What book about Sicily would be complete without mentioning the Mafia, right?

Mostly because of the blunders of the ruling class in Turin, Sicilians thought Italian unification got off to a deplorable start. Sicilian’s resented the refusal of autonomy, and the badmouthing and dismissal of Garibaldi. For all they did in 1860, their reward was to be annexation to Piedmont?? 

For their part, the Piedmontese officials sent to Sicily expected a poorer, sadder version of Piedmont. They were flabbergasted to find another world, speaking another language and operating on another system.  

One example: Nepotism, far from being considered wrong in Sicily, was considered the duty of any respectable man- that he would do as much as possible for his family and friends.  

After 1870, their bitterness towards Piedmont was directed towards the new Italian government, particularly against taxation and conscription. Taxation, of course, was always a fact of life, but conscription was more serious. Sicily was an agricultural society, where women did not work the fields. Conscripting the men meant livelihoods were put at risk. Desertion, especially in the west, was not seen as any shame, since there was no loyalty to the new state. 

Crime continued to be a problem, with the island boasting a murder rate 10 times Piedmont or Lombardy.  

Given these facts, the Italian government decided to meet force with force and clamped down hard on Sicily. But all measures came up empty and Sicily once again proved ungovernable. 

The Mafia 

In 1863, a play set in Ucciardone, the main prison of Palermo, enjoyed enormous success. It’s title was I mafiusi della vicaria, and it gave a new word to the Sicilian, and Italian language. The mafia wasn’t itself new, it could be traced to Spanish colonial times, but after 1860, it took on new dimensions. It dominated the island, particularly in the west. But what exactly was the mafia? Some thought it just a manifestation of the Sicilian mindset, rooted in centuries of lawlessness reaching back to the Arab invaders 1000 years earlier. Part of its long-term success was not only avoiding an answer to what it was, but to whether it even existed at all.  

One of the most far-reaching decisions of the Italian government was the dissolution of the monasteries. Since Sicily was already riddled with superstition, the clergy tended to be more popular than other forms of leadership over the lives of average Sicilians. I know this looks like a commentary on the Catholic church in Sicily, but I’m just taking notes on what the author said, take it or leave it.   

Garibaldi, no fan of the Church, had proposed that the Church’s land be redistributed among the poor, which, he thought, would create a class of small landholders with something to live for. Instead, the Church lands were auctioned off to the highest bidders, with the mafia stepping in and controlling the process, which: first, made a few men very rich, including the mafia; and second, laid off some 15000 workers who had worked in charities, schools, hospitals, orphanages, and kitchens that made the lives of the poor more bearable. It also made an enemy of the Church, which increasingly turned to the mafia for support.  

On the other hand, military conscription sent more young Sicilian men abroad than had ever before traveled. They returned with an enlarged view of the world and new ideas. They formed fasci, an embryonic trade union. These were often accused of crimes and arrested, but the overall effect was to move the population further to the left politically.  

Around the turn of the century, things began to improve on the island. Social conditions improved in the east, but not so much in the west. There had, by the first decades of the 1900’s, been a fair amount of Sicilians who had spent time in New York. There, the crime organizations were more refined and sophisticated, and the Sicilian underworld was bringing new sophistication home as a result.  

In 1908, a 7.1 earthquake leveled much of Messina, resulting in a huge emigration. Sicilians were already leaving their homeland in greater numbers than any other Europeans. This emigration could be seen as an indictment of the way things were run in Sicily. But those émigrés sent money home, and the accompanying influx of money brought prosperity, and new ambitions towards education and literacy in the young generation. The concomitant labor shortage also drove wages up. (On a personal note, this is the period when my own ancestors came over from Italy. My grandfather came in 1924, my Grandmother was born in Detroit, but her parents had come over right around the turn of the century. Both came from the northwest corner of the Island, between Trapani and Palermo.) 

After the war, more of those emigrants were returning home. They brought back both money and their experience in the new world, which included a new sense of self-respect, and an inability to accept the old approach to the large landowners. The people of Sicily were learning to look their masters in the face. 

Fascism arrived in 1922. Sicilians were unimpressed with Mussolini, who did little for Sicily. But in 1925, he proclaimed himself dictator, and set about to rid Sicily of the mafia. He appointed Cesare Mori with unlimited powers to accomplish the task. There were lots of arrests, but the underlying structure remained. In 1927, Mussolini gave a five-year update on the state of progress, where he congratulated himself on all the arrests. In 1937, Mussolini visited Sicily for the last time. He promised to eliminate the shantytowns. But the Sicilian peasants wouldn’t leave the homes they had been in for generations. He ended up building new towns the Sicilians wouldn’t live in, so he imported peasants from Tuscany.