Infamous America - NEW ORLEANS Ep. 3 | “The Sicilian Lynchings, Part 2”

Episode Date: August 3, 2022

In March of 1891, the suspects waited to be released from prison, but they began hearing alarming sounds outside. A mob of thousands gathered in the streets and demanded vigilante justice. The guards in the jail couldn’t – or wouldn’t – turn back the mob, and the vigilantes took their revenge. Check out the Jordan Harbinger show today! jordanharbinger.com/start Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join To advertise on this podcast, please email: [e-mail] For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. This show is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please visit AirwaveMedia.com to check out other great podcasts like The Explorers, History of the Great War, and many more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Warning. This episode contains depictions of graphic violence that may not be suitable for younger audiences. Listener discretion is advised. On the morning of March 14, 1891, every newspaper in New Orleans, and many throughout the nation, featured the same story in their headlines. Nine of the 19 men accused of the assassination of police chief David Hennessy were either acquitted or excused from prosecution. Roughly five months earlier, Hennessy had been shot down in the mud of Girard Street, not far from his home. A friend, Bill O'Connor, rushed to his side and asked the dying man who did it. Hennessy replied with a derogatory term for Italians. Daegos, he said, and he died of his wounds the following morning.

The murder rocked New Orleans. Its implications were far-reaching, from docks along the Mississippi River, to white tablecloth dining rooms of the rich mansions. But the mass roundup of Italian Americans and immigrants that followed was the tragic story that would endure. On the morning of March 14th, something else appeared in every newspaper in the city, an advertisement for a mass meeting that read,

All good citizens are invited to attend a mass meeting on Sunday, March 14th, at 10 o'clock a.m. at the Clay Statute to take steps to remedy the failure of justice in the Hennessy case. The Clay statue was that of Henry Clay, the Kentucky Senator. It was on Canal Street near the prison where the 19 suspects were being held. The advertisement added one more line of text that read, Come prepared for action. The ad had been signed by the Committee for Safety.

It was a group of affluent and influential men. men like attorney William Parkinson and prominent businessman James Houston. For some, their cause really was the justice they believed David Hennessy had not received. But for many, the call to action was about race and money. When civic leaders began to speak just after 9 o'clock that morning,

the mob was pushing 8,000 people. They wanted the Italians in the prison and no one was going to stop them. From Black Barrel Media, This is Infamous America. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this season we're telling four infamous stories from New Orleans over the next six episodes.

This is the second of two episodes about one of the darkest chapters in New Orleans history. This is episode three, The Sicilian Lynchings Part 2. Antonio Marquesi, a fruit peddler, laid his head on his pillow on the night of March 13, 1891, and enjoyed his first full night of sleep in a long time. Neither the uncomfortable mattress beneath him nor the snores of the men in the jail cell around

him kept him up. He had been acquitted of the murder of police chief David Hennessy, and when he woke up on the 14th, he expected to be a free man. Several of the other men had been acquitted as well, among them Antonio's son Gaspari. He was just 14 years old, but he was accused of signaling the shooters that David Hennessy was approaching on the night of the murder. Antonio gladly would have given his life for his son, but now, mercifully, neither of them would face the gallows. Down the hall in a private cell, Joseph McCaca enjoyed coffee and read the newspaper. His wealth and status allowed him to avail himself of extra amenities and privileges that could be bought by someone in the New Orleans Parish Prison. It made sense, he thought, after all, what couldn't be bought in this city?

The prominent political boss was thought by many to be a mafia leader, but he, too, had been acquitted of the murder. Even further down the hall, in a cell reserved for men condemned to die, Emmanuel Polizzi sat in a corner. His courtroom outbursts had earned him solitude and restraints. For lack of evidence, a mistrial had been declared in his case. Polizzi would soon be free. But Joseph Makeka saw the ad for the man

meeting that called people to action, and he didn't like the way it sounded. The warden and the prison guards tried to calm his fears. They said it wouldn't amount to much. But McCaca pointed out that the nine men had been acquitted. They were free to go, and yet they were still kept in jail overnight. Prison officials assured McCaca that it was just a precaution. They said McCaca would be out by the end of the day. But over the next few hours, McCaca felt the tension rise

inside the prison. Disconcerting sounds drifted in from outside. On Canal Street, a bustling thoroughfare in the city, the civic leaders who placed the ad could see what Makaka could not. Their call to action was working. The crowd was growing. Attorney William Parkinson shouted to the crowd, when the courts fail, the people must act. What protection is left for us when the very head of our police department is assassinated in our very midst by the Mafia Society. The rhetoric darkened as the crowd grew. Violence bubbled under the surface, but it was rapidly racing toward a boil. Prison officials watched with worry.

