The census for the decade of
1850-60 indicated approximately 11,000 Americans listed themselves as having
been born in Italy. There are many reasons for this immigration, the political
situation in Italy at the time was at the apex of transition from a divided
peninsula to a unified nation from among many different powers: the Church,
Spain, France, Austria, kingdoms and principalities. Thus, there were many
political positions available from which activist could choose. Consequently, many decided for whatever
reasons to immigrate to the United States. Most had the destination of New York
City; it was here where they could find people of their own backgrounds speaking
their language and other cultural aspects. They had their own schools, when
they could afford them, and their own newspapers.
Francesco Secchi de Casale, a
political activist who escaped from Italian authorities, found refuge in New
York City and funded the publication of L’Europee Americano, the first
periodical printed both in English and Italian. It failed and later, it is
purported, he sold his watch and wife’s jewelry to fund a different periodical,
L’Eco d’Italia, The Echo of Italy. Many considered it the first important
Italian language weekly published in the United States. This was the newspaper
in which Antonio Meucci, the inventor of the telephone, published news of his
invention. And this was prior to his patent court case in the 1880s.
Italians in New York City had to
deal with a number of social issues, one was the teaching of Italian and its
culture. Casale sought to raise funds to
start an evening school for Italians in the Five Points slum area of New York
City. His intentions were to have Italian children receive the opportunity to
read and write Italian, develop math skills, and learn about the history of
Italy and the United States. Once again another one of his projects did not pan
out due to a lack of support. Undaunted, he went on to create another project which
was to move Italian immigrants out of the cities and into the farmlands of
America.
He attempted to get backing from
both the United States and Italian governments, neither one accepted his
proposals; consequently, he turned to the business world. Charles Landis, a
property developer, donated Twenty acres of land near Vineland, New Jersey, to
start a grape farming cooperative. Uniquely, after the Italians cleared the
land and planted the grapes, Thomas Barnwell Welch, founder of Welch’s Grape
Juice, bought the grapes to produce grape juice which at that time people referred
to it as unfermented wine.
While Casale was involved in many
social activities, the Civil War was looming in America. For many Italians,
Giuseppe Garibaldi was their inspiration. Many conjecture his republican views
led many Italians to back the Union cause. Nevertheless, there were Italians in
the Confederate army as well, for example a list of 341 Italian male residents
of New Orleans is available at http://www.ustica.org/genealogy/italian_brigade.htm.
Francesco Casale spearheaded the
formation of an Italian Legion, and later the founding of the Garibaldi Guard.
Many like-minded Italians joined Casale such as Luigi Tinelli, a former consul
to Portugal and an industrialist, who had experience as a militia commander.
Francesco Spinola recruited four regiments in New York, and President Lincoln
appointed him as their general. Count Luigi Palma di Cesnola, a veteran of the
Crimean War, heroically fought in the Civil War and suffering wounds, capture
and imprisonment by the Confederates. (See previous article about Cesnola).
Spinola, a hero, like Cesnola, was
engaging in a battle with his Spinola
Empire Brigade, when they found themselves in a precarious situation, i.e.,
they were outnumbered six to one. Spinola ordered his men to fix bayonets and
charged the enemy scattering the amazed adversaries before them into disorder.
The Garibaldi Guard was the nickname
of the 39th New York Infantry, a regiment of Italian-Americans
recruited mostly from New York City under the auspices of Francesco Casale and
other Italian leaders in the North. Most of the members of this regiment were
men who had fought under Giuseppe Garibaldi, the freedom fighter and republican
agitator. They wore a distinctive styled red shirt as part of their uniform to
show their connection to their countrymen, whose partisans had worn such shirts
in Italy. Other Italian nationals joined the guard as well; apparently, out of
a feeling that the Union’s cause, matched their own ideals of freedom and equal
justice. They also viewed the northern ideology as closely-allied with the aims
of Garibaldi and felt such an alliance lent credence to the great patriot’s
ideas, since other nations were clearly adopting those ideals.
In the South, especially New
Orleans, the biggest seaport, it is not surprising that many Italians landed
there. Consequently, with the outbreak of the civil war an Italian contingency
developed. A call went out for volunteers and Captain Joseph Santini, a most
prominent recruiter, gathered and led a small group of Italian Americans
calling themselves the Garibaldi Legion. They too showed their ethnic pride by
wearing a hat with plumes of the Italian colors and red shirts as that which Garibaldi’s
men wore in the famous, Expedition of the Thousand, when in 1860 a corps of
1000 volunteers, led by Garibaldi, sailed from Genoa and landed in Marsala,
Sicily to free the area of the rule of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, ruled
by the Bourbons.
Below is a picture of a Garibaldi Legionnaire from the Confederacy and The Garibaldi Guard Marching Troop of he New York 39th Regiment.
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