How America's Largest Mass Lynching Led to the Creation of a Holiday

As he walked home along Basin Street in New Orleans, David Hennessy, the city’s popular chief of police, didn’t know his every move was being carefully watched. 

During the late 1800s, New Orleans was a prosperous city, home to the fourth-busiest port in the world. Considered a local hero after arresting an Italian fugitive, Hennessy enjoyed widespread respect throughout the Crescent City.

However, Hennessy also made some powerful enemies, and his walk home on October 15, 1890, was interrupted when shots rang out along Basin Street. Hennessy was struck several times by men carrying sawed-off shotguns; he returned fire but soon lay slowly dying in the street as his attackers fled the scene.

When asked who shot him, Hennessy reportedly answered using a derogatory name for Italians: “The dagos shot me.”

“Lemon boats” bringing citrus fruits from Italy were among the many ships docked along the bustling New Orleans waterfront. Along with produce, the ships carried thousands of Italian immigrant families, largely from Sicily, who established themselves in a neighborhood known as “Little Palermo.”

But not everyone welcomed the new immigrants, and anti-Italian sentiments ran rampant. New Orleans Mayor Joseph Shakspeare declared them “the worst classes of Europe: Southern Italians and Sicilians … the most idle, vicious and worthless people among us … filthy in their persons and homes … without courage, honor, truth, pride, religion, or any quality that goes to make a good citizen.”

The mayor’s anti-Italian prejudice informed his Chief of Police appointment of Hennessy, who was applauded citywide after his 1881 arrest of a notorious Italian criminal named Giuseppe Esposito. Esposito fled Italy after kidnapping a man and cutting off his ears in a ransom demand.

There were whispers, however, that Hennessy wasn’t entirely honorable, and he may have been involved in a prostitution ring run by a group of local Italian dockworkers known as the Provenzanos. The powerful group was involved in a fierce, violent battle for control of New Orleans’ lucrative waterfront business with a rival group run by the Matranga family. 

Six of the Provenzanos had been convicted of shooting and injuring several of their Matranga rivals, and their appeal trial was scheduled for October 19, 1890. According to some reports, Hennessy intended to present evidence that would help the Provenzanos in their retrial. 

Hennessy never got the chance to present his evidence; he died hours after his shooting, and the response from the police and citizens of New Orleans was quick and furious. 

Local newspapers fanned the flames of anti-Italian racism with headlines such as “Vast Mafia in New Orleans.” Shakspeare gave a speech that declared Hennessy a “victim of Sicilian vengeance” and ordered police to arrest “every Italian you come across, if necessary.” An estimated 250 Italian men were rounded up and interrogated.

Suspicion fell mainly on anyone with links to the Matranga family since they had the most to gain from Hennessy’s murder. Most of the men were eventually released, leaving 19 men formally charged with the killing. 

The trial of the 19 accused men began in February 1891. The evidence presented at trial was weak at best, and of the first nine men to be tried, six were acquitted (including Charles Matranga, leader of the Matranga family), and on March 13, a hung jury resulted in a mistrial for the others. 

News of the acquittals electrified the citizens of New Orleans, many of whom assumed some jury tampering had occurred with the backing of the Mafia. “Alien hands of oath-bound assassins have set the blot of a martyr’s blood upon your vaunted civilization,” howled the Daily States newspaper. “Rise, people of New Orleans!”

An announcement appeared in all the city’s newspapers, calling on “good citizens” to attend a meeting “to remedy the failure of justice in the Hennessy case.” The announcement ended with a chilling request: “Come prepared for action.”

On March 14, thousands of vigilantes—many carrying loaded weapons—assembled near the Orleans Parish Prison, where all 19 of the accused men were held. William Parkerson, a local political leader and friend of Mayor Shakspeare, addressed the crowd: “When courts fail, the people must act … Will every man here follow me and see the murder of Hennessy avenged?”

Within minutes, the angry mob stormed the prison and set upon those jailed inside. Eight of the inmates were able to hide from the bloodthirsty men, but 11 of them were killed. 

The level of violence was shocking: One inmate was dragged outside and hanged from a tree; another man was hanged from a lamppost. One man was shot at least 42 times. Clothing was torn off the bodies of the deceased and kept as souvenirs. Moreover, none of the assailants were ever charged for the deaths of the 11 Italian men.

Given the pervasive anti-immigrant mood of the era, most public sentiment favored the killings, which remain one of the largest mass lynchings in U.S. history. Even future president Theodore Roosevelt stated, “Personally I think it rather a good thing.”

An editorial in The New York Times declared, “These sneaking and cowardly Sicilians, the descendants of bandits and assassins … are to us a pest without mitigation. Our own rattlesnakes are as good citizens as they … Lynch law was the only course open to the people of New Orleans.”

The lynchings created a diplomatic conflict between Italy and the United States, with President Benjamin Harrison caught in the middle. Needing the electoral support of immigrants, Harrison established the first public celebration of Columbus Day in 1892, the 400th anniversary of the voyage of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus. 

Lynchings remained a too-frequent aspect of American life, especially from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. Though Blacks were the most frequent victims of lynch gangs, Italians were killed more than other immigrant groups.