CLASSIC: Did the US Mafia actually start in New Orleans?

Fellow ridiculous historians, you come to us on the day of our daughter's wedding.

Kidding. On this the day?

Yeah.

On this the day. You bring us no snacks. What's going on? We, in 2019, folks, for this classic episode, we were astonished to learn that there's an argument for the U.S. mafia beginning in New Orleans, not in New York City or, of course, Jersey.

Not going to lie, Ben, I have zero recollection of having done this episode. So I'm going to listen along with you folks at home on the edge of my seat because I really don't know what the answer to the question is. The question being, is this the case? And if so, why?

Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. You come into my house on a day my daughter is to be married. You ask me to do murder for money? Welcome to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thanks so much for tuning in. Circumstances find us recording on a lovely, almost 100-degree morning here in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm Ben.

I know. Ben, was that from Dirty Harry?

That is a quote from Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather.

Ah, yes. Famously portrayed by Clint Eastwood in the film Dirty Harry.

Working under his famous pseudonym Marlon Brando, which is a pretty fake name if you think about it.

Got to be.

You know who only uses their real name here in the United States? That's our good friend and super producer Casey Pegram.

Vive la bouche.

Vive la bouche. Wait, wait, wait. Did we say your name yet?

I don't know.

Okay, well, you're Noel.

I am Noel. It's true. Noel is my name.

You established that.

I am not a member of La Cosa Nostra, but I do enjoy a good mob flick from time to time. I've been rewatching The Sopranos lately. Got my start doing it on an airplane where it was censored in a hilarious way. So I watched one through three of season one in that fashion. And then once the swears started getting back in the mix, it was borderline shocking, Ben, let me tell you. These guys really love their Fs and Jeffs.

I still haven't watched Sopranos all the way through.

Are you kidding me?

No.

Wow. It's really good.

I know how it is.

I watched the last episode. Yeah, it ends with a journey song and a cut to black. And that's not a spoiler.

Well, it can't be a spoiler. We have statutes established for this. I think it's past the statute of limitations for spoilers. You know, here's the thing about the statute of limitations for spoilers.

Yes, it exists. But are you still being a bit of a schmuck if you do it and don't prepare someone for something that they're enjoying? There's so much content out there in the world.

That's weird. Are you saying that you're doing a complete 180 from your previously passionately completely opposite stance?

No, listen, Ben. We were talking specifically about the ending of Lost that I did not even actually spoil. I was accused of spoiling it, but the thing I said was not in fact a spoiler at all.

I believe in that situation, which was probably more than a few years ago now. It's been several years. Yeah, in that situation. My position is that the creators of Lost spoiled the ending more than any audience member could.

Yeah, exactly.

But I am a huge fan of mafia films, a lot of crime films, but mafia films in particular. And off air, we were kicking around this idea. Casey, what are some of your favorite crime films, specifically organized crime, Cosa Nostra, Mafia?

Well, Ben, when you asked me about this, my mind was completely blank because the first thing that jumped to my head was Scorsese's Casino, which is far from obscure. But it is definitely one of my favorites, along with Goodfellas. But, you know, if you want to go a little deeper cut, I would say check out one of the films of Jean-Pierre Melville, like Le Cirque La Rouge or maybe Bob Le Flambeur.

What about La Samurai? Isn't that a mafia film? Yeah, La Samurai, that's Melville as well. That's right.

And Alain Delon. And yeah, that's a good one as well.

Casey on the case.

Film edition. Man, we should do that more often. That'd be cool.

Yeah, if it comes up, yeah, just let us know, Casey, if the spirit moves you. I don't ever want it to be something where you feel stressed, like, oh, crap, I have to come up with a movie for this episode.

Ew.

Ew. Who cares about homework? What's a crime film you like, Noel?

I'll tell you what I watched recently was The French Connection. I'd never seen it before. It is a, oh, gosh. William Friedkin. William Friedkin film, famously directed The Exorcist and– What else did he direct that was really great? To Live and Die in L.A. To Live and Die in L.A., which I have not seen. Oh, it's fantastic. He also did a movie about, what's it called? Oh, Sorcerer. Sorcerer, which has a Tangerine Dream soundtrack that I really like.

