After the infamous mass lynching of mafioso criminals in New Orleans in 1891—an incident clearly accompanied by strong, general anti-Italian bias— Charles Matranga remained as the sole Mafia chieftain in power in the city. He was in parish prison when the lynch mob of many thousands stormed the establishment, in response to the murder of Chief of Police David Hennessey, and hanged a number of Italians being held there. Matranga evaded the mob. Later he was set free because the case against him was too weak, based on the testimony of only one informer.
The early history of the Mafia in America is rather hazy. Indeed, even the firm statements of crime historians are contradictory. Yet without dispute is the fact that New York and New Orleans were the most common ports of entry for Italian immigrants in the 19th century and that among these immigrants were a number of Italian criminals with some ties to such organizations as the Mafia in Sicily and the Camorra in Naples.
The members of these societies tended to band together in the new country, not necessarily with the same loyalties as previously. In New Orleans, the mafiosi element clearly won out over the Camorristas. By 1891, the main contenders were two rival groups of mafiosi, one headed by the Provenzano brothers and the other by the Matranga brothers— Antonio and Carlo or Charley.
Some historians insist the real leader of the Matranga mafiosi was Joseph Macheca, a prosperous fruit importer and shipping company owner who was among those lynched. In any event, after the lynchings Charley Matranga continued his crime rule. One observer who disputes this is Humbert S. Nelli, who, in The Business of Crime, insists “if indeed he had ever headed a mafia group, he lost this prominent position. Nothing occurring in the remaining fifty-two years of his life connected him with criminal activities ... he led a quiet life as a stevedore for the Standard Fruit Company ... until his retirement after fifty years of service in 1918....”
Actually nothing in Matranga’s remaining “life connected him with criminal activities” because the 1891 lynching not surprisingly left a profound impression on him. Matranga was one of the first mafiosi to appreciate the value of using a buffer between him and public awareness of his role. For some years before his retirement from active leadership of the New Orleans Mafia in 1922, Matranga used young Sam Carolla as his front man, issuing all orders through him.
Until Matranga died on October 28, 1943, at the age of 86, he continued to receive tribute from the longshoremen’s associations and steamship lines which benefited from his benign approval. He was given a lavish funeral, attended by executives of Lykes, United Fruit, Standard Fruit, and large steamship companies—a remarkable tribute for a lowly stevedore, one who had been arrested for murder and almost lynched. The fact was Charles Matranga was a Man of Tradition and his big-business victims had to honor that tradition right up to the end.
