Mayor offers apology for 1891 lynchings

American Italian Center to host
proclamation on April 12

Cantrell

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell will offer an "Official Proclamation of Apology" for the 1891 lynching of eleven Italian-American men, according to published reports. The apology is scheduled to be presented in a morning ceremony April 12, 2019, at the city's American Italian Cultural Center.

The proclamation reportedly was set in motion by the Commission for Social Justice, Order Sons and Daughters of Italy in America (OSDIA). The commission approached the mayor's office with the idea and found Cantrell receptive. The mayor appointed Vincenzo Pasquantonio, head of the city's Human Relations Committee, to coordinate with OSDIA. Cantrell, the first woman to serve as mayor of the Crescent City, was inaugurated in May 2018, replacing term-limited Mayor Mitch Landrieu.

Commission Special Counsel Michael A. Santo told reporters the lynchings were "a longstanding wound" for the Italian-American community. "This is something that has to be addressed," he told the Washington Post, praising Mayor Cantrell for her courage.

Some of the victims

The eleven victims included six men who were tried but not convicted for the 1890 murder of local Police Chief David Hennessy and five others charged but not yet tried for that crime. (The lynching, its causes and its aftermath were discussed in Deep Water: Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia by Thomas Hunt and Martha Macheca Sheldon.)

Chief Hennessy was murdered on his way to his Girod Street home late on the evening of October 15, 1890. He parted from his bodyguard, Captain William O'Connor, about one city square from his residence. A few steps later, gunmen firing from across the street knocked Hennessy down with shotgun loads of birdshot and then closed on their victim, firing high caliber slugs into his body. Hennessy drew his Colt revolver and shot in the direction of his attackers. As the gunmen ran off, O'Connor reached the fallen chief.

Hennessy

"They gave it to me, and I gave it back the best I could," Hennessy told O'Connor. The captain asked if Hennessy could identify his attackers. "Dagoes," Hennessy said.

The police chief died at Charity Hospital the next morning. Suspected members of the Mafia criminal society and their associates were arrested. Eighteen were charged with conspiring in the assassination. Louisiana-born businessman Joseph P. Macheca, Mafia chief Charles Matranga and seven others were the first to be brought to trial in early 1891.

On March 13, the jury acquitted six defendants and could not reach a verdict on the remaining three. The defendants all continued to be held at the Parish Prison - with the others charged in the assassination but not yet tried - pending the expected dismissal of related charges in another court on the Fourteenth.

There were widespread rumors of jury bribery. Civic leaders and a vigilante group known as the Regulators assembled on the night of March 13 and announced a public meeting at the Henry Clay statue (then in the middle of Canal Street at the intersection with Royal and St. Charles) for the next morning:

All good citizens are invited to attend a mass meeting on Saturday, March 14, at 10 o'clock a.m., at Clay Statue, to take steps to remedy the failure of justice in the Hennessy case. Come prepared for action.

 Sixty-one prominent citizens signed the meeting call that was published in the morning newspapers. More than half of the signers belonged to one or both of the Crescent City's exclusive social clubs, The Pickwick Club and The Boston Club.

Mass meeting at Clay statue

Many thousands filled the street for that meeting. After being fired up by Regulators leader William Stirling Parkerson and other speakers, the mob marched to the prison. Though the lynchings are generally blamed on the angry mob, evidence strongly suggests that only a carefully selected execution team participated in the killings inside the prison.

Battering down door

Learning of the approaching thousands, the prison warden opened the cells of his Italian prisoners and advised them to hide as best they could. Parkerson's men attempted to batter through the main gate but more quickly gained entry by breaking down a rear door to the warden's apartment.

The execution squad of about one dozen men moved quickly through the prison, dragged one prisoner outside for hanging, then trapped and shot three prisoners in an upstairs prison hall. Seven prisoners were cornered in the prison yard. As they begged for mercy, the execution squad opened fire with repeating rifles at close range. When one of the targets was found to have survived the shooting, he was dragged outside to be hanged. (Another prisoner, mortally wounded in the shooting in the upstairs hall, remained alive but unconscious for hours.)

Execution squad

As the execution squad exited the prison, Parkerson again addressed the people in the mob, assuring them that justice had been achieved and urging that they return quietly to their homes.

Mob swarms Parish Prison

Local newspapers were supportive of the vigilante action. The New Orleans Times-Democrat commented, "Desperate diseases require desperate remedies." The Daily Picayune blamed the incident on "corrupt ministers of justice." New Orleans businessman in the Cotton Exchange, the Sugar Exchange, the Produce Exchange, the Stock Exchange, the Lumbermen's Exchange and the Board of Trade passed resolutions declaring the murders of the prisoners to be justified.

