e guise of providing protection, Sicilian Mafiosi extorted and blackmailed their fellow Italians, but it was not organized in any sense of the word. These activities [extortion] were not organized, and were not the deeds of idle men who spend their ill-gotten gold in riotous living, but rather those of thrifty, industrious people who work hard but grumble at fate because some of their countrymen are more wealthy than they. Usually the extortionists were common laborers who needed money for one reason or another, describes Humbert S. Nelli in his book The Business of Crime: Italians and Crime in the United States. The earliest organized forms of Mafioso in the United States were a group called the Black Hand. This group employed similar tactics as the Sicilian Mafia. The following story presented in Thomas Monroe Pitkin and Francesco Cordascos The Black Hand illustrates this groups sphere of influence in America. For example, in 1903, an Italian contractor from Brooklyn named Nicolo Cappielo received a letter telling him to be at a designated street corner the next afternoon or your house will be dynamited and you and your family killed. The letter was signed Mano Nera, Black Hand. After refusing to show up, friends urged him to pay the price on his head. He paid $1000 of the ten thousand requested. Cappielo soon became frustrated and scared by the letters and threats, and took his dispute to the police. While in court, testimony revealed that Cappielo had asked the defendants (members of the black Hand) to punish his son-in-law for marrying his daughter against his wishes. Business in the Mafia is based on mutual respect. Cappielo came to the Black Hand to request a service, albeit a criminal one, and when he refused to return the favor, his life was threatened. This depicts how the American Mafia used extortion as their primary business venture. Soon their influence extended into various other realms.As second generat...
