The gang leader Carmine Crocco has been presented by some libellists as a kind of social rebel. An objective analysis of his actions and his words shows that he was nothing more than a common criminal.
Crocco was born in Rionero in Vulture (in Lucania, in the territory of Potenza) on June 5, 1830. His parents were Francesco, a farmer who worked on rented land, and Maria Gerardi, who occasionally worked as a wool carder.
The social conditions of Carmine Crocco's origin placed him in the lower classes of society at the time, but not at the bottom of the social scale, as evidenced by the fact that he learned the rudiments of the alphabet from his uncle, thus had an ability (even if difficult) to read and write, which at the time was the privilege of a small minority in the Mezzogiorno.
He worked as a laborer and shepherd for some companies in Lucania and Puglia, until he was enlisted in the Bourbon army in 1849 and took part in the repression of the Sicilian Revolution. In 1851 he deserted from his regiment, returned to his region of origin and gave himself over to brigandage with a series of thefts and robberies carried out in 1852-1853.
The beginning of Crocco's delinquent life is described in his autobiography as a presumed reaction to a wrong. This gang leader, who wrote from prison (in which he was serving a life sentence), claimed that his first offense consisted of a murder committed for reasons of "honor", having wanted to take revenge on a "gentleman" who supposedly have amorous advances on his sister. This episode, however, is entirely invented and has been inserted by the liar in his memoirs to try to ingratiate readers and justify himself.
Eugenio Massa, who edited the publication of Crocco's autobiography by including critical notes, denies the veracity of the fanciful crime of honor. [E. Massa, in Gli ultimi briganti della Basilicata: C. Donatelli Crocco e G. Caruso, Melfi 1903]
Subsequently, the historian Basilide del Zio in his biography of Crocco irrefutably demonstrated the falsity of what Crocco wrote:
"After studying the trial and documents recorded by the contemporaries of his country, found in the City Hall, the story turned out to be completely false. It is a gratuitous assertion by the bandit, who, in order not to classify himself as a thief, and condemned as such, invents a story of honor, creates it with all forms of fantasy, paints it minutely and tries to surround it so well as to believe it himself." [B. Del Zio, Il brigante Crocco e la sua autobiografia, Melfi 1903]Del Zio therefore was able to consult archival sources, which totally refute Crocco's assertions. The historian reports in his work a large excerpt of a document from the Bourbon judiciary, which minutely reports the crimes for which the future "brigand general" had been condemned during the period of the Two Sicilies:
"From the register of the High Criminal Court, n. 12, district of Melfi, n. 5312: Crocco Carmine Donatelli […] age 23 […]; theft of 2 horses and other objects worth 144 and 70 grana, qualified by violence, place and value to the detriment of Giuseppe Nicola Lettini, from Trani, and Giovanni Pugliese, from Venosa, accompanied by beatings in the person of Lettini, committed on May 2, 1853 in the farm of Lavello. […] stealing of a horse and 10 ducats, qualified by violence and place, to the detriment of Benedetto Spaducci, from Maschito, committed on May 3, 1853 in the farm of Montemilone. Theft qualified by violence and place, accompanied by public violence to the detriment of Lorenzo Coletta, of Bella, committed on September 5, 1852 in that farm. Theft is qualified for violence and place, accompanied by public violence to the detriment of Antonio Capuano and others, committed on May 8, 1852, in the farm of Bella. Attempted theft of a horse to the detriment of Don Giovanni Giudice, from Melfi, on June 12, 1853."All these accusations can be found, says Del Zio, in volume II of the acts of the High Court of Basilicata. [Del Zio, Il brigante Crocco, cit.]
More recently, historian Ettore Cinnella has also rejected Crocco's groundless claims about the origin of his bandit career, proving on the basis of precise sources that the anecdote of honor killing is devoid of any foundation and purely invented. [E. Cinnella, Carmine Crocco: un brigante nella grande storia, Pisa-Cagliari, 2010]
Carmine Crocco was thus sentenced by the Bourbon judiciary to 19 years in prison for the aforementioned crimes, ending up in prison in Brindisi. He attempted an escape on the night of July 19, 1856, and was arrested and condemned on October 2nd of that year to a year and a half increase on his sentence. However, he succeeded in escaping from the Brindisi prison on December 13, 1859. He went into hiding and constituted a small gang which gave itself over to armed robbery and abduction, such as the kidnapping of Michele Anastasia, committed on July 14, 1860 for the purpose of extorting a ransom. [Del Zio, Il brigante Crocco, cit.]