Picayune

Early in April 1891, a New Orleans judge dismissed a lawsuit brought against the city by the widow of one of the lynching victims. She argued that the city failed in its responsibility to safeguard the lives in its care. The judge found that laws making a municipality liable for destruction of property did not extend to a liability for loss of life. In the same month, the city administration defended anti-Italian sentiment by compiling and publishing a list of ninety-four "assassinations, murders and affrays" vaguely attributed to Sicilians and Italians. A month later, a grand jury investigating the lynchings issued a lengthy report critical of the victims. No one was indicted for participating in the raid on the prison or the execution of the helpless prisoners.

Pittsburgh Dispatch

The incident triggered a year-long dispute between the United States and Italy. Though arguing that most of the victims were either U.S. citizens or had declared their intention to become U.S. citizens, President Benjamin Harrison's Administration agreed to an indemnity payment of about $24,000. Harrison publicly condemned the lynchings and criticized Louisiana authorities for their handling of the matter.

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According to a press release from the Order Sons and Daughters of Italy in America, the ceremony will begin Friday, April 12, 2019, at 11 a.m. at the American Italian Cultural Center, 537 South Peters Street, just north of Lafayette Street. The Commission for Social Justice is the anti-defamation arm of the OSDIA. The commission was formed in 1979. OSDIA's roots stretch back to 1905 in New York City. The American Italian Cultural Center was founded in New Orleans as the American Italian Renaissance Foundation Museum and Research Library by the late Joseph Maselli (1924-2009).

The website of the New Orleans mayor provides no information about the anticipated apology. The American Italian Cultural Center's website is promoting this special event. The center is also selling tickets to an Italian community dinner on the eve of the mayor's proclamation.

See also:

• Hunt, Thomas, and Martha Macheca Sheldon, Deep Water: Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia, Second Edition, Createspace, 2018.
• "1891 grand jury indicts bribers, defends killers," Writers of Wrongs, May 5, 2018.
• "New Orleans police chief ambushed, murdered," Writers of Wrongs, Oct. 15, 2017.
• "Disturbance at trial of Hennessy assassins," Writers of Wrongs, March 2, 2017.
• "$5,000 awarded to family of lynch victim," Writers of Wrongs, Jan. 13, 2017.

Sources:

• "Mayor to apologize for 191 lynching of 11 Italian Americans," New York Times, nytimes.com, March 30, 2019.
• "Official Proclamation of Apology by the Mayor of New Orleans to the Italian American Community for America's Largest Single Mass Lynching," PRWeb, prweb.com, April 2, 2019.
• Daugherty, Owen, "New Orleans mayor to apologize to Italian-Americans for 1891 lynchings," The Hill, thehill.com, April 1, 2019.
• Feldman, Kate, "New Orleans mayor to apologize to Italian-Americans for 1891 lynchings that killed 11 immigrants," New York Daily News, nydailynews.com, April 1, 2019.
• Flynn, Meagan, "New Orleans to apologize for lynching of 11 Italians in 1891, among worst in American history," Washington Post, April 1, 2019.
• McConnaughey, Janet, "New Orleans mayor plans apology for 'longstanding wound' of 1891 Italian immigrant lynchings," New Orleans Advocate, theadvocate.com, March 30, 2019.
• Prior, Ryan, "128 years later, New Orleans is apologizing for lynching 11 Italians," CNN, cnn.com, April 1, 2019.
• Santo, Michael A., Esq., "Presentation of an Official Proclamation of Apology by the Mayor of New Orleans to the Italian American Community," We the Italians, wetheitalians.com, March 25, 2019.

Grand jury defends killers

Says number involved in lynchings makes
indictment and prosecution impossible

On this date (May 5) in 1891...
A grand jury, tasked with examining the March 14 riotous attack on Orleans Parish Prison that left eleven inmates dead, issued a final report that not only refused to indict any involved in organizing and performing the prison break-in and killings but also rationalized and defended the acts of those who took the law into their own hands.

(Pittsburgh Dispatch coverage from May 6, 1891, shown at right.)

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An execution squad cornered its helpless
targets in the prison yard and opened fire.

The prison raid occurred the morning after a trial jury failed to convict nine men accused of conspiring in the Mafia assassination of local Police Chief David C. Hennessey. Six defendants in that case were acquitted. A verdict could not be reached on the remaining three. The defendants all were held in the prison overnight, March 13-14, to await the dismissal of a related charge in another court.

