America's First Mafia War

New Orleans, 1868-1872

When Casabianca, Banano and Allucho returned from Galveston, they quietly resumed work at the Poydras Market. Raffaele Agnello quickly learned of their whereabouts and near the end of March sent an armed party led by his brother Joseph into the Faubourg Ste. Marie establishment to do them up. The Anglo-American patrons of the Poydras Market were horrified when the resulting Sicilian gun battle seriously wounded a bystander. Agnello’s men managed to elude the police. Casabianca and Allucho, who drew their weapons to defend themselves, were charged with causing the bloodshed in the marketplace and were locked up in Orleans Parish Prison.

Grocer David Clark was the bystander hurt in the Poydras Market gunfight. He suffered a gunshot wound to the throat. He lost a great deal of blood and lingered near death for 10 days before succumbing to his injuries.

Poydras Market

History was not privileged to witness what occurred in the final few days of March 1869. But it appears Macheca and Agnello entered into negotiations. Macheca might have announced his intention to withdraw from the Sicilian conflict or even to back the Palermitani in the struggle. There is reason to believe that the two men scheduled a meeting together. Whatever transpired was dramatic enough for Agnello to emerge from his home on Thursday morning, April 1st, and resume his traditional proud stroll through the Sicilian neighborhoods – his 19th Century approximation of a victory lap.

Frank Sacarro, Raffaele Agnello’s godson and chief among his bodyguards, stepped first out onto the Royal Street walk. After a moment, Agnello burst triumphantly from his home and strode past Sacarro, turning riverward on Ursulines Street and strutting into the rising sun.

Agnello was wearing his best suit. A finely tailored navy jacket covered a blue and gray striped waistcoat and a crisp white shirt. A diamond and silver pin sparkled in his cravat. His light gray trousers were a precise match for his brand new bowler hat. In his left hand, he held the silver handle of a slender, wooden, walking stick.

Beneath a wide, graying, handlebar mustache was a broad smile minus just two or three teeth. Agnello had put on some surplus weight over the years, but he walked effortlessly that morning, as if a great burden had been lifted from his shoulders.

Agnello turned right on Old Levee Street, recently christened Decatur by the Reconstruction government, and walked by the busy French Market. He exchanged nods with men from his organization along Old Levee. Sicilian peddlers and market patrons ran from the commercial establishment to their "uncle" to praise his leadership and to swear their undying loyalty. Some performed a ceremonial kiss of his gold signet ring.

The adoring Sicilian crowd dissipated as Agnello advanced uptown through Jackson Square, passing St. Louis Cathedral and the Cabildo buildings on his right. At about eight-thirty, Agnello turned right onto Toulouse Street and walked in front of the building housing Grand’s grocery store and the Norman & Reiss bakery. A few steps from the entrance to the J. Macheca & Company fruit store, something distracted the Mafia chief and his godson.

A noise or a passerby caught their attention. Both men looked backward toward Old Levee. In that distracted moment, Sacarro’s eyes were turned away from Agnello for just a second. When he spun back, he found a bareheaded, medium-sized man in a long frock coat with an arm extended toward his godfather’s head. Sacarro lunged forward, reached toward the stranger with his left hand and drew a four-shot Sharp’s revolver with his right.

After just a few seconds of confusion, Raffaele Agnello’s well-dressed body lay dead on the walkway. On the ground near him were a brass-mounted blunderbuss pistol and a trail of wet, red dots. A handful of lead shot launched by a single blunderbuss blast had punched holes in the windows and front walls of the Macheca store and the Norman & Reiss bakery. Four small bits of the metal had penetrated Agnello’s skull. Two wounds could be seen in his right temple. Another was visible a little lower, just in front of his right ear. A final puncture oozed blood from below the ear. More blood flowed from the mouth.

Sacarro, out of breath from the unsuccessful pursuit of his godfather’s assassin, emerged from the bakery with an empty pistol. He knelt down beside Agnello’s body and wept.

When police arrived, they found Sacarro bleeding from a wound to his left hand. His right hand still clenched his pistol. A short sword, partly drawn from its hiding place within Agnello’s cane, was on the walkway and spattered with its owner's blood. Baker Frank Philips, wounded in the right calf by a stray bullet, was found in a small, buzzing crowd within the Norman & Reiss shop.

Police brought Sacarro to headquarters for questioning while Agnello’s body was taken to Dr. Henry Bayon for a post-mortem examination. Sacarro said his godfather’s attacker looked to be about 20 years old and bearded. He could not recall the man’s clothing, but explained that the attacker fled through the bakery. Sacarro said he followed the man, who turned and fired two shots from a revolver. Sacarro admitted to firing four times. He felt sure one of his shots struck the man in the chest. The man managed to escape out the back exit of the building.

Two and a half months later, police apprehended a young Sicilian man at a saloon near the Poydras Market and charged him with committing the murder of Raffaele Agnello. The prisoner gave his name as Joseph Florada. (Newspaper spellings of the surname range from “Fleuet” to “Florda.” The confusion might have been the result of a deliberate effort on the prisoner’s part. The same man appeared to use “Ignacio Renatzo” and “Gaetano Arditto” as additional aliases.) Frank Sacarro immediately demanded to see the alleged assassin. True to his Sicilian tradition, Sacarro stated that Florada was not the man who killed his godfather. The police reluctantly released the prisoner, and Agnello’s murder remained unsolved.

Already dominant in the Sicilian business community, Macheca was in a favorable position also to assume control of the Sicilian criminal brotherhood following the elimination of Agnello. Macheca worked with Salvatore Matranga to establish his Stuppagghieri organization as the paramount underworld authority in the French Quarter. The group copied the structure of Agnello’s efficient Mafia. The Stuppagghieri force was divided into small, manageable groups of at least 10 members or soldati, each with a leader or capodecina at its head. Activity of the minor leaders was coordinated by a trio of group leaders who answered to and advised the force’s overall commander. The top tier of Stuppagghieri leadership was well insulated by the capodecina bureaucracy from the soldati who did the organization’s business on the streets and, owing to its hierarchical structure, could be self-perpetuating in the event a single leader was somehow eliminated.

There were a number of rules of conduct for members of the organization. These included absolute obedience to the organization’s commanders and non-cooperation with governmental authorities. There was only a single punishment for any violation of the codes; that was death.

While Macheca helped to bankroll the organization and to oversee a number of its moneymaking ventures, he embraced Salvatore Matranga as its official leader. Matranga likely viewed his New Orleans gang as an extension of the Stuppagghieri based in Monreale, Sicily, though it counted Messinesi, Trapanesi and eventually Palermitani among its membership. An old friend of Matranga’s, Salvatore Marino, was simultaneously rising to lead the Stuppagghieri in Sicily. That the two men cooperated to a degree across the Atlantic appears certain.

Much of New Orleans’ Sicilian colony probably viewed the Matranga organization as a welcome alternative to the Agnello Mafia, and the Stuppagghieri quickly initiated new members. The group permitted no man to join of his own choosing. Membership was by invitation only, and refusal of the invitation was a breach of etiquette that exposed one to the severest penalty. All new members were welcomed through an intimidating ceremony steeped in mysticism.

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