It would be a mistake to believe that only the Mafia of Sicily and the Camorra of Naples supplied America with all its Italian criminals. The Onorta Societa (or Society of Honor) did so as well. The Onorta was centered in Calabria in southern Italy, a mountainous and remote province that prior to the 20th century was almost totally insulated from the vitality, revolutionary fervor and dynamism of the northern Italy.
In outlook and organization the Onorta had much in common with the Mafia and Camorra. It relied on extortion and banditry for funds and honored secret rituals and passwords. Calabria remained feudal and agrarian into the 20th century, and the society was family oriented; when one had troubles one called on one’s family and friends for aid. There was no concept of loyalty to any state, rather authority was gauged by the family’s standing in its community. The dominant families in a Calabrian community ran the local Onorta.
Calabria was an impoverished area. So, despite the power of the Onorta; many of the young banditry followed the immigrant stream to America. Criminals of Calabrian background were hardly less prevalent in America than were the early mafiosi. Onorta brigands settled especially in the southern United States, principally in New Orleans, and then moved north to St. Louis, Kansas City and Chicago.
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Others settled in New York. But Onorta bonds weakened quickly here, and society members tended instead to merge readily into whichever Mafia or Camorra gangs held supremacy. By about 1918 when the Mafia-Camorra wars in the United States had petered out, the Onorta was already integrated into the new, combined underworld.
Oddly, the Onorta appears to have disappeared at the same time in Calabria. Calabria still has secret societies, but they are better described as a network of Mafia crime families with close working relationships to Sicily.