Parkerson

The verdict was widely considered a miscarriage of justice achieved through jury bribery. A group of civic leaders let by William Stirling Parkerson gathered as a "Vigilance Committee" on the evening of March 13. They arranged for a mass meeting of local citizens the next day and published an inflammatory ad in local newspapers: "All good citizens are invited to attend a mass meeting on Saturday, March 14, at 10 o'clock a.m., at Clay Statue, to take steps to remedy the failure of justice in the Hennessy case. Come prepared for action." The ad was signed by the committee members.

According to reports, the organizers also selected an execution team of at least a dozen men, provided them with repeating rifles and instructed them on the list of prisoners who were to be killed.

On the morning of March 14, thousands of citizens turned out for the meeting, assembling around the statue of Henry Clay, then positioned in the center of Canal Street's intersection with St. Charles and Royal Streets. Parkerson and other Vigilance Committee leaders made fiery speeches and then organized a march to the Parish Prison, positioning execution team members at the front. When refused entry into the prison, a door was broken down and the execution team was sent inside. Parkerson's committee positioned guards at the broken door to ensure that the assembled mob was kept out of the prison.

Though deliberately planned and carefully executed, the killings at Orleans Parish Prison were classified as lynchings - casualties of irrational mob violence. The incident has since been regarded as the largest lynching in American history. Of the eleven men killed within the prison walls, just six had been among the defendants in the recent trial. The other five were accused Mafia conspirators who had not yet been brought into court. Most of the victims were immigrants from Italy, though a majority had achieved or taken steps toward U.S. citizenship.

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As it probed the complete breakdown of local law and order, the grand jury heard testimony from hundreds of witnesses through a period of more than three weeks. Long before its findings were made public, there were indications that the panel would take no action against anyone involved in the March 14 killings. The only indictments it returned during its investigation were against six individuals accused of plotting in the selection and bribery of assassination trial jurors: private detective Dominick C. O'Malley, Thomas McCrystol, John Cooney, Bernard Claudi, Charles Granger and Fernand Armant.

O'Malley

Developments were closely followed around the globe. In advance of the grand jury report, Italy issued a treaty-based demand that the U.S. federal government take action to bring to justice the perpetrators of the March 14 violence and called for reparation payments. When Secretary of State James G. Blaine responded that the federal government had no authority to interfere in the Louisiana matter, Italy withdrew its ambassador to the United States, and newspapers wondered about the possibility of war.

The panel's final report, delivered to Judge Robert Hardin Marr on May 6, 1891, decided that the March 14 raid on the prison was "directly traceable to the miscarriage of justice as developed in the verdict rendered on March 13." It criticized abuses of the jury system by the Mafia secret organization and its associates in the New Orleans community.

The grand jury harshly criticized the combined interests of private detective O'Malley and defense attorney Lionel Adams, who represented the assassination trial defendants: "Such a combination between a detective and a prominent criminal lawyer is unheard of before in the civilized world, and when we contemplate its possibilities for evil we stand aghast."

It accused several on the assassination trial jury of selling their verdict: "...the moral conviction is forced upon us that some of the jurors impaneled to try the accused on the charge of assassination of the late chief of police were subject to a money influence to control their decision. Further than this, we may say it appears certain that at least three, if not more, of that jury were so unduly and unlawfully controlled."

The grand jury referred only in the most glowing terms to those who participated in the break-in at the prison and the killings of helpless inmates held there. It justified the March 14 violence as a correction of wrongdoing:

It is shown in the evidence that the gathering on Saturday morning, March 14, embraced several thousands of the first, best, and even the most law-abiding of the citizens of this city, assembled, as is the right of American citizens, to discuss in public meeting questions of grave import. We find a general sentiment among these witnesses and also in our intercourse with the people that the verdict as rendered by the jury was contrary to the law and the evidence and secured mainly through the designing and unscrupulous agents employed for the special purpose of defeating the ends of justice. At that meeting the determination was shown that the people would not submit to the surrender of their rights into the hands of midnight assassins and their powerful allies.

The grand jury dismissed as impossible the notion of bringing any charges against the March 14 killers, as it was a popular movement and prosecutors could not hope to bring an entire city to trial. The panel claimed to be unable to determine the identities of the vigilante leaders:

We have referred to the large number of citizens participating in this demonstration, estimated by judges at from 6000 to 8000, regarded as a spontaneous uprising of the people. The magnitude of this affair makes it a difficult task to fix the guilt upon any number of the participants - in fact, the act seemed to involve the entire people of the parish and City of New Orleans, so profuse is their sympathy and extended their connection with the affair. In view of these considerations, the thorough examination of the subject has failed to disclose the necessary facts to justify this grand jury in presenting indictments.

