← Back to the front page

Pistol Pete’s Payback and Other Historic Vengeances

Khalid Elhassan October 15, 2020 31 min

World War II - Quisling — Quisling with SS chief Heinrich Himmler. Cotton Boll Conspiracy

31. The Mafia’s Southern Roots

Nineteenth-century New Orleans Mafiosi. Pintrest

Most think that the American mafia had its roots in New York City, melting pot extraordinaire, home of the Five Great Crime Families, and The Godfather. NYC was the destination of millions of Italian immigrants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who disembarked and were processed at nearby Ellis Island. However, what would become the American mafia first emerged not in NYC, or even Chicago, but much further south, deep in the heart of Dixie, in New Orleans.

In 1869, the New Orleans Times reported that the city’s Second District was overrun with: “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.” Resentment over that would set the stage for one of the most extraordinary mob justice payback episodes visited upon organized crime.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.