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The American Mafia, a separate entity from the Mafia in Sicily, came to power in the 1920s Prohibition era after the success of Italian-American neighborhood gangs in the booming bootleg liquor business.Sicilians banded together in groups to protect themselves and carry out their own justice.In Sicily, the term mafioso, or Mafia member, initially had no criminal connotations and was used to refer to a person who was suspicious of central authority.By the 19th century, some of these groups emerged as private armies, or mafie, who extorted protection money from landowners and eventually became the violent criminal organization known today as the Sicilian Mafia.
The Italian Man Who Went To Malta Code Of ConductThe American Mafia, which rose to power in the 1920s, is a separate entity from the Mafia in Italy, although they share such traditions as omerta, a code of conduct and loyalty. The Mafias Sicilian Roots For centuries, Sicily, an island in the Mediterranean Sea between North Africa and the Italian mainland, was ruled by a long line of foreign invaders, including the Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, French and Spanish. The residents of this small island formed groups to protect themselves from the often-hostile occupying forces, as well as from other regional groups of Sicilians. These groups, which later became known as clans or families, developed their own system for justice and retribution, carrying out their actions in secret. By the 19th century, small private armies known as mafie took advantage of the frequently violent, chaotic conditions in Sicily and extorted protection money from landowners. From this history, the Sicilian Mafia emerged as a collection of criminal clans or families. Did you know The Sicilian Mafia is one of four major criminal networks currently based in Italy; the other three are the Camorra of Naples, the Ndrangheta of Calabria and the Sacra Corona Unita of Puglia. Although its precise origins are unknown, the term Mafia came from a Sicilian-Arabic slang expression that means acting as a protector against the arrogance of the powerful, according to Selwyn Raab, author of Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of Americas Most Powerful Mafia Empires. Raab notes that until the 19th century, the word mafioso did not refer to someone who was a criminal, but rather a person who was suspicious of central authority. In the 1860s, a play called I Mafiusi della Vicaria (Heroes of the Penitentiary), about a group of inmates at a Sicilian prison who maintained their own hierarchy and rituals, toured Italy and helped popularize the term Mafia in the Italian language. The Mafia on the Rise in Italy In 1861, Sicily became a province of recently unified Italy. However, chaos and crime reigned across the island as the fledgling Italian government tried to establish itself. In the 1870s, Roman officials even asked Sicilian Mafia clans to help them by going after dangerous, independent criminal bands; in exchange, officials would look the other way as the Mafia continued its protection shakedowns of landowners. The government believed this arrangement would be temporary, lasting just long enough for Rome to gain control; instead, the Mafia clans expanded their criminal activities and further entrenched themselves in Sicilian politics and the economy. The Mafia became adept at political corruption and intimidated people to vote for certain candidates, who were in turn beholden to the Mafia. Even the Catholic Church was involved with Mafia clans during this period, according to Raab, who notes that the church relied on Mafiosi to monitor its massive property holdings in Sicily and keep tenant farmers in line. In order to further strengthen themselves, Sicilian clans began conducting initiation ceremonies in which new members pledged secret oaths of loyalty. Of chief importance to the clans was omerta, an all-important code of conduct reflecting the ancient Sicilian belief that a person should never go to government authorities to seek justice for a crime and never cooperate with authorities investigating any wrongdoing. ![]() However, in the 1950s, the Mafia rose again when mob-backed construction companies dominated the post- World War II building boom in Sicily. Over the next few decades, the Sicilian Mafia flourished, expanding its criminal empire and becoming, by the 1970s, a major player in international narcotics trafficking.
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