The grand jury included foreman W.H. Chaffe, Geo. H. Vennard, O. Carriere, D.R. Graham, David Stewart, T.W. Castleman, G.A. Hagsett, Jr., W.L. Saxon, E. Gauche, A.S. Ranlett, G.C. Lafaye, H. Haller, John H. Jackson, W.B. Leonard, P.J. Christian and Emile E. Hatry.

Coverage of the grand jury report and U.S.-Italy relations:

• "The grand jury," New Orleans Daily Picayune, May 6, 1891, p. 1.
• "The grand jury," New Orleans Times-Democrat, May 6, 1891, p. 1.
• "Can't indict a whole city," New York Evening World, May 6, 1891, p. 1.
• "Popular will pleaded," New York Sun, May 6, 1891, p. 1.
• "That grand jury report," New York Times, May 7, 1891, p. 1.
• "Lynching all right," Pittsburgh Dispatch, May 6, 1891, p. 1.
• "No indictments," Pittsburgh Post, May 6, 1891, p. 1.
• "No consolation for Italy," Rochester NY Democrat and Chronicle, May 6, 1891, p. 1.
• "The diplomatic controversy...," Glasgow Scotland Herald, May 5, 1891, p. 6.
• "Italy in a hurry," Marion OH Daily Star, April 1, 1891, p. 1.

More on this subject:

Deep Water:
Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia
by Thomas Hunt and Martha Macheca Sheldon

$5,000 awarded to family of lynch victim

On this date (Jan. 13) in 1894, a federal jury returned a sealed verdict in a lawsuit related to an alleged New Orleans Mafia leader who was killed by a lynch mob three years earlier.

Rocco Geraci was one of the eleven victims of the Crescent City lynchings at Orleans Parish Prison in March 1891. He was one of a total of eighteen men arrested and held for trial as principals and accessories in the assassination of local Police Chief David Hennessy. The lynchings occurred after a jury failed to convict a number of the accused assassins.

As a mob swarmed the prison on the morning of March 14, 1891, the warden opened the cells of the Italian prisoners and advised them to hide themselves as best they could within the institution. Seven prisoners, including Geraci, Pietro Monastero, Antonio Bagnetto, James Caruso, Loreto Comitis, Frank Romero and Charles Traina rushed toward the women's side of the prison. A well-armed group of New Orleans citizens soon arrived at the women's courtyard, and the seven Italians emerged from their hiding places and assembled in a group in the corner of the courtyard. Some crouched and others knelt, begging for mercy. At close range, the gunmen opened fire. A second volley was then fired into the group.

Geraci was among the prisoners shot in the courtyard.

All but Bagnetto were killed by the gunshots. The gunmen dragged Bagnetto outside the prison and hanged him from a tree. Three other prisoners were located and killed on an upper floor of the prison. One other prisoner was hanged from a lamppost outside the building.

Suit was filed in the spring of 1892 against the City of New Orleans on behalf of Geraci's widow and their children. The city was accused of failing to protect Geraci, a foreign national, while he was in government custody. Damages amounting to $30,000 were sought. The case was the sixth suit stemming from the lynching deaths to be heard in United States Circuit Court. Each of the previous plaintiffs had been awarded cash compensation from the municipality.

Geraci heirs began presenting their case on Jan. 12, 1894. Their first obstacle was proving that the Rocco Geraci killed at the parish prison was the same person as the Francesco Geraci noted in public records. Police Captain John Journee and local businessman Joseph Provenzano were called to the stand to establish his identity. Testimony resumed the following day with Geraci's brother Salvatore and businessman J. Salomoni. Closing arguments were delivered by the plaintiffs' attorneys Chiapella and Sambola and city attorney O'Sullivan.

Boarman

As in previous cases, the charge delivered by Judge Alexander Boarman to the jurors left them little choice but to find in favor of the plaintiffs. The judge apparently felt $5,000 was an appropriate reparation - he had already allowed for several retrials of cases in which lower amounts were awarded.

Jurors brought back their verdict just a bit late for the court session of Jan. 13. The verdict was therefore sealed. It was revealed as the court day opened on Jan. 14. The plaintiffs were victorious in the amount of $5,000.

As a number of the related lawsuits were brought up for retrial, the City of New Orleans found new grounds for its defense. It successfully argued that the articles of Civil Code protected the municipality against suits relating to loss of life (though it specifically allowed suits relating to property damage). A retrial of the suit filed on behalf of the widow and children of Pietro Monastero was found by Judge Parlange to have no merit. In a 20-page decision, Parlange supported the city's position that it was exempt from such lawsuits.