But the thing that was so cool about French Connection is it's very naturalistic. It's just very, like, something about it makes you feel like you're really in the room. I think a lot of it was improvised. There's this incredible chase sequence where Gene Hackman is chasing a New York subway train that's at the portion where it's on an elevated track, and he's in this car that he's commandeered, and he's driving underneath the track, and it's just such a dynamic, cool, badass chase sequence. Really, really frenetic, high-energy film.

You know, Robert De Niro, I thought, did a good job taking the directorial position with A Bronx Tale. Do you guys remember that one?

I never saw that, actually.

It was pretty good. It triggers some nostalgia for me, which may be part of the reason I liked it. Another old one that I really enjoyed was The Big Heat. That's like 1950s.

I think The Big Heat is Fritz Lang, actually. He's a great German filmmaker that came over to the States after Goebbels offered him the German film industry.

The whole thing?

Yeah.

On a platter?

Yeah, Ufa.

And he thought, maybe not, and he fled Germany that night.

The Big Heat is pretty dark as 50 noirs go, but it's worth a watch, especially if it's something... that you've seen pop up on some film list and you've never quite gotten around to. I'd say it's worth a watch. It's surprisingly violent for the time. Today's show is about organized crime, specifically the mafia, specifically the Italian-American mafia. However, it is not about New York City.

No, it's about another place entirely, Ben, that does have a reputation for revelry. It does have a reputation for seediness, a certain element. but I've never in my life associated it with organized crime until we started looking into this topic. It's a place referred to often as the Big Easy, New Orleans, NOLA, or New Orleans, or New Orleans.

That's correct. Yeah, New Orleans, beautiful city, home to almost a parallel branch of American history. You know, one thing that is confusing to many kids growing up in the United States outside of Louisiana is is the concept of parishes rather than counties. Because Louisiana has parishes, and that is one of the many vestigial traditions carried down from its history as a French city, a French territory or region. And, of course, this city is home to so many amazing things that are influential not just in the U.S., but in the world entire. And it is also home to the mafia. As we found out, you see, Many of us, myself included in the past, would reasonably assume that the mafia, the Italian-American mafia specifically, had its roots in the Big Apple,

New York City, NYC. Because this is where you see the godfather being set. This is where the five great crime families are based. And this is where millions and millions of Italian immigrants live. originally came. They first came to New York City, Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, the whole nine. In reality, though, the first Italian-American mafia came from New Orleans. That was the first one. And it's also the site of the first major, let's say, maybe not conflict, but mafia incident, mafia murder.

Yeah, it's true, Ben. And the thing is, the actual first on the list for immigration from Italy was places like Argentina and Brazil, which I would never have really considered either because they had similar cultures to what the Italian immigrants were used to in their homeland. New Orleans became a popular second choice.

Yeah, this was during the 1800s, mainly because there was already so much trade with New Orleans and cities and regions in Brazil and Argentina. This is weird because it already began to trigger some xenophobia amongst people who were not Sicilian or not Italian. The New Orleans Times reported back in 1869 that parts of the city were overrun with, get this, quote, 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.

Yikes. That's not the kind of element you want coming into your city.

I mean, that's how you would describe a mafia if you had never heard of the mafia before.

That's true, but this is a time where this is very new, right, for the U.S. They didn't know about the crime families in Italy. You know, there was no Internet. It wasn't, like, super common knowledge. This was, like, a very new thing that was kind of invading their community.

Mm-hmm. And this sort of tension continues building between the average, the squares, the non-squares. citizens, the authorities in New Orleans and the mafia. It reaches ahead in what I had started to describe this earlier, the first major incident, the first murder occurs on October 15th, 1890. There are probably other ones, but this is the first one we know about.

New Orleans Police Superintendent David Hennessy is assassinated, basically, murdered execution style. And then public outrage and hysteria breaks. Hundreds of Sicilians get arrested. Eventually, 19 are fingered for the crime. But then they were acquitted.

Yeah, and just before that happened, Giuseppe Esposito, who was one of the first known Sicilian mafia members to come to the United States, he actually came to New York. And this is after he and six of his cronies, murdered the chancellor and a vice chancellor of a province in Sicily in addition to 11 very, very influential and rich landowners. And he was arrested in New Orleans in 1881.

And then he was extradited to Italy. And New Orleans is becoming a hotbed of this kind of activity. And it's sort of starting to bubble over with this incident that you're describing, Ben. And it led to some pretty serious consequences, didn't it?

