"Our Thing": La Cosa Nostra

Murder, money, power, crime, fame and fortune is what the Italian Mafia has always been about. Known by many names, this organization's origins are as mysterious as it's operations are today. A complex and loose confederation of families, the Cosa Nostra are among the most powerful non-government organizations in the world.

The organization that would later become the Cosa Nostra beginning's lay in the early 19th century. In term's of the organization structure, the Cosa Nostra is much like it was in the early 1800s. Like the gangs known as the 'Yakuza', the Cosa Nostra of southern Italy, Sicily and Sardinia began with the end of the feudal ages. During the early feudal ages in Italy, most aristocrats and nobles that owned land in Sicily and southern Italy lived on their land. It was during the 1700s that this began to change as these nobles began moving to the cities, leaving their rural estates to be administered by managers known as the Gabelloti. These Gabelloti became the first Mafia bosses of the Cosa Nostra.

Thus, the Mafia was born. These new Mafia bosses would coerce poor peasants into working for them for a pittance, barely enough to feed a family. However, these bosses rarely committed 'crimes' and almost never killed anyone. It wasn't until the end of feudalism in Italy that the Mafia began gaining fame as 'the Robin Hood' of their time. When the states of Italy were united and feudalism was abolished, the people of Sicily began going to these Mafia bosses to ask them to help in 'resolving conflicts'. These people, often farmers, merchants, and people of most all occupations began paying large sums of money to these Mafia bosses to 'take out' a competitor in their particular field or someone who had committed some grievance against them. These Mafia bosses soon became more and more powerful, eventually playing a major part in Italian politics.

The climb of the Cosa Nostra to politics would be one entailing struggle, hardship, rivalry, and bitter warfare. During the 1870's onwards till the end of World War One, hundreds of thousands of Italians immigrated from southern Italy and Sicily to the ghettos of New York City, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Chicago. By the time Italy was united in 1861, it was one of the most crowded nations in Europe. With the immigration of millions of Italians to the United States, many Mafia bosses followed their peasants to the States in the pursuit of prosperity. They established new families in the United States although they still maintained connections to the Cosa Nostra of Italy.

The structure of a family is a complex one. At the bottom of the pyramid, there are associates. These associates were not a part of the family but consisted of people the Mafia worked with. These were people of various occupations that ranged from highly esteemed officials to doctors to burglars or anyone else you could think of. Next came the soldiers, or the thugs who did the 'dirty work' such as commit murder and carry out commands given by their Capo. A Capo is a captain who worked under the Under Boss and Don. These Capos often held territory and in a single family, depending on the size of the family, their would be several Capos.

Capos lead a specific part of a family and always must heed the word of the Under Boss, or person second in command. The Under Boss usually is a person being groomed to become next in command and will take charge of the operations of a family with the passing of the Don/Boss of the family. The Don holds the most power and is command of the family. Sometimes, the Don will assign someone to be his consigliere. This person is suppose to be a Don's personal advisor and is suppose to give impartial advice based on fairness and not on Vendetta's or other personal feelings. A consigliere is not a part of the family hierarchy.

With this complex family structure, families gained notoriety as being something akin to an organization with a mission to help both the public and gain in the financial sector. After WW1, the United States made the sale and consumption of alcohol in what would later be known as the Prohibition Era. Italy also went through some changes as it became the first country to elect a clearly fascist leader to become the leader of parliament. With the rise of il duce / Benito Mussolini to power in Italy, the Mafia was actively suppressed by this new government. The Mafia would be an important player in world politics in both Italy and the United States for decades to come.

In the United States, the Mafia was into any and all illegal activities that were profit-worthy. Perhaps the biggest business of it's time was that of bootlegging and the sale of alcohol in the speakeasies of the 1920s and early 1930s. La Cosa Nostra ( La Cosa Nostra is the American Mafia, Cosa Nostra is Italian) as they were known, compromised and operated in conjunction with the Italian Cosa Nostra in many illegal operations such as drug smuggling and assassinations of prominent politicians. The families that made up La Cosa Nostra were during the 1920s always at war with each other. It was during this time that many prominent Mafia Dons became household names such as Al Capone, Bonnie and Clyde, and John Dillinger.