At the time of the formation of his enlarged gang in 1861, Crocco had by now a long series of crimes to his name, which Marc Monnier calculates to be 30 in number, including: 15 thefts; 3 attempted thefts; 4 kidnappings; 3 homicides; 2 attempted homicides, etc. [M. Monnier, Storia del Brigantaggio nelle Province Napoletane, Firenze 1862]
On October 22, 1861, in the forest of Lagopesole, Crocco met with José Borjes and a couple other former Spanish officers of the "Carlist" army (Hispanic legitimists) who had arrived in southern Italy after being hired by Francis II of the Two Sicilies. A few days later the gang was joined by a French mercenary, Augustin De Langlais (this was his real surname, although he was often distorted to De Langlois), a French customs clerk known in his family as an odd person and in all likelihood sent by Napoleon III, who fomented brigandage with the aim of breaking up the Italian State and creating a puppet state in the south, where he would place a Frenchman on the throne of Naples. [A. Albònico, La mobilitazione legittimista contro il Regno d’Italia, Milano 1979]
Direct and incontrovertible testimony to the purely criminal behavior of the Crocco gang is offered by Borjes himself. He was an officer of absolutist ideas, exiled from Spain for taking part in a civil war that occurred there, recruited by the emissaries of Francis II of Bourbon to lead Crocco's gang of brigands, becoming an eyewitness to the many serious acts of violence committed by these criminals against the civilian population.
Many acts were recorded by Borjes in his personal diary, thus incontestably proving the veracity of these criminal actions, such as the brigand raid that occurred between November 3rd and 16th of that year in the area between Trivigno and Potenza.
In Trivigno, Borjes writes:
"The most complete disorder reigns among our own, starting with the leaders. Thefts, slaughters and other reprehensible deeds were the consequence of this assault [...] Crocco, Langlois and Serravalle have committed deeds of the greatest violence in Trevigno. The aristocracy of the place had sought refuge in the mayor's house, and the three aforementioned men shamefully levied heavy ransoms against those who had taken up refuge there. What's more: they were going throughout the city, threatening to burn down the houses of private citizens if they did not hand over their money."According to the historian Basilide Del Zio, six people were massacred on that occasion in Trivigno: Domenico Antonio Sassano, Michele Petrone, Teresa Destefano, Giambattista Guarini, Cristina Brindisi and Rocco Luigi. Crocco acknowledged in his memoirs that those who refused to deliver their goods were slaughtered.
In Calciano, Borjes writes:
"Everything has been looted in a horrible way, without any distinction between royalists or liberals: a woman has also been murdered, as well as three or four peasants, so I am told."In Garaguso, the parish priest along with other villagers went out to meet the brigands, carrying a crucifix in his hand and pleading for mercy. What happened here is something that Borjes ambiguously refers to as a "scene" and refuses to tell us anything, except that it was a "disturbance". In short, this town was ransacked as well.
In Salandra, another looting took place ("The city was sacked"), together with a murder by Crocco, of which a man named Spazziano was the victim.
In Craco, although the entire population had gone to meet the brigands in the hope of avoiding violence, "there were not a few disturbances".
In Aliano:
"where the population received us, led by a priest carrying the cross, shouting 'Long live Francis II'; but this did not prevent the greatest disturbances from happening during the night. It would be surprising, but the leader of this gang and its satellites are the worst set of thieves I ever came across in my life."In Astagnano, the same acts committed in other areas were repeated here. The priests and the population approached the brigands, carrying crosses and white flags as a sign of peace and surrender, which did not stop the criminals, who, according to Borjes, "began to commit their deeds as usual."
In Grassano, the looting continued:
"Our leaders go wherever they please so they can steal."In Pietragalla, the Spaniard gave up on even trying to restrain his men and this city was sacked as well.