Yeah. So on October 15th, 1890, David Hennessy is murdered. 19, as I said, hundreds of Sicilians arrested, 19 go to trial, but they're acquitted. And this makes everyone else in the city say someone was bribing them. Someone was scaring the witnesses. So the citizens of New Orleans, the squares I mentioned earlier, organize a lynch mob and they kill 11 of those 19 people who got away. Two of them were hanged.

Nine of them were shot. and the other eight escaped. We're not sure what happened to them, but this, along with that criminal you're describing, Noel, gives us a very different image of New Orleans. You know, we imagine the many other problems the city had at the time, but we don't really think of imported Italian criminal enterprise, you know?

We know that there has been fairly rich research on this, especially by the Sicilian historian, Salvatore Lupo in his history of the mafia, he talks about how you can trace the spread of the mafia in the U.S. directly to Sicilian immigration to New Orleans. And by the end of the 19th century, New Orleans had the largest Sicilian population in the U.S., which surprised me. I guess I just always assumed it would have been New York.

I would have, too.

And apparently, as well, Ben, one reason this was the case, is the state of Louisiana was working with sugar planters to replace slave labor. So that kind of immigration, opening up that kind of immigration was part of that effort.

Yes. So they've got booming agricultural business, right? This is a world-class port. That alone is very attractive to the mafia. But if you throw in the disorganized city functions and the corrupt administration, boom, boom, boom, we've got a mafia moth heading toward an illicit flame.

Very nice image there, Ben. And that flame ended up being the French Quarter and Bourbon Street specifically. So when you think of Bourbon Street, anyone that's been, that's visited New Orleans, you kind of think of it as being the trashy kind of touristy spot that's not necessarily where you want to hit if you're like kind of going for off the beaten path kind of stuff. But the original Bourbon Street, what led to that reputation, the original Bourbon Street as kind of like, you know, established by some of these these Sicilian mobsters was a just absolute smorgasbord of things like jazz clubs, speakeasies, restaurants, nudie bars, strip clubs, all that kind of stuff. And it was all run and operated, or at least largely people were

getting a cut that were members of this mafia group.

Yeah, Richard Campanella, the author of Bourbon Street, a history, has it this way. I think he's on the same page with us here because he says, They didn't necessarily control all of Bourbon Street, but they had this behind-the-scenes influential consortium. You know, imagine it like this. You don't own every house of ill repute on Bourbon Street, but you do coordinate what they can charge for things. And they do pay you a certain percentage and you help keep people's turf boundaries clear.

It's that same thing you see in like a show like Sopranos where the mob kind of underbosses or some of the, what do they call them? Like enforcers, I guess, go door to door to businesses collecting, well, collections is what they call it. And that means that the mob has a hand in offering protection to these businesses as long as they're given a cut. So they sort of set the tone, I guess, for the kind of businesses that are lucrative and that are going to generate enough money to keep them paid and keep them happy, right?

Yeah, and this is an interesting way to look at it. We've got this quote from Campanella. He's describing the extent of Bourbon Street. You know, he says, 13 blocks in the quarter, one more block in another place, half is residential, half is commercial, a couple hundred businesses. This is where he gets to a specific example of mafia involvement. He says, quote, you'd have bars, some clubs, a restaurant, and something completely unrelated, like an electrical store. And in the back rooms of many bars and clubs, you might have a pinball machine that really was controlled by the mob. They paid off the bartender to make sure only they got the money.

There were these bookmakers, poker machines, illegal gambling. Meanwhile, a legitimate bar was up and running, and the bartenders might not have anything to do with the mobsters. But make no mistake, a number of owners were out and out mobsters. So you could have, like, Casey could have, you know, Crazy Casey's Crawfish and Jazz. club and it could be totally legitimate and on the up and up but there could be a back room where people go to gamble and it's just sort of like contracted out.

To the mob yeah and the mobsters get points on those poker games those illegal poker games or they're like out and out controlled by the mob so for sure this is a little bit off topic but really funny I was in Brooklyn recently and I went to the most Brooklyn establishment I've ever been to in my life it was a combination laundromat pinball emporium and bar Probably controlled by the mob.

You think so?

One would assume.

Well, we don't know if it's– we also can't profile mobs. We have to be fair to organized crime. It could be Irish mob.

That's also true.

I don't know. I'm just saying.

So where does the origin of the word mafia come from and mafia versus mob?

Well, if we check the handy-dandy last-minute etymology dive, mafia originally derives from a Sicilian adjective mafioso, which roughly translated means swagger, boldness.

Or bravado. Got it. And then the idea of the mob refers to literally like a gang, you know, a group of individuals that have a common purpose.

Let's look at that. That's interesting. Mafia versus mob. So the mafia is going to be Italian because it has that Sicilian origin, but the mob can refer to other organized groups or organized crime in general. So like corrupt teamsters could be a mob. So a mob is not necessarily the mafia, but mob is also a synonym or nickname for the Italian mafia. Interesting.

It is interesting. So the mafia would specifically refer to this idea of la cosa nostra, which is something we've talked about off mic plenty. Right.

This thing of ours, omerta is the code. There's a gradient, Campanella says, from a proper noun to a common noun. So he breaks it down saying there's mafia with a capital M, and then there's the mob, capital M, and then there's just no capital M, mob, and then there's mobsters, there's organized crime, and there are all these affiliated parties.

So he says it's challenging and one must be careful about the terminology. And it's interesting because the government of Louisiana did not originally settle on mass immigration of Sicilians. They apparently tried to recruit people from China. They tried to recruit people from Scandinavia, Greece, Portugal, Spanish. But they were able to entice Sicilian populations because in post-unification Sicily, there were a ton of reasons for people to get out.

Life just wasn't super great. However, as this is a history show, We have to admit there is a compelling reason that people think of the mafia in New York now and not in New Orleans.

Oh, totally.

And that's because it's not near as prominent now because, you know, we said that those first inklings of problems began in the 1800s. By the 1870s, the Matranga crime family has already been established in New Orleans. They're collecting tributes. They're engaging in racketeering, prostitution, extortion, and so on. But they're not the only game in town and fighting is already breaking out in the 1880s between the crime families.

They want to see who controls the waterfront, right? And we talked, this is ultimately what led to Hennessy's death and then later the lynch mob. And it gave the mafia a lesson that they never forgot because in Sicily, this is a bit of a stereotype, but in Southern Italy overall at the time, criminals could Act without. much regard for authorities or societies. But now they learned, okay, there are limits to what we can get away with here.

And this, a lot of people tell you that this is what set the Italian American mafia on its course of following strict rules and against targeting law enforcement outside of very, very special circumstances. They want to.

Keep it quiet, right? Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's a big deal even in like these crime shows and movies when you kill a policeman or somebody that's a member of law enforcement because that is going to open you up for retaliation. And ultimately, you want to keep things as copacetic as possible and as contained as possible so you can continue operating. Because at the end of the day, it's a business, right? They're not just there to wreak mass havoc and terror and like terrorize the community. They actually want to kind of be loved a little bit and revered in some of these communities and have shopkeepers feel like they're kind of getting something for their money.

You know what I mean? When they're paying these collections, sure, it's a little bit of a pain. But at the end of the day, they're being protected from the enemy, from the other crime families or from anyone that would maybe rob them because you're part of the community.

Right, right. It's almost a parallel branch of society, sort of like how the Yakuza will give out aid to victims of natural disasters. The mafia will also aid members of the community when it feels expedient and advantageous for business. This is the crazy part, though. So we have all these Sicilians in the French Quarter, right? The French Quarter is not the biggest quarter. So eventually, say the 1930s and 40s, a lot of Sicilians who lived there began to move out. And of course, being a Sicilian, it's silly that we have to say this, but just to cover our bases, being a Sicilian American obviously does not automatically make you a member of the mob.

Of course not.

Only the cool ones.

Yeah, you got to be made.

You have to be a made man. Yeah, you have to be made. So it's weird because— during the 20th century, the 1900s, it seems like the Sicilian population was becoming more and more suburban. And now there are only maybe a handful of Sicilian residents or people of Sicilian heritage living in the French Quarter.

That's right. And not only that, probably even fewer made men that are living in New Orleans and continuing to do any kind of Cosa Nostra associated business. Because, you know, the mafia still exists. It is a thing. You definitely don't hear as much about it because it seems like because of FBI changes in the way they can prosecute organized crime, it's a little bit more difficult to get away with it, like the RICO Act and such. But, you know, I mean, I'm sure they just kind of adapted and changed the game a little bit and tried to stay a little bit more under the radar.

