Believing the jury had been fixed by organized crime, a mob broke into the jail where the men were being held and killed eleven of the prisoners, most by shooting.

Sugar planters, in particular, sought workers who were more efficient than formerly enslaved people; they hired immigrant recruiters to bring Italians to southern Louisiana.

[4] In a letter responding to an inquiry about immigration in New Orleans, Mayor Joseph A. Shakspeare expressed the common anti-Italian prejudice, complaining that the city had become attractive to "...the worst classes of Europe: Southern Italians and Sicilians...the most idle, vicious, and worthless people among us."

He claimed they were "filthy in their persons and homes" and blamed them for the spread of disease, concluding that they were "without courage, honor, truth, pride, religion, or any quality that goes to make a good citizen.

"[3] According to professor of history Humbert Nelