Secret Societies in Detroit by Bill Loomis

Author:Bill Loomis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2021-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

The article reported that as Hennessy lay dying in the street from massive gunshot wounds, his last whispered words were, “The Dagos did it.”

While the title “Black Hand” was used by a violent Socialist group in Spain, the first mention of the Italian version of the Black Hand that began appearing in Detroit was in 1904, when reports of bombings, murder, kidnapping and beatings were coming out of New York City, the biggest enclave of Italians in the United States. Newspaper features began looking more closely at the Italian neighborhoods on Detroit’s east side. And then, as if by contagion, it began occurring in Detroit.

Although the Black Hand “Society” was not a society any more than safecrackers or burglars were in a secret nationwide society, the methods, the perpetrators and the victims were always similar. Crudely written letters with poor handwriting and bad spelling and adorned with knives dripping blood and skulls and smoking pistols that demanded money—large sums, sometimes ludicrous sums—were mailed to small businesses owned by Sicilians. Ironically, the Italian name used by some suspects for the activity was the “Lo Giusto” or the Just. Detroit Italians of Northern Italian origins claimed to have never been bothered by the letters. But Sicilian bakers, barbers, shoemakers, saloon owners, fruit vendors, doctors, grocers and more did receive the letters, which terrified them, as they feared for themselves and their families, who were frequently identified by name in the letter. One, recorded in the Detroit Free Press on July 31, 1904, was addressed to a grocer, Poggioriale Ciro, on Elizabeth Street in 1904. He and his family lived in rooms behind the store:

Dear Ciro,

For the last time if you don’t send that $2,000 you will be blown in the air with your family.…Our powerful hand will destroy you, your family and your money.…It is either your money or your blood we are asking for. So, do not fail to take along what we ask.

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