Customer Reviews

Deep Water: Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia

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On a chilly fall night in October 1891, New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessey was shot by unknown assailants near his home, and died several hours later. After a rumor spread that his last words were "Dagoes did it", anti-Italian sentiment seized the city. Nineteen men of Italian birth or descent were accused of orchestrating the chief's murder. When a court of law declared them not guilty, a mob stormed the jail where they were being held and killed eleven of them. Some were beaten and shot, others were hung. This mass lynching remains a dark spot in New Orleans history.

In Deep Water, Hennessy's assassination and the mass slaying of his suspected killers is revisited from the perspective of J.P. Macheca, a fruit-shipping merchant with intricate ties to the city's corrupt Democratic ring and evolving American Mafia. Legend has credited Macheca with being the earliest Mafia `godfather'. Authors Thomas Hunt and Martha Sheldon make a convincing argument for the theory that the lynching of Macheca and ten of his alleged co-conspirators was not a random and rabid act of mob retribution for Hennessey's death, but rather a spectacular execution whose victims had been chosen well in advance.

The book is also an engrossing look at Louisiana history during the Civil War / Reconstruction period. J.P. Macheca fought for the Confederacy, and during the postwar years, he behaved less honourably by moving in Sicilian underworld circles and instigating vicious attacks on African Americans. His fortunes declined when he did not soften his rougher instincts to stay in tune with the gentrification of the times. His export business failed, his old friends and allies abandoned him, and the final stop in his downward spiral was a bullet in the skull.

As I was reading Deep Water, I found the book open up to a time long ago but not so far away. It is an insight into how one family affected it's community politically and financially. It is truly an education in the behind the scenes working of the Mafia. How they come together in secret to control everything from the slave trade to fixing elections. The Mafia formed unions to control the ports bringing in food stuffs and guns. Deep Water doesn't stop there. It covers the daily life of a family dealing with jealousy and vengeance. It is a complete work of a time which has been covered up until now.

Few incidents in American history have inspired more legend and controversy than the so-called "Mafia Incident" of New Orleans in 1891. Following their acquittal on a charge of assassinating Police Chief David Hennessey, eleven men of Italian extraction were shot or hung in possibly America's worst lynching. The episode nearly led to war with Italy and embellished accounts of the story have appeared in countless books and articles, including Herbert Asbury's The French Quarter and the sensationally embroidered Brothers in Blood by David Leon Chandler. Richard Gambino attempted to debunk the "Mafia" aspect in his book Vendetta, a fine work that's almost convincing in its portrayal of the event as merely the result of anti-Italian bigotry. But all is not as it seems and the investigations of Thomas Hunt, a first-rate organized crime historian, and Martha Macheca Sheldon, a relative of the most prominent lynch victim, have uncovered a compelling reassessment of the case. Joseph Macheca, the fruit-shipping magnate, was neither innocent nor a Sicilian Mafioso but a native-born Louisianan and Confederate war veteran active in both New Orleans politics and crime. Both he and Hennessey come across as less than martyrs but both must be considered in the light of their time, when machine politics was the rule, street duels the norm, and New Orleans still very much a gaudy frontier town. But it now appears there was an early-day Mafia at work, and equally sinister forces within the Democratic Ring and the police department, and that the victims--eleven of the nineteen accused--were very selectively chosen in what was more a political conspiracy than the impassioned mob act portrayed in past accounts. This is a well-written and classic re-appraisal of a celebrated case and essential reading for crime historians. And, yes, this was the birth of the American Mafia.

I would just like to say that I found this book very informative.
I would recommend this book.

Tom Hunt, writing with a relative of Joseph Macheca, a 19th-century merchant and victim of the 1891 New Orleans mass lynchings, puts everything together to give readers a full account of the background to the lynchings and the rise of the New Orleans Mafia. Highly recommended for the Mafia researcher.