htm ... h=smaldone

- New Orleans does seem to have established an outpost in Houston, Texas. Notice that Biaggio Angelica of Houston answered to Vincent Genna of DeRidder, Louisiana, which is between Houston and New Orleans. (I haven't proven that Genna was with New Orleans, but I don't have many New Orleans FBI files.)

- Yeah, I don't think Denver had a separate family. The Carlinos were Sicilians there, I just remembered, but were from Lucca Sicula like guys in Pueblo and Trinidad. Gentile doesn't say anything about them being a separate group either. Jim Roma and the Smaldones were the big players there and were mainlanders who seem to have been recruited by the Sicilians during prohibition, probably along with the Wyoming member(s).

- Interesting bit about Houston. Bryan, Texas, where Morello and the Terranovas lived, was closer to Houston than Dallas.

- Mafia genealogist Justin Cascio says Louis Ferrantello and his father Liborio were Corleonese mafia figures in Schriever, Louisiana, who moved to Dallas where they were related to local leaders the Corleonesi Piranios. The Piranios had lived in Shreveport, Louisiana, before Texas.

- This page is not about the mafia, but has a bit on Louisiana Sicilian history: https://cls.louisiana.edu/programming-s ... -americans

^ It says the Florida Parishes had the largest concentration of Sicilian colonies outside of metro New Orleans, and noted the towns of Independence and Crescent City as having a particularly strong Sicilian presence. Seems like those could provide good leads.

[cavita]

This topic is seriously some of the best reading on this site. I get tired of the "who's the strongest family," etc. etc. but this is deeply researched, well thought out and a true pleasure to read. Thank you very much for posting all this!

[Angelo Santino]

Great stuff, B. Truly magnificent.

[Grouchy Sinatra]

Great read, B. Never knew there was any activity in Portland, OR. I thought you were talking about Portland, Maine until i saw all the San Francisco connections.

[sdeitche]

Other locations to consider:


Miami / Florida

- Surprised I forgot to mention this in the original post. Miami and South Florida were "open territory" by the time the FBI began thoroughly investigating the mafia, with Tampa remaining a colony family of compaesani from Alessandria della Rocca, Santo Stefano, and nearby Agrigento towns. It is interesting Tampa didn't become a regional "Florida family" and stuck primarily to compaesani in the immediate Tampa area.

- Bill Bonanno says Tampa was one of the first families after New Orleans and this appears to have some truth to it based on immigration patterns. Given that mafiosi were traveling to Florida after coming through New Orleans, it's possible other Sicilian mafiosi could have lived in other parts of Florida though I'm not familiar with Miami's history or whether there is evidence of other Sicilian colonies around Florida aside from the one in Tampa. Later mafia members certainly showed no hesitation in establishing themselves in South Florida.

There was a small Sicilian colony in St. Cloud (outside Orlando) working in the sugar fields, but that didn't last long as almost all of them moved to Ybor City to work in the cigar (and ancillary) industry.

Regarding Miami, there was no Sicilian colony there. By the time of its incorporation by the early 1900s, there were only a few hundred people there and the dominant immigrants groups came from the Caribbean. I think one of the reasons the Tampa family never "took control" over Miami was also related to transportation between the two cities. Miami was easily reachable from the Northeast via train, but cross-Florida travel was precarious at that time, esp with the Everglades, and no easy cross Florida roads in the early years. Route 41 and TRoute 27 were not built until the late 1920s (Route 70 not until the 1940s). Since Miami took off as a tourist destination in the 1920s, so you already had northern mobsters coming down there and the Tampa family was still regional, hence one of the main reasons I think it became an "open City".

[motorfab]

This thread is gold, you're amazing B. Thank you for all these beautiful readings and bravo for your research.

[richard_belding]

More evidence of Cinisi breeding some of the most influential mobsters -whether under the radar or not- throughout time. Fantastic write-up as always, B.

[B.]

Other locations to consider:


Miami / Florida

- Surprised I forgot to mention this in the original post. Miami and South Florida were "open territory" by the time the FBI began thoroughly investigating the mafia, with Tampa remaining a colony family of compaesani from Alessandria della Rocca, Santo Stefano, and nearby Agrigento towns. It is interesting Tampa didn't become a regional "Florida family" and stuck primarily to compaesani in the immediate Tampa area.