In Balbano, Borjes witnessed deeds so evil that he refuses to even mention them, merely defining them as absolutely horrible:
"The most unheard-of disturbances occurred in this city; I do not want to give details, they are so horrible in every aspect."In short, whenever the horde led by Crocco entered a city, he subjected it to looting and devastation, committing massacres of defenseless citizens, even when the population had surrendered without a fight. [J. Borjes, Giornale, Firenze 1862]
Borjes admitted that he was on his way to Rome to tell the Bourbon king that he had nothing but "miserable and wicked men" on his side, that Crocco was a criminal of the worst kind, and that Langlois was a brute:
"I was going to tell Francis II that he has no one except miserable and wicked men to defend him, that Crocco is a sacripant and Langlois a brute."Borjes in his private diary expressed very harsh criticisms against this brigand, the most famous and important of all, which the historian Aldo Albònico summarizes in his study (a study of fundamental importance concerning the plots of the Bourbon court in exile to return to the throne):
"The Spaniard reproached the brigand as: the greatest thief he had ever known; a coward who made the Spaniards perform the most dangerous tasks and did not dare to leave familiar territory; a petty man fearful of losing the money he had accumulated through robberies; a presumptuous man, worried about losing some of his authority in the event that a true military organization would enter the fray." [A. Albònico, La mobilitazione legittimista contro il Regno d’Italia, Milano 1979, p. 72]After concluding his collaboration with Borjes (suspicion remained in the air that Crocco had betrayed the Spaniard, making sure that he was arrested when he was near the papal border), the gang leader continued committing actions of simple highway robbery on a large scale, with robberies of travelers, kidnapping, extortion and blackmail. Del Zio enumerates the numerous crimes committed by the Crocco gang, including infanticide, torture and rape, reporting also ungrammatical notes with which the gangs threatened the civilian population and demanded money. [Del Zio, Il brigante Crocco, cit.]
Crocco himself, in response to a question concerning rape, answered in terms so vague and reticent, but in substance admitted his guilt, comparing himself to a garden warbler, that is, to a bird that pecks when and where he wants — a clear sexual metaphor:
"Q. Did you have a woman with you in your gang? A. No, whenever I encountered them I was like a garden warbler: I pecked and left."
[R. Ribolla, Voci dall'ergastolo. Documenti Psicologici-criminali dal vero. Roma 1903.]Benedetto Croce also recognized that:
"Carmine Crocco [...] in 1862 cast off every political pretense and continued to do what in essence he had always done, pure banditry, and then from major banditry he descended into petty banditry."
[B. Croce, Il romanticismo legittimistico e la caduta del Regno di Napoli, in Uomini e cose della vecchia Italia, Bari 1927, vol. II.]In 1864 Carmine Crocco realized that by now the end of his gang was near and he thought to save himself and his booty. Being accompanied by a very small group of his men, after leaving the others to their fate, he set off in July towards Papal Lazio, arriving on August 24th with four other brigands and the prey they had collected from lootings and extortions.
The gang leader hoped to be embraced as a hero or otherwise accepted by the Papal authorities, who had indirectly supported the brigands and allowed their territory to become a support base for the brigand gangs operating in the south. Instead he was immediately incarcerated on charges of having been responsible for Borjes' death. The loot, according to Crocco, was confiscated by a corrupt cardinal.
The papal government reluctantly accepted the presence of this prisoner in their prisons, which was inconvenient both because he was wanted by the Italian State, and because he was a direct witness to the legitimists' complicity in his criminal activities. The papal government thus tried to get rid of him by sending him to Algeria, but the French government opposed this maneuver and sent him back to Rome.
In 1871, with the union of Lazio to the Kingdom of Italy, Crocco was transferred from the prison of Frosinone, being sent first to the prison of Avellino and later to the one in Potenza. This gang leader then underwent a regular trial in which he was convicted of a long series of common crimes such as criminal conspiracy against people and property, the formation of armed gangs, thefts, robberies, murders, extortions, property fires, etc. [Del Zio, Il brigante Crocco, cit.]