During the 1920s and 1930s, La Cosa Nostra was in control of most all construction unions, drug deals, smuggling routes for alcohol and drugs, and of course, the infamous casinos. Casinos would play a big part in the rise to power of La Cosa Nostra. By the time the first Mafia bosses even began considering building casinos, Jewish and Irish gangs had beaten them to it. The first big time casinos built by the Mafia were built after Nevada's legalization of gambling institutions in 1931. The Italian Mafia began extorting existing casinos and often used that revenue in turn to build new casinos. It wasn't until 1975 that a crack down on the Mafia run gambling institutions took place. It is believed today that few, if any, major gambling institutions have any connections to La Cosa Nostra at all. Any sign of dealings with the Mafia could make any institution lose it's gambling license.

The Mafia ran gambling operations in Nevada, Atlanta, and New Orleans. A largely forgotten piece of Italian Mob history lays in Havana, Cuba. Before the Communist Revolution of Fidel Castro, it could be said that the Mafia ran Cuba. With the invasion of the Cuba by American forces during the Spanish-American war, so came the invasion of the Mafia. Havana became a center for heroin and crack use and trade long before the drugs became popular in the United States. The Mafia's operations, when shut down by the revolutionary Castro, left a bitter hole in the pockets of many of the Mafioso's men. They began plotting their revenge, even assisting the United States in the Bay of Pigs Invasion, only to lose all hope in ever regaining a foothold in Havana.

Meanwhile, the Cosa Nostra was going through difficulties with the crack down on it's operations by Mussolini in Sicily, Sardinia and southern Italy. Charles 'Lucky' Luciano, as he was known, would play an important role of the invasion of Sicily by Allied forces in 1943. Lucky Luciano gave important advice and made contact with a few of his cousins in Sicily to ensure a safe landing for Allied troops. Lucky Luciano, who had been serving a long prison sentence for several felonies (bootlegging, prostitution, murder, extortion) was released and deported to Sicily. From there, Mafia bosses who supported the Allied invasion, which met almost no resistance in it's invasion because of the Mafia, were made into mayors of towns across Sicily, Sardinia and southern Italy. They reign of political power only came to an end in the early 1960s, but not even a government crack down on it's political power could bring a complete end to Cosa Nostra.

As with many things, as time went on, the old rituals of the Mafia began to die as changes came about. The Mafia began 'modernizing' and looking more and more like other ethnic gangs during the 1950s and 1960s. Much of the moral integrity and the 'gentlemen behavior' of soldiers and leading figures of the Mafia also began to die out. Prior to the 1950s, the initiation of an a wannabe-mobster to a family was complicated.

To become a mobster, one must be of Italian origin (sometimes of more specifically, Sicilian and/or southern Italian origin). If you were not of Italian origin, you could only become an associate. Non-Italians could not be trusted. Also, if a person was related to someone who was 'untrustworthy' or a backstabber, they could not join a family. If you fit these qualifications and still wanted to become a part of a family, then you would have to pass a test. This test usually involved some illegal activity, which would sometimes be to actively participate in murder.

Once the person has fit all these qualifications and passed 'the test', an applicant would then be told to dress up and would be taken to an undisclosed location. It was there that the rituals of the Mafia would begin. The applicant would sit at a long table, near the don of the family. Other Mafioso would then hold hands and began chanting oaths and promises of loyalty. It wasn't uncommon for this new member of a family to be paired up with a godfather, or someone who would look after this new member and guide him through his new life as a member of the Mafioso. Then they would be assigned a godfather. At the end of the ceremony, the inductee would be given a piece of burning paper to hold, and then would become an official Mafioso. Once a member of the Mafioso, one could never leave. These rituals and promises were mostly abandoned by the 'modernized' Mafioso of the later half of the 21st century.

The Mafia stills operates in the United States and the southern and insular provinces of Italy today. The Mafia has, since the crackdown of the 1960s and 1970s, reorganized and reinvented itself, regaining both the political and economic power it once held half a century ago. While relatively little is known about the Mafia's operations in the United States today, it is undoubtedly an important criminal organization. On the other hand, it is known that about every eight in ten southern Italian businesses regularly pay the Mafioso 'hush money' so that their business continues on, undisturbed. Even bishops of Italy have pleaded with the Mafia to stop the fighting between the families and have denounced their illicit activities. The Mafia of Italy is estimated to be worth around 120 billion dollars, or 7% of the estimated GDP of Italy. Both big retailers and small businesses alike pay big money to big bosses. Even with decades of crackdowns on the Mafia by various law enforcement agencies, the Mafia has retained a great deal of influence and power worldwide.

Sources

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