March 14, 1891, was a Saturday. Most people in New Orleans were heading to market or starting their weekend chores. But by mid-morning, a mob of thousands—some say up to 20,000—had gathered at the Clay Statue on Canal Street. They weren't there for a parade. They were there for blood.
If you haven't heard of the 1891 New Orleans lynchings, you aren't alone. It’s a piece of American history that feels like a fever dream, yet it remains the largest single mass lynching in the history of the United States. It wasn't just a random act of violence. It was a calculated, political, and deeply xenophobic execution of eleven Italian immigrants.
It started with a murder. Specifically, the murder of David Hennessy, the popular New Orleans Chief of Police. On a rainy night in October 1890, Hennessy was walking home when he was ambushed by gunmen. As he lay dying in the arms of a friend, he supposedly whispered, "The Dagoes shot me."
That's all it took.
The Trial That Sparked a Massacre
New Orleans at the time was a powder keg. Thousands of Sicilians had moved to the city to work the docks and the plantations. They were seen as "other"—not quite white in the eyes of the Anglo-American establishment. They were competing for jobs. They were successful in the fruit trade. They were a threat.
When Hennessy died, the city went into a state of collective psychosis. Police rounded up hundreds of Italians. Eventually, nineteen were indicted. The evidence was shaky, at best. In fact, when the first nine men went to trial in March 1891, the prosecution's case fell apart.
On Friday, March 13, the jury returned the verdict: six acquittals and three mistrials. The city’s elite were furious. They had spent months painting these men as members of a shadowy "Mafia" (a term many Americans were hearing for the first time). The local newspapers, especially the Daily Picayune and the Times-Democrat, didn't just report the news; they incited a riot. They printed calls to "remedy" the failure of the justice system.
A Mob Led by "Gentlemen"
This wasn't a mask-and-hood kind of mob. The leaders were the city's most prominent citizens. Lawyers, politicians, and businessmen. They called themselves the "Committee of Fifty."
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The next morning, the crowd surged toward Parish Prison. The warden, trying to protect the prisoners, told them to hide. Some crawled into dog houses; others ducked into closets. It didn't matter. The mob smashed the gates with a heavy wooden beam. They hunted the men down like animals through the corridors of the jail.
Geraci. Monasterio. Macheca. Romero. Some were shot dozens of times. Two were dragged outside and hanged from lamp posts. One man, Polizzi, was reportedly so delirious with fear that the mob had to lift him up to the noose.
The horror didn't stop with the bullets. The crowd cheered. They took souvenirs. People grabbed bits of rope and blood-stained clothing. It was a carnival of cruelty.
Why the 1891 New Orleans Lynchings Almost Caused a War
The fallout was immediate and international. You've got to understand how big this was: Italy was a unified nation by then, and they were rightfully pissed off. They broke off diplomatic relations with the United States.
There was genuine talk of war.
The Italian government demanded that the mob leaders be punished and that the victims' families be compensated. President Benjamin Harrison was in a tough spot. He condemned the violence in his address to Congress, but the Governor of Louisiana basically told the feds to stay out of it.
Eventually, the U.S. government paid $25,000 to the families of the victims. It was "hush money" to prevent a naval conflict, but it didn't fix the damage. It was the first time the U.S. government had ever paid reparations for a lynching, though they made sure to say they weren't admitting legal liability.
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The "Mafia" Myth and Media Bias
One of the weirdest and most frustrating parts of the 1891 New Orleans lynchings is how the press reacted. Look at the archives of The New York Times from that week. They didn't condemn the mob. They praised them.
The headlines called the lynching a "necessary" act. They described the victims as "sneaking and cowardly Sicilians, the descendants of bandits and assassins." This media narrative did something very dangerous: it cemented the idea of the "Italian Mafioso" in the American psyche. It took a tragic failure of the legal system and turned it into a justification for prejudice that lasted for decades.
Honestly, the "Mafia" might not have even been a thing in New Orleans at that level yet. While there were rival gangs (the Matrangas and the Provenzanos) fighting over the docks, the idea of a secret society controlling the city was largely a xenophobic fabrication used to explain away the police chief's murder.
The Forgotten Victims
We should name them. Because for a century, they were just "the Italians."
- Pietro Monasterio: A shoemaker. He lived across from where Hennessy was shot. No evidence he did anything.
- Antonio Macheca: A wealthy businessman who owned a steamship line. He was a political rival of the people who led the mob.
- James Caruso: A fruit peddler.
- Rocco Geraci: A stevedore.
- Loreto Cascio: A laborer.
- Emmanuele Polizzi: A man who struggled with mental illness and was likely used as a scapegoat.
There were others. Eleven in total. Some had been acquitted. Some hadn't even been tried yet. They were all dead by noon.
What We Get Wrong About the History
People often think lynchings in the South were exclusively about Black Americans. While the vast majority of victims were indeed Black—and the scale of that systematic terror is incomparable—the 1891 event shows how the definition of "whiteness" was used as a weapon against anyone who didn't fit the Northern European mold.
At the time, Italians were often referred to as "white niggers." They worked the same jobs as Black laborers, lived in the same neighborhoods, and were subjected to the same Jim Crow-era "separate but equal" logic in many social circles. The lynching was a way for the New Orleans elite to re-establish a hierarchy: Anglo-Americans at the top, everyone else beneath them.
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Long-Term Impact on Italian-Americans
Did anything good come of this? Well, sort of, but in a weird way.
The backlash to the lynching actually helped create "Columbus Day." President Harrison, trying to smooth things over with the Italian-American community and the Italian government, proclaimed the 400th anniversary of Columbus's voyage as a one-time celebration in 1892. It was a way to say, "Look, you're part of the American story too."
It was a pivot from violence to assimilation. But the scars remained. For generations, Italian families in New Orleans stopped speaking Italian in public. They tried to blend in. They tried to be "white enough" to never have to face a mob again.
How to Engage with This History Today
If you’re interested in the 1891 New Orleans lynchings, you can't just look at it as a closed chapter. It’s part of the DNA of the city.
- Visit the Site: The Parish Prison is gone, but the site near Congo Square and the Tremé neighborhood is a place of heavy history. There isn't a massive monument, which tells you something about how we choose what to remember.
- Read the Research: Dr. Richard Gambino’s book Vendetta is the gold standard here. He spent years digging through the court records that the city tried to forget. It’s a gut-wrenching read but necessary.
- Check the Archives: The New Orleans Public Library has digitized many of the original newspapers from 1891. Seeing the rhetoric for yourself is a sobering lesson in how "fake news" and propaganda can lead to mass murder.
- The 2019 Apology: It took 128 years, but in 2019, Mayor LaToya Cantrell issued an official apology for the lynchings. It was a significant moment for the city’s Italian-American community, acknowledging that the victims were denied their basic rights as humans and citizens.
Understanding the 1891 New Orleans lynchings isn't about dwelling on the macabre. It’s about recognizing how quickly a society can abandon its laws when fear of the "other" is stoked by those in power. It’s about the fragility of the justice system.
When a jury says "not guilty" and the "gentlemen" of a city decide that’s not good enough, civilization hasn't just slipped—it’s collapsed. We owe it to the eleven men who died in that dark prison to remember that their names were more than just headlines in a smear campaign. They were people who came here looking for a better life and found a noose instead.
If you're looking for more historical context, look into the "Black Hand" panics of the early 1900s or the history of the French Market in New Orleans. The roots of these events go deep into the soil of Louisiana, affecting everything from local politics to the way we celebrate heritage today. Researching the specific trial transcripts of the Hennessy case will show you just how little evidence there actually was. It's a masterclass in how not to run a legal system.