Warden Lemuel Davis repeatedly tried to reach Mayor Shakespeare and the acting chief of police to get assistance. He was told they were out at breakfast and could not be reached. what city officials were calling the governor. At some point before noon, the mob began to move toward the front gate of the prison. Parkinson and Houston led the charge. As the angry crowd banged on the fortified front gate, Warden Davis went down and tried to reason with the leaders.

But the time for reasoning was long past. The leaders demanded that the 19 Italians be turned over to the mob. Davis refused. He went back and gave his men repeating rifles. He sent some to the front gate and one to a less fortified entrance around the corner on Tremay Street. Defend the building, he said.

Though Davis knew he was asking his officers to potentially fire on their friends and neighbors. He knew many of his men would have preferred to be part of the mob, and he knew they couldn't hold the prison. Moments later, shouts came from outside. The mob broke through the gate on Tramay Street and entered the building.

Warden Davis' telephone rang. It was a call from City Hall. The governor refused to intervene unless Mayor Shakespeare asked for help, but no one seemed to be able to contact the mayor. Davis hung up the phone. He reached for his key ring and began unlocking the cells of the 19 men.

He stared at the ground as he spoke. He couldn't look them in the eye as he said, The mob is inside. They're coming for you all. do your best to hide, maybe try the wing with the women's prison, just try to stay out of sight. Solemely, he added, there's nothing more we can do. The 19 men stood in silence in their unlocked cells. It was only when the screams of the storming invaders grew dangerously close that they realized they had to move.

Joseph McCaca grabbed Davis's arm and pleaded for him to let them and have guns, to let them have a fighting chance. The warden refused. Macaca, along with Antonio Marquesi and Antonio Scafidi, ran up a staircase to one of the floors above. Six other men, including the cobbler Pietro Montestero, acted on the warden's advice and made their way to the women's prison. They hoped that the mob's bloodlust would not be so bold as to enter that area and start shooting in the presence of women.

The rest of the men, and the terrified 14-year-old Gaspari-Marie, Arcazi, rushed through the prison corridors hoping to find somewhere safe to wait out the nightmare. John Houston and William Parkinson led the men into the building. While the vast majority of the tens of thousands of people remained on the streets, Houston and Parkinson formed groups of men who were ready and willing to kill the Italians. As the warden predicted, the guards couldn't or wouldn't stop the mob. Most officers simply handed their weapons to the vigilantes. As the men burst into the first cell block, they found the warden alone.

He tried one last time to convince them to stop. They ignored him and shoved him out of the way. One group swept into the women's prison, allegedly on a tip from one of the officers who had handed over his rifle. The women in their cells, fearing for their lives, pointed down a hall with some empty cells and shouted that the men went that way. At the end of the hallway, the vigilance, found a stairwell that led out of the building.

When they followed it, it didn't lead to the freedom of the outside world. It opened into a small recreation yard that was completely enclosed. Six of the Italian men, including Pietro Montestero, were trapped in the yard. When the vigilantes found them, they fired more than 100 rounds. The six men crumpled into pools of blood in the dirt. According to Richard Gambino, Montestero, the cobbler who had once repaired the shoes of Chief Hennessy's mother, didn't die right away. One of the gunmen saw his twitching hand. The vigilante stepped over other bodies and leveled a shotgun at the old man's head and shot him point-blank.

Back inside the prison, a group of armed men chased and cornered Joseph McCaca, Antonio Marquesi, and Antonio Scafidi. The vigilante's shot Scafidi through the eye at close range, and he died instantly. Makaka armed himself with a wooden club, but he had no chance to wield it. A shotgun blast blew off the top of his head. Antonio Marquesi raised his hand in front of his face and pleaded for his life. A round blew through his arm and severed his hand. Then it continued into his head. Marquesi fell to the ground, but unlike his fellow victims, he didn't die quickly.

The fruit peddler bled and suffered for nine hours on the concrete floor. Marquesi's son Gaspari didn't know which of the gunshots killed his father. As the story goes, he hid under a staircase as the murderers pounded up and down the steps above him. As the vigilantes continued to tear the prison apart in search of the remaining men, news of the attack spread through the city. Italian families feared for their safety. In the little Palermo neighborhood, there was a little Palermo neighborhood, there was concern that rioting would begin in the French quarter.

The Italian consul in New Orleans had also been calling Mayor Shakespeare all morning. The officials were holed up in their offices, unable to go to the aid of their countrymen. They relayed the terrifying details to the consulate in Washington, D.C. as the morning unfolded. The console had followed every detail of the case from the beginning. The office tried to bring attention to the poor treatment of the defendants in prison. It called on Italians in other states and at home to support the 19 accused. But now the officials were huddled in their office. They didn't know the extent of the rampage outside, and it was far from over.

