In the late 1800s and early 1900s, individuals who had been part of the Mafia in Italy, reproduced the business methods that worked so well back home.

Anyone have a list of some of these early pioneers who came to the States? Or maybe just some of their names?

I found this on the FBI's website. I'm looking for more names.

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Giuseppe Esposito was the first known Sicilian Mafia member to emigrate to the U.S. He and six other Sicilians fled to New York after murdering the chancellor and a vice chancellor of a Sicilian province and 11 wealthy landowners. He was arrested in New Orleans in 1881 and extradited to Italy.

New Orleans was also the site of the first major Mafia incident in this country. On October 15, 1890, New Orleans Police Superintendent David Hennessey was murdered execution-style. Hundreds of Sicilians were arrested, and 19 were eventually indicted for the murder. An acquittal generated rumors of widespread bribery and intimidated witnesses. Outraged citizens of New Orleans organized a lynch mob and killed 11 of the 19 defendants. Two were hanged, nine were shot, and the remaining eight escaped.

The American Mafia has evolved over the years as various gangs assumed, and lost, dominance over the years—for example, the Black Hand gangs around 1900, the Five Points Gang in the 1910s and ‘20s in New York City, and Al Capone’s Syndicate in Chicago in the 1920s.

Bill Feather's site (mafia membership charts) has a list of old timers from various families.

Thanks, I'll check it out!

That N. Orleans incident is wild. Must be the largest lynching of white people in usa, I would think. Weren't they in police custody? Or were they in courtroom ?
Bet no-one got charged for the 11 killings.

"Although the Sicilians had been acquitted of Hennessey’s murder, police had returned them to the parish prison on Marais Street (the site is now part of Armstrong Park) because they all had other outstanding charges against them. The mob encountered little resistance from the police guarding the prison and stormed inside to hunt down the inmates. Gun-wielding vigilantes shot down nine of the Sicilians inside the jail, including the shipping magnate J. P. Macheca. The pack dragged two more men outside, where the crowd hanged them from lampposts. Despite all of this violence, two of the more conspicuous men among the prisoners, Charles Matranga and Bastiano Incardona, went unharmed. Widely regarded as ringleaders of the French Quarter Mafia alongside Macheca, their survival left open-ended questions as to the true motivations behind the lynching. While Mayor Shakspeare did not take responsibility for the day’s events, neither did he regret them.

The lynching of Sicilians in the wake of the Hennessey murder was not an isolated incident, as Italians across the Gulf South fell victim to mob violence throughout the 1890s."

- according to Justin A. Nystrom

It was a terrible lynching, even worse it was backed up by the government. There were lynchings of Italians, mostly southern Italians and Sicilians all over America. The excuse given by some is it was all Mafia lynchings, when in fact any Italians were liable to be victims. I think Mississippi had two major lynchings of Italians in the 1890's.