Eleven prisoners killed

On this date (March 14) in 1891: 

One day after a jury refused to convict the accused assassins of New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessy, an angry mob assembles on Canal Street. Under the direction of political leaders, the mob marches to Orleans Parish Prison, where the Hennessy assassination defendants remain incarcerated on a legal technicality. A carefully selected and well armed execution squad, numbering about a dozen, enters the prison to murder eleven men, including city businessman Joseph P. Macheca. 

The list of victims contains the names of six of the men who were tried but not convicted for the 1890 murder of local Police Chief David Hennessy and five others who were charged but not yet tried for that crime.

The execution squad moves quickly through the prison. It first drags one prisoner outside for public hanging, then traps and shoots three prisoners in an upstairs prison hall. Seven prisoners are cornered in the prison yard. As the unarmed men plead for mercy, the execution squad opens fire with repeating rifles at close range. One of the targets survives the shooting, and he is dragged outside to be hanged. Another prisoner, unconscious and mortally wounded from the shooting in the upstairs hall, remains alive for hours.

The two hangings outside the prison are performed sloppily, and several attempts are made before the victims' lives are finally extinguished.

The execution squad and its political leaders describe their eleven victims as members of the New Orleans Mafia. However, recognized Mafia leader Charles Matranga and his chief lieutenant - both held within the prison at the time - are spared. 

Tampa Mafia magazine

An article written by Deep Water coauthors Thomas Hunt and Martha Macheca Sheldon appeared in a recent issue of Tampa Mafia magazine. The article deals with a confession of sorts written years after the 1891 Crescent City lynchings by one of the men involved.

122 years ago: Eleven men lynched

March 14, 1891
One day after a jury refused to convict the accused assassins of New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessy, an angry mob assembles on Canal Street. Under the direction of political leaders, the mob marches to Orleans Parish Prison, where the Hennessy assassination defendants remain incarcerated. A carefully selected and well armed group enters the prison and murders eleven men, including Joseph P. Macheca. The victims are described as members of the New Orleans Mafia. However, recognized Mafia leader Charles Matranga and his chief lieutenant - both held within the prison - are spared. 

121 years ago: Eleven murdered

121 years ago today: The largest lynching in American history occurs at Orleans Parish Prison as eleven Italian-American men, suspected of Mafia membership and of involvement in the 1890 assassination of Police Chief David Hennessy, are murdered.

While the raid on Parish Prison is generally regarded as the work of a mob, in researching Deep Water: Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia, we found evidence that the mob was no more than a smokescreen. Political powers had determined in advance which of the prisoners would be slain and had handpicked teams of assassins to do the work. Thousands were present, but only those assassins actually gained access to the prison. Organizers claimed that the lynchings were intended to correct the jury verdict of the previous day. However, the list of those killed does not match the list of nine defendants in the Hennessy assassination trial. Most interesting, Charlie Matranga - regarded as the leader of the local Mafia - and his right-hand man, both unconvicted defendants in the trial, were spared.

120 years ago: Parish Prison murders

On March 14, 1891, under the cover of a large, angry mob, teams of assassins hand picked by William Parkerson and other New Orleans political leaders, broke into Orleans Parish Prison and murdered eleven men held prisoner there.

An execution squad, supposedly assigned to bring Italian prisoners outside for trial by the mob, corners helpless men in the Orleans Parish Prison courtyard. While the men beg for mercy, the squad opens fire with rifles provided by its political bosses.

While the event is known as the Cresent City Lynchings and is recorded as the largest single lynching to take place on American soil, its cold-blooded and deliberate nature is at odds with our usual definition of "lynching," a spontaneous, emotional and violent uprising. Deep Water: Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia argues that the event was a calculated mass murder conducted for political rather than emotional reasons. The New Orleans Mafia, supposedly the target of the so-called "lynch mob," was left unharmed by the attack. Its boss, Charlie Matranga, was not even targeted by the execution squads.

Today, we recall the Italian-American victims of this attack:
- Joseph P. Macheca
- Manuel Polizzi
- Rocco Geraci
- Loreto Comitis
- Frank Romero
- Antonio Bagnetto
- James Caruso
- Charles Traina
- Pietro Monastero
- Antonio Marchesi
- Antonio Scaffidi

Deep Water: Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia (Softcover 2d edition)

Deep Water: Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia (Kindle 2d edition)

120 years ago: Hennessy assassination

October 15, 1890: New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessy was shot and mortally wounded near his Girod Street home. Hennessy's assassination sparked a wave of anti-Mafia sentiment that led to the murders of Crescent City businessman J.P. Macheca and ten other men held at Orleans Parish Prison.