By the late-1800s, there was a tremendous influx and migration of Italian immigrants from Sicily and the various regions of Southern Italy from the mezzo-giorno coming to America in droves to flee the abject poverty and horrible living conditions they had endured for so long.
Along with their brethren, many of Sicily’s mafiosi, Campania’s camorristi, and Calabrians of the “Societa Onorata” emigrated also. Most of these newcomers came through Ellis Island, settling in the teeming tenements of New York City’s Lower East Side, up in East Harlem, the Bronx, and the other Italian ghettos of the city.
Some would span out, settling in other cities throughout the East Coast, Midwest, and California. But metropolitan New York was, and to the present day still is, ground zero for the Italians in this country.
These early Italian criminals would vie for power amongst other ethnic gangs, and each other, for position, and to control the rackets of the day, pitting Sicilians against Calabrian and Neapolitan racketeers. There were many killings over a period of 20 years or so. The culmination of which was the infamous “Castellammrese War”, which pitted one Sicilian faction against another.
Once the battle was won by the Castellammarese Salvatore Maranzano and his allies, Maranzano — an educated man who loved reading history about Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire — formulated a genius hierarchical structured system based on the early “Roman Legions” in Rome for the brotherhood to follow.