Emmanuel Polizzi's solitary cell had been unlocked, and he was given the same chance as the other men, but he remained crouched in the corner mumbling furiously to himself. He would likely be diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia today, and it was probably a combination of the confusion in his head and the violence outside his cell that kept him cowering in the corner. He watched groups of men running wildly,

screaming slurs and threats. He heard gunshots and the last sounds of other prisoners. He watched them discover Antonio Begnetto, who was then shot and pretended to be dead, but the mob dragged him away as he pleaded in Italian for his life. Ultimately, that group found Polizzi. The vigilantes grabbed the prisoner, hauled him to his feet, and pulled him into the hallway. Polityi muttered under his breath as the men shot him three times.

He fell to the ground, writhing in pain, but he didn't die, though he probably would wish he had. His ordeal was far from done. Someone sent word to James Houston, William Parkinson, and the other leaders of the mob, that the defendant who had had the mental breakdown during the trial was still alive. Parkerson and Houston told the men to bring Politi to them. Some historians have suggested that what happened next was an act to give the mob proof that justice was being served and to prevent a riot by people fighting to get into the prison.

But it could easily have been just more hatred and cruelty. Polizzi was brought out onto the street and delivered to the mob. They lifted him up and passed the dying man over their heads to a street lamp that had been turned into a gallows. His hands were bound and the noose was slipped over his head. Several men hoisted him up. He struggled for a moment, but when he reached up in an attempt to climb, gunshots rang out. Those final bullets killed Emmanuel Polizzi. By Parkinson's orders, Antonio Bagnetto was next.

He had already been shot, but now he was. he strangled to death as he hung from a tree near Polizzi. When he was dead, some of the mob fired shots into his lifeless body, and the crowd cheered. As Polizzi and Begnetto hung from the street lamp and the tree outside the prison, the vigilantes set up a grisly display inside the prison. They dragged the bodies of nine victims into a large room near the front of the prison. They tossed the bodies down, nearly all of which had been beaten and shot, and some of which had been defiled after death. The crowd got their proof that police chief David Hennessy had received justice.

Thousands of men, women, and children were allowed to parade through the room and observe the gruesome display. Some people took souvenirs. Some dabbed their handkerchiefs in the fresh blood. The cheering crowd hefted William Parkinson onto its shoulders like a hero and carried him down the street. That night, he drank and celebrated with James' Houston and others. Neither man was detained by police, let alone charged with a crime.

Music halls were packed that evening. The brothels of Storyville had a banner night. The bars in the French quarter were louder and rowdier than usual, as a good portion of the city of New Orleans celebrated the massacre of 11 men. Gaspari Marquesi hid under a cot in an otherwise empty cell as the rioting and the killing began to wind down. He had been discovered, under the stairs. But when the vigilantes dragged him to William Parkerson, the mob leader ordered the rioters to spare the 14-year-old. Eight others shared the younger Gaspari's luck. They hid or evaded the vigilantes long enough for sanity to return to the parish prison and for order to be restored. Within days, the surviving defendants were set free by the district attorney

and all charges against them were dropped. The families of Antonio, Marquesi and Pietro Montestero, never claimed the bodies. Most likely, family members were too afraid of further violence. Both men were given a Catholic Mass and buried in a potter's field. Emmanuel Polizzi was buried in Cypress Grove Cemetery. According to reports of the time, only his wife and one other person were at the burial. Joseph McCakey's funeral was held at St. Louis Cathedral, the Grand Catholic Church at the head of Jackson Square. The mass was well attended,

and Makaka was interred in an ornate casket at St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. The victim's families mourned and buried their dead, but the men responsible continued to be lauded in public and private in New Orleans and around the nation. Almost immediately, large institutions, such as the Cotton Exchange, release statements in support of the actions of, quote, the heroes at parish prison.

Wealthy private citizens raised money to help with legal fees if any of the murderers were brought up on charges. The story that mob justice was warranted and the mob's leaders were heroic played well at home, but there was a different reaction abroad. The Italian consulates in New Orleans and Washington, D.C.,

had adamantly fought for the 19 accused men from the minute they'd been taken into custody. In the aftermath of the killings, they were enraged at how little was done to protect the men and how little was being done to get justice for their murders. The Italian government demanded that the families of the victims be paid for the tragedy and called for the arrest of the known leaders, men like James Houston and William Parkinson. They underscored the fact that three of the murdered men were still subjects of King Umberto of Italy. Under a U.S. Italian treaty, each nation was bound to protect the other subjects and their rights.