And we do have at least one example, right, of a famous Sicilian cop mafioso from New Orleans.

Yeah, that's right. Carlos Marcello kind of became the head honcho in New Orleans organized crime. He was born to a Sicilian family in Tunisia. His name was Carlo Gero Minacori.

Oh, and we know him as Carlos Little Man Marcello.

That's right. And he immigrated directly to Louisiana in 1911, and he turned to crime right Before he was even a teenager and already began working in the French Quarter, which at that point was the city's Little Italy.

Right, right. He joined the Matranga family we mentioned earlier. They were also known as the Black Hand or Sicilian Black Hand. And he, along with the rest of the crime family, controlled operations at New Orleans docks. So there was smuggling, prostitution, smuggling. drug trafficking, gambling, and then, of course, as soon as Prohibition kicks in, you know what that means.

Oh, yeah.

Money, money, money. Absolutely.

Bootlegging, the secret speakeasies and all that stuff. And that's the kind of thing you think about. You can picture in New Orleans during that time. It was like these kind of smoky underground lounges with, like, jazz singers and, you know, cocktails flowing and all that stuff, right?

Mm-hmm. And Marcelo sort of has a story that could be an episode of its own. You know, he got into and out of jail. He had been arrested and beat raps before. Like, it's surprising. I would be surprised if there was not already a film about his life. But even today, he is the subject of speculation and conspiracy theories. And you'll hear that he is one of the people who was part of the conversation that led to the assassination of President JFK in November of 1963.

That's right, because Robert Kennedy was a big proponent of bringing down Marcello because of the fact that he had done such a good job of avoiding any kind of consequences to his career in organized crime. In fact, I don't think it was until the age of like 72 that he got convicted of any kind of felonies so yeah you're right Ben maybe he gets his own episode for sure I love the conspiracy angle and the fact that Robert yeah there's Jack Ruby's tied up in all of this and Dallas and Lee Harvey Oswald all that stuff big central figure in the whole JFK thing but that is for another.

Day that is for a another day However, Noel, I propose that this counts as our Louisiana episode.

Oh, it has to. It was definitely about Louisiana, yeah.

And Louisiana and New Orleans have been, on my mind in particular, given the threatening weather that's coming through as this podcast is recorded and releases, we want to wish everybody out there best of luck. Stay safe, stay dry, stay connected, have a plan. I've got some Friends in New Orleans who have been keeping me up to date until just a few days ago, they thought they might have to evacuate. Everybody was on the edge of their seat.

So if you are listening from New Orleans, please say hello to your fair metropolis. Love it. Miss it. Always want to go check out the city and let us know some of your favorite New Orleans stories. You don't have to be from there to tell us. It doesn't have to be a huge historical moment. What's a good time you had in New Orleans?

I've only been the once, and the weather was terrible the whole time. It was rainy and dreary, but I loved every second of it. It was so much fun. I really hope to go back again soon. Yeah, you can write us all that stuff at ridiculous at iheartradio.com. You can check us out on our Facebook group, The Ridiculous Historians, where you can interact with your other members.

There was a really good one. Somebody posted a meme today. It was a very meta meme because it was an image of Christopher Columbus and his crew, and it says, I don't steal memes. I discover them.

I saw that one. Yes. You can also find us on Instagram and Twitter. I'm at Ben Bolin HSW on Twitter. You can see my various work and non-work adventures on Instagram where I am at Ben Bolin.

Yeah, I don't really do the Twitter, but you can find me on Instagram at HowNowNoelBrown.

Big, big thanks as always to Casey Labouche-Pagram. Big thanks to our friend of the show, Christopher Haciotis, who we need to have on. It's been too long.

It has been too long. These are some of my favorite episodes. that we do with Christopher. Thanks to Alex Williams, who composed our theme, research associate Gabe Lugier, who's for always being a boss. And thanks to you, Ben, for not having me whacked yet.

Oh, merit is the code. I am a legitimate businessman working in imports. So I guess the best thing to say is not my department, Noel, but you're welcome.

We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

CLASSIC: Did the US Mafia actually start in New Orleans?

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