March 14, 1891 lynchings

The March 14, 1891 lynchings were a series of lynchings of eleven Italian Americans in New Orleans, Louisiana, for their alleged role in the murder of police chief David Hennessy. It was the largest mass lynching in U.S. history.

The lynching took place the day after the trial of nine of the nineteen men indicted in the murder. Six of these defendants had been acquitted, and a mistrial had been declared for the remaining three because the jury failed to agree on their verdicts. Believing the jury had been bribed, a mob broke into the jail where the men were being held and killed eleven of them. The mob numbered in the thousands and included some of the city's most prominent citizens. American press coverage of the event was largely congratulatory, and those responsible for the lynching were never charged.

The incident had serious national repercussions. Italy cut off diplomatic relations with the United States, sparking rumors of war. Increased anti-Italian sentiment led to calls for restrictions on immigration. The word "Mafia" entered the American lexicon, and the stereotype of the Italian-American mafioso was firmly established in the popular imagination.

The lynchings were the subject of the 1999 HBO movie Vendetta, starring Christopher Walken. The movie is based on a 1977 book by Richard Gambino.

On the evening of October 15, 1890, New Orleans police chief David Hennessy was shot by several gunmen as he walked home from work. Hennessy returned fire and chased his attackers before collapsing. When asked who had shot him, Hennessy reportedly whispered to Captain William O'Connor, "" (a derogatory term for Italians and others of Mediterranean heritage). Hennessy was awake in the hospital for several hours after the shooting, and spoke to friends, but did not name the shooters. The next day complications set in and he died.

There had been an ongoing feud between the Provenzano and Mantranga families, who were business rivals on the New Orleans waterfront. Hennessy had put several of the Provenzanos in prison, and their appeal trial was coming up. According to some reports, Hennessy had been planning to offer new evidence at the trial which would clear the Provenzanos and implicate the Mantrangas. If true, this would mean that the Mantrangas, and not the Provenzanos, had a motive for the murder. A policeman who was a friend of Hennessy's later testified that Hennessy had told him he had no such plans. In any case, it was widely believed that Hennessy's killers were Italian. Local papers such as the Times-Democrat and the Daily Picayune freely blamed "Dagoes" for the murder.

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