The studies of Basilide Del Zio and Ettore Cinnella, together with many others, based on enormous analytical documentation, demolish the Marxist interpretation of brigandage that dates back to Eric Hobsbawm, Tommaso Pedio and in part to Franco Molfese, according to whom this phenomenon, despite having been fundamentally criminal in nature, would have somehow had the vague and confusing revolutionary colorings of a social protest.
[E. Hobsbawm, I ribelli. Forme primitive di rivolta sociale, Torino, 2002; original edition Primitive Rebels. Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Manchester 1959; T. Pedio, Brigantaggio meridionale (1806-1863), Lecce 1987; F. Molfese, Storia del brigantaggio dopo l’Unità, Milano 1962]
Del Zio and Cinnella have no difficulty in proving that the "brigand general" was a common criminal, interested in getting rich through looting, robbery, extortion, theft and devoted himself to practices such as murder and rape.
If we consider the practical work of Crocco and other bandits, we find that: 1) their victims were almost always members of the poor classes; 2) the abettors who largely controlled the brigands were local latifondisti, that is to say, landowners of large landed estates.
This link between abettors and brigands, that is to say between the puppet masters, usually high-ranking figures, and the usefully manipulated bandits, had already been well documented as early as the 1860's. Enrico Pani Rossi, for some years subprefect of Melfi, in his famous work "La Basilicata" (which is very rich in statistical data; indeed a third of the work is reserved for a description and analysis of brigandage), attributes one of the causes of this phenomenon to connivance between the upper classes and bandits, which meant that "gentrymen", including mayors and ecclesiastics, used brigands for their personal vendettas or for factional struggles within the municipalities. [E. Pani Rossi, La Basilicata. Libri Tre. Studi politici amministrativi e di economia politica, Verona 1868]
Francesco Saverio Nitti wrote a short work on brigandage, in which he has the merit of presenting in a succinct form some interesting interpretations and considerations, including the identification of the relationship between baronage and brigandage:
"Being prosecuted, that is to say, having committed crimes, being what we would call a criminal, was an almost indispensable requirement to be admitted into the service of a baron. [...] In some cases, and not rarely, the barons themselves took part in brigandage and protected brigands, both for reasons of defense and for the desire of profit."The brigands were used by both sovereigns and barons against their political opponents; sovereigns used them against the barons, and the barons used them against sovereigns, especially but not exclusively during the period of Spanish domination:
"Even earlier, the bandits had often been a political tool that the sovereigns had used against the barons and the barons against the sovereigns. But during the Spanish domination, that is to say, for more than two centuries, there was not a single war fought by the internal forces of the Kingdom in which one of the enemy parties did not use bandits."
[F. S. Nitti, Eroi e briganti, original edition 1899, reprint Venosa 2000]Gino Doria has framed the history of southern brigandage in relation to that of the social class called "gentrymen" or "gentry" in even greater detail. The notabili and local factions of the nobility or bourgeoisie used bandits for their own struggles, to forcefully defeat their rivals. [G. Doria, Per la storia del Brigantaggio nelle Provincie Meridionali, in "Archivio Storico per le Province Napoletane", nuova serie, anno XVII, 1931]
Recourse to violence in the Bourbon period was regularly practiced by notabilati and local elites to ensure payment of fees and debts from the peasants, or to compete for control of local administrations. [A. Massafra (edited by), Il mezzogiorno preunitario: economia, società, istituzioni, Bari 1988, p. 915]
Lucy Riall, after having compared several interpretative hypotheses about banditry, concludes that "banditry in Sicily, and in many other parts of the south", would have been "a form of upward mobility". It was an instrument of power struggles between local "gentrymen". [L. Riall, La Sicilia e l’unificazione italiana. Politica liberale e potere locale (1815-1866), ed. or. Oxford 1998, tran. it. Torino 2004, p. 65]
Precisely because of this link between banditry and latifondisti there was also another between bandits and the Mafia, who were also in symbiosis with the notabilati. Some historians speak of a very close relationship between the Mafia organizations and the brigands.
The typical model of brigandage was that of Sicily, which saw the brigands on the one hand in collusion with and controlled by the local the Mafia, and on the other used as armed laborers by the latifondisti. In fact, there was a definite relationship between latifondisti, mafiosi and brigands: the latter were simply the lowest link in the chain and were used alternatively as brigands in the strict sense (against rivals and against the weaker sectors of the population) and as private field guards, therefore bodyguards and protectors of the big landowners.
