On this date in 1868 - New Orleans gangland murder

On April 2, 1869, the New Orleans
Crescent reflected upon the causes
of local Sicilian gang violence.

On this date in 1868 - Returning home from a meeting of the Joseph Macheca-run Innocenti paramilitary organization, Litero Barba is shot to death. 

Barba is reputed to be a leader of a New Orleans criminal organization with its roots in Messina, Sicily. African-American political organizers in the Crescent City are initially believed responsible for the killing (the Innocenti, aligned with the city Democratic political machine, have conducted a series of violent raids upon Reconstruction Era African-American Republican groups).

However, blame ultimately falls upon local Palermo-born Mafia boss Raffaele Agnello. The New Orleans Sicilian-American underworld fractures, as an alliance of Messinesi and Trapanesi opposes the Agnello Mafia.

Read more about these events in Deep Water: Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia by Thomas Hunt and Martha Macheca Sheldon.

- Thomas Hunt

• Deep Water: Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia coauthor.
• DiCarlo: Buffalo's First Family of Crime coauthor.
• Informer: The History of American Crime and Law Enforcement editor and publisher.
• The American Mafia History Website editor and publisher.