- Bill Bonanno says Tampa was one of the first families after New Orleans and this appears to have some truth to it based on immigration patterns. Given that mafiosi were traveling to Florida after coming through New Orleans, it's possible other Sicilian mafiosi could have lived in other parts of Florida though I'm not familiar with Miami's history or whether there is evidence of other Sicilian colonies around Florida aside from the one in Tampa. Later mafia members certainly showed no hesitation in establishing themselves in South Florida.

There was a small Sicilian colony in St. Cloud (outside Orlando) working in the sugar fields, but that didn't last long as almost all of them moved to Ybor City to work in the cigar (and ancillary) industry.

Regarding Miami, there was no Sicilian colony there. By the time of its incorporation by the early 1900s, there were only a few hundred people there and the dominant immigrants groups came from the Caribbean. I think one of the reasons the Tampa family never "took control" over Miami was also related to transportation between the two cities. Miami was easily reachable from the Northeast via train, but cross-Florida travel was precarious at that time, esp with the Everglades, and no easy cross Florida roads in the early years. Route 41 and TRoute 27 were not built until the late 1920s (Route 70 not until the 1940s). Since Miami took off as a tourist destination in the 1920s, so you already had northern mobsters coming down there and the Tampa family was still regional, hence one of the main reasons I think it became an "open City".

Awesome. Thanks for the info, brother! Do you happen to know the Sicilian hometown(s) of the St. Cloud colony? If they came to Ybor, it makes me suspect Agrigento.

[sdeitche]

Other locations to consider:


Miami / Florida

- Surprised I forgot to mention this in the original post. Miami and South Florida were "open territory" by the time the FBI began thoroughly investigating the mafia, with Tampa remaining a colony family of compaesani from Alessandria della Rocca, Santo Stefano, and nearby Agrigento towns. It is interesting Tampa didn't become a regional "Florida family" and stuck primarily to compaesani in the immediate Tampa area.

- Bill Bonanno says Tampa was one of the first families after New Orleans and this appears to have some truth to it based on immigration patterns. Given that mafiosi were traveling to Florida after coming through New Orleans, it's possible other Sicilian mafiosi could have lived in other parts of Florida though I'm not familiar with Miami's history or whether there is evidence of other Sicilian colonies around Florida aside from the one in Tampa. Later mafia members certainly showed no hesitation in establishing themselves in South Florida.

There was a small Sicilian colony in St. Cloud (outside Orlando) working in the sugar fields, but that didn't last long as almost all of them moved to Ybor City to work in the cigar (and ancillary) industry.

Regarding Miami, there was no Sicilian colony there. By the time of its incorporation by the early 1900s, there were only a few hundred people there and the dominant immigrants groups came from the Caribbean. I think one of the reasons the Tampa family never "took control" over Miami was also related to transportation between the two cities. Miami was easily reachable from the Northeast via train, but cross-Florida travel was precarious at that time, esp with the Everglades, and no easy cross Florida roads in the early years. Route 41 and TRoute 27 were not built until the late 1920s (Route 70 not until the 1940s). Since Miami took off as a tourist destination in the 1920s, so you already had northern mobsters coming down there and the Tampa family was still regional, hence one of the main reasons I think it became an "open City".

Awesome. Thanks for the info, brother! Do you happen to know the Sicilian hometown(s) of the St. Cloud colony? If they came to Ybor, it makes me suspect Agrigento.

yeah, the same- Allessandria Della Rocca, Santo Stefano, etc.

[PolackTony]

You also provide a much more fleshed out notion of "Americanization", a term which is often thrown about without much explanation of exactly what people mean by it. Implicit in your account is a conceptualization of Americanization as an unfolding process rather than a binary either/or atribute of a family at any particular time. I think also that you are absolutely correct to identify the shift from strict compaesani-based membership as the critical move setting in motion the longer arc of "Americanization".

Yeah, we have a tendency to think of Americanization through the lens of Castellammarese War myths, where its been said there was an immediate change as the "Mustache Petes" were killed by the "Big Business Young Turk Syndicate" under Luciano, but Americanization started among the Sicilian mafiosi almost immediately after their arrival, and not just because they were technically on American soil. Joe Masseria and Piddu Morello Americanized the NYC mafia far more than Luciano ever did, and it would have started long before them even.