For example, Vincenzo D'Alessandro argues that the Mafia of the nineteenth century originated from the transformation of armed bands in service of the "notabili" in the rural countrside into an urban phenomenon rooted in the coastal cities, where it tightened its relations with the political power. [V. D’Alessandro, Brigantaggio e mafia in Sicilia, Messina 1950, p. 155]
This is a long lasting historical phenomenon, so much so that the historian Giuseppe Galasso has refuted Hobsbawm's theory of "social banditism" for southern Italy, showing that brigandage in the Mezzogiorno in the seventeenth century was operated by barons to oppose monarchical power. [G. Galasso, Unificazione italiana e tradizione meridionale nel brigantaggio del Sud, in "Archivio Storico per le provincie napoletane", n. CI, a. XXII terza serie, 1983]
Far from being social revolutionaries, the brigands were purely and simply common criminals, used by parts of the old Bourbon ruling class to try to overthrow the new Italian State. The phenomenon, in itself purely criminal, was partially inflated by ultra-reactionary followers of legitimism (all aristocrats of rank) who were hired and sent to finance, arm and sometimes lead the brigand gangs, with disastrous results. It is hardly necessary to mention that legitimism and the nobility of absolutist blood were the antithesis of every socialist or anarchist idea, precisely as it was for the Bourbon kingdom and for its ultra-reactionary policies and linked only to the interests of a very restricted ruling oligarchy.
This relationship between the "gentrymen" and the brigands is also found in the case of Carmine Crocco. There is still no detailed study of the relations between the latifondisti and the notabili and this gang leader, but there is no doubt about its existence. Crocco, disinterested in political matters, was approached by the Bourbons who persuaded him to put himself in their service, receiving from them weapons, money and various kinds of support. [T. Pedio, Brigantaggio meridionale (1806-1863), Lecce 1987]
The gang leader himself makes ample allusions to these connivances in his autobiography:
"To many it may seem strange how my gang, so numerous and formidable, was able to rule the roost from 1861 to 1864 and that despite the fierce pursuit of the military, I was able safely cross the territory that separates Basilicata from Rome. Our salvation must be attributed to most of the lords and their powerful help, or at least their silence. During the various years of my life as a bandit, I slept a few times at a bivouac, and found lodging and refreshment from people considered by all to be intangible in every respect." [C. Crocco, Io brigante, Napoli 2005]Crocco, however, refuses to mention any names, preferring instead to observe the code of omertà:
"I know people who took charge of the reactionaries after the fall of Bourbon power, people who had thousands upon thousands of men under their control, secretly beginning with me, which was practical because I incited the population with my gang, and afterwards posing as liberals, they betrayed Francis II just as they had earlier betrayed Vittorio Emanuele. [...] But the compromisers and their accomplices should not be alarmed, as I will not speak; their names will die with me." [Crocco, Io brigante, cit.]He himself admits that he had even thought of becoming a feudal lord over the village of Aliano:
"I placed myself in the palace of a lord, who had fled with his family to Montalbano Jonico, where I was treated as a true sovereign by the steward and by his kind. And I was already beginning to believe myself a master, and I said to myself that after all I would have been content with that little duchy, provided that I myself was left in peace, as lord and master to collect the fruits of my lands." [Crocco, Io brigante, cit.]The aspiration to become "lord and master" of a country has nothing in common with the presumed social banditism theory of the Marxists, any more than does the relationships of connivance with "gentrymen" who used Crocco for their own ends, namely crimes that affected the civilian population.
Crocco recalls in an interview with Professor Salvatore Ottolenghi that he met anarchists and socialists in prison, but expresses total disregard for their ideas and says he also clashed with them due to disagreements. [R. Ribolla, Voci dall'ergastolo. Documenti Psicologici-criminali dal vero. Roma 1903.]
We may well conclude with the words of Basilide Del Zio, who maintains that "for Crocco there was no other flag except that of theft, always theft, and nothing but theft." [Del Zio, Il brigante Crocco, cit.]
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