The United States failed. President Benjamin Harrison pleaded with the Italian government. He maintained that it was a state of Louisiana issue. Constitutionally speaking, there was nothing he could do. Then an ultimatum came from Rome. Prosecute the murderers or Italy would sever diplomatic ties. President Harrison urged the Louisiana governor to convene a grand jury, and he finally did, but the investigation was a sham.

The vigilantes were never in jeopardy. When the inquest's results came back, they stated plainly that the lynching was headed by, quote, the first, best, and most law-abiding citizens in New Orleans. The nation of Italy stood its ground. When the grand jury gave its report, the Italian ambassador and the American ambassador, and all other officials left the U.S. and returned to Rome. President Harrison ordered the entire American delegation in Italy to return to the states. He tried to ease the tension with Italy by allocating $25,000 that would be divided between the families of the three victims who were still Italian citizens.

Before Harrison lost re-election in November of 1892, he declared a national celebration for the Italian-born Christopher Columbus. Publicly, the declaration was to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus landing in the new world, but it was hard to ignore the likelihood that it was also meant to mend Italian-American relations. Maybe it did, but the effects of the vigilante murders lingered for years to come, and were still relevant four decades later when the two nations found themselves on opposite sides of the Second World War. In the aftermath of the murders, Mayor Joseph Shakespeare, who was conveniently out of the office on the day of the riot, claimed he was never offered assistance from the governor.

He vigorously opposed the investigations into the men responsible, though he had run for mayor on a pledge to be hard on crime. Shakespeare ran again in 1892, but was defeated by John Fitzpatrick. It was generally believed that the Italian vote won the tight race for Fitzpatrick. Shakespeare died four years later in 1896. Police Chief David Hennessy's body was interred at Metery Cemetery, about five miles from where he was killed. Hennessy wasn't the white night that newspapers made him into after his death and during the run-up

to the trial, but he still deserved justice, and he never got it. There was no substantial investigation into his murder after the events of March 14, 1891. The harsh reality of the March 14th lynchings is that they were not isolated events. One academic study of the incident found that eight more men of Italian descent were lynched in Louisiana over the next ten years. And obviously that number pales in comparison to the number of black people who were lynched in Louisiana and across the U.S. A report from the Equal Justice Initiative published in 2017 said, 4,084 lynchings of black people took place in southern states between 1887 and 1950.

549 of those happened in Louisiana. Like most of those acts of violence, no one was held responsible for the murders of 11 people on March 14, 1891. Mob leader William Parkinson was lauded in the media for doing what he referred to as his great and terrible duty. One of the men who participated in the mob,

John M. Parker, was the president of the Cotton Exchange. He refused to admit that any man did anything other than deliver justice. He went on to become the 37th governor of Louisiana. Several families sued the city of New Orleans for failure to protect its citizens. All but one case was thrown out. Young Gaspari Marquesi was awarded $5,000 for his injuries and the loss of his father. The events of those six months, from the murder of David Hennessy to the murders at the prison,

vaulted the word mafia into popularity in American society. There is no memorial in New Orleans for the 11 men who died. But the group, sons and daughters of Italy, which is dedicated to the preservation of Italian-American culture, is trying to change that. In 2019, 128 years after the murder, there was an apology to the Italian-American community. New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell said,

in part, the city owes them and their descendants a formal apology. New Orleans is a welcoming city, but there remains serious and dark chapters to our shared story that remain untold and unaccounted for. At this late date, we cannot give justice, but we can be intentional and deliberate about what we do going forward. The Sicilian lynchings are indeed a dark chapter in New Orleans history, but there are two stories in that chapter and two crimes. The murder of David Hennessy, which will likely never be solved, and the murders of 11 innocent men. Next time on Infamous America, we'll begin the story of a mysterious and elusive killer who stalked the streets of New Orleans in 1918 and 1919. The twists and turns of the story of the Axeman of New Orleans begins next week on Infamous America. Members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week.

They receive the entire season to binge all of the next week. at once with no commercials. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships begin to just $5 per month. This episode was researched and written by Jamie Lyko, original music by Rob Valier. Copy editing by me, Chris Wimmer, and I'm your host and producer. Find us at our website, blackbarrelmedia.com or on our social media channels. were Black Barrel Media on Facebook and Instagram

and B-Barrel Media on Twitter. And you can stream all our episodes on YouTube. Just search for Infamous America Podcast. This show is part of the Airwave Media Podcast Network. Please visit airwavemedia.com to check out other great podcasts like Ben Franklin's World, History of the Great War, and many more. Thanks for listening.