While there’s a buttload of awesome things to see in New Orleans and centuries of interesting history the thing that interests me the most about the Crescent City is its Mob history. It’s my hobby, a hobby I spend a good percentage of my free time on and it’s a subject that a lot of people, even locals, don’t know a whole bunch about. Hopefully I can change that a bit.
And so, it’s always best to start at the beginning.
When most people think of the American version of the Mafia 99.9999% of the time New York comes to mind and so most people — should they decide to dig into the subject a little deeper — are surprised to learn that the American Mafia has its roots in New Orleans going back to, at least, the Civil War and most likely a couple of decades before that. It wasn’t what we know as the Mafia of the last century with guys like Capone, Lansky, Luciano or Gotti but probably more akin to the images we were shown in Godfather II explaining Vito Corleone’s origins.
The first guy who gets credit for being the Boss of New Orleans, or more accurately Little Palermo (the area of the French Quarter), was Raffaele Agnello. Raffaele was originally from Palermo Sicily and was among the leadership of the European Brigade, a military style unit made up of immigrants to Louisiana, by the time of the outbreak of hostilities between the north and south. After NOLA was captured by Union forces, the European Brigade was delegated as a security force in the city and this undoubtedly helped Agnello gather power to himself.
After the war, Agnello became more and more powerful but, of course, he had his rivals and one of those was a fruit and produce importer named Joseph Macheca. While Macheca wasn’t thought to have been an actual member of the Mafia (though he had Sicilian roots he was actually born in New Orleans and thus an Americano) he certainly mixed in those circles and though it’s not known if Macheca actually played a part in the incident, Agnello was assassinated on Toulouse Street on the morning of April 1, 1869, not far from Joseph Macheca’s business.
After a tense few months in which there were numerous shootings and at least one death, an associate of Macheca’s named Litero Barba, it appeared that Raffaelle had come out on top and decided to do a victory lap around Little Palermo so his fellow Italians could see who was in charge.
He and Godson/bodyguard Frank Saccaro had just turned the corner onto Toulouse from Old Levee Street (now Decatur Street) when a sound distracted both Sacarro and Agnello. As they turned to look back to see what the commotion was on Old Levee a man named Joseph Florada (he would later be known by the name Gaetano Arditto in the assassination of another individual a decade later) stepped from a doorway where he had hidden himself and raised a blunderbuss and shot Agnello in the head. Four bits of metal penetrated his skull. Sacarro was also wounded but only with a minor wound to his hand. He gave chase to Florada but lost him. It’s almost certain that he knew who had fired the shot but later refused to identify him to the police.
Raffaele’s brother Joseph, known as Peppino, would move into his brother’s spot.
More on Peppino, Macheca, Florada and others in (hopefully) future installments.
Next time in Leave the Gun, Take the Muffuletta: Stories of the New Orleans Mob we’ll see what a Mafia Boss, a stripper and a preacher had in common.
Till then remember, never rat on your friends and always keep your mouth shut, unless you have something to tell me. I always love hearing NOLA stories on this subject.
By Ron Rawson
Born a Yankee but has lived in the southern USA for decades in between periods spent out west in Las Vegas and Montana and with a (far too) short period spent in Italy. Ron has split his time between New Orleans and Atlanta for the last 13 years. With an interest in the Mafia that goes back three decades he has spent the last ten years researching the New Orleans Family and hunting down the locations around the city where the history happened. Husband to a beautiful wife, father of three great kids and grandfather to a wonderful little girl (soon to be two wonderful little girls) .