We can look at the Americanization of the membership this way chronologically:

1 - Sicilian mafiosi from different villages or provinces join the same US family. Members likely had to be made in Sicily.
2 - Sicilian-born men could be inducted in the US, but their Sicilian hometown had to provide a reference.
3 - American-born Sicilians from mafia-connected backgrounds are allowed to join US families, with a local or remote reference.
4 - American-born Sicilians from non-mafia backgrounds are recruited and allowed to join, with a local reference.
5 - Calabrians and Neapolitans are allowed to join (possibly in that respective order).
6 - All Italians and Italian-Americans are allowed to join.
7 - Men who are paternally half-Italian are allowed to join, though this is is later nullified in some places.

In the Giuseppe Morello letters Chris Christie translated, Morello complains about how Vito Cascio Ferro and Pasquale Enea had inducted a man without contacting his Sicilian hometown for a reference, which violated protocol. This would have occurred between 1902-1904. While it can be written off as a mistake or simply laziness by Cascio Ferro and Enea, it's really a sign of inevitable Americanization. These two men were high-ranking Sicilian mafiosi yet their new location caused a slight shift or disregard in protocol, which would lead to a rule change. This was only a ripple, but it would be a ripple that would indirectly lead to the US mafia inducting local Italian-Americans of any heritage.

Somewhere in there, too, is my theory that some of the smaller colony families were merged into larger regional families for various reasons, both political and practical. I wouldn't know where to place it in the timeline, though, I suspect between points 3 and 5.

All of that said, Americanization didn't change the ranks and structure of the organization, nor most of the rules and protocol. That aspect has remained mostly consistent throughout mafia history. It's almost eerie how consistent it is over such a large amount of time spanning multiple continents with men from all kinds of backgrounds. Truly a phenomenon.

Thanks for the reply, I really appreciated the chronological schematic that you've sketched out here for the process of Americanization.

I think it's useful to think of Chicago as an outlier of sorts whose progress along the general trajectory that you've laid out was aborted or transformed by the cannibalization and absorption of the local "Onorata Societa" by the Capone Syndicate. I think that the resulting form of the Outfit as it emerged is partly due to the Americanization process already long set in motion for the old Chicago Family/ies (and of course for the Masseria Family) as well as the unique structures developed by Torrio and Capone to manage and dominate rackets across the Chicago area. More precisely, the organizational/structural and protocol particularities of Chicago owe something to both processes as well as the ways that elements of Mafia practice and structures of authority and hierarchy (both from what was already in play in Chicago as well as from the Masseria organization) were subsumed by and implemented by the Capone Syndicate given their particular history and challenges.

It could be fun as a thought experiment to engage in the following highly simplified and assumption-laden counterfactual exercise. When Torrio retires, Capone also says "fuck it" and heads back to New York (for the shits and giggles let's say he ends up as capodecina over a powerful Brooklyn-based Genovese faction). Maybe then Aiello winds up consolidating control over the Chicago Mafia, with the likely backing of the CDG/more "traditional" wing of the national LCN like Bonnano and Maggadino. Chicago still consolidates into a powerful modern LCN family (given the city's size and Italian population) but with a much stronger LCN blueprint in place. While the family is Sicilian dominated (we can imagine the potential roles of DeGeorge, DeJohn, Benevento, Mangano etc., as well as young Sicilian Americans now under this admin like Accardo and Giancana), perhaps we then also see significant mainlander factions (a la Philly) under Esposito/Ricca/Nitto, Roti/Belcastro, or Emery/Roberto/Laporte. Given the Chicago fam's much more "Sicilian" profile, however, following your model they also come to absorb smaller neighboring Sicilian-based families/territories outright, such as Rockford, Madison, Milwaukee, even Springfield. Later on, Agent Bill Roemer falls in love with Sicilian godfather Jim DeGeorge and writes starry-eyed fan fiction about Chicago Cosa Nostra duking it out with the "Americanized" Genovese family.

How different does Chicago wind up looking? It still comes to resemble a sort of regional/Mandamento form, yet follows a different path to get there I suppose. But how much does the explicit foregrounding of LCN elements change Chicago de facto practices and rackets? Does a guy like Gus Alex still become a trusted high-level advisor and racket boss in his own right (but presumably is told to beat it every time a meeting is held lol) or does he end his days making book in a Chinatown diner while taking orders from Gumba Saladino? Does the generalized process of Americanization lead the Chicago Mafia to a roughly similar course of development (given the same environment otherwise), or was its uniquely "hybrid" character an essential element of its historical success?