The first reported use of the term "Black Hand" to describe extortion rackets among Italians in the United States was the Cappiello case of September 1903 in
Brooklyn in New York City, when Nicolo Cappiello, a wealthy contractor, received a letter signed by the “Mano Nera,” demanding $1,000 with the warning that his house would be otherwise dynamited. Black Hand activities were widespread in every American city with a sizable Italian community, with New York City serving as the primary hub. The label "Black Hand" quickly came to be applied to nearly any violent crime in Italian neighborhoods in New York,
Chicago, and other cities. It became the preferred term in American newspapers for describing unsolved crimes involving the Italian community until the early 1920s. These activities gradually, though inconsistently, declined after 1915, persisting in some parts of Pennsylvania into the 1920s. In 1907, a Black Hand headquarters was discovered in
Hillsville, Pennsylvania, a village located a few miles west of
New Castle, Pennsylvania. The Black Hand in Hillsville established a school to train members in the use of the
stiletto. Another Black Hand headquarters was later discovered in
Boston, Massachusetts. This headquarters, managed by
Antonio Mirabito, allegedly operated from New England to as far south as New York City. Police aspired to end the practice of Black Hand with Mirabito's arrest, but it continued in the area for about another decade. More successful immigrants were usually targeted, although as many as 90% of Italian immigrants and workmen in New York and other communities were threatened with extortion. but this was not the only viewpoint among Italian-Americans.
Il Telegrafo: The Evening Telegraph, a newspaper for the Italian American community in New York City, printed an editorial on 13 March 1909 in response to
Joseph Petrosino's assassination, which read in part, "The assassination of Petrosino is an evil day for the Italians of America, and none of us can any longer deny that there is a Black Hand Society in the United States." Tenor
Enrico Caruso received a Black Hand letter on which were drawn a black hand and dagger, demanding $2,000. He decided to pay, "and, when this fact became public knowledge, was rewarded for his capitulation with 'a stack of threatening letters a foot high,' including another from the same gang for $15,000." He reported the incident to the police who arranged for him to drop off the money at a prearranged spot, then arrested two Italian businessmen who retrieved the money. The Black Hand rackets were the first type of
organized crime operations by immigrant Sicilians in the United States. Several gangsters involved in Black Hand operations were the predecessors of what would later become the
crime families that would spread across the country. The Black Hand gangs gradually began to decline around 1915 and ceased to exist during the mid-1920s, when the first organized and powerful
Mafia families began to appear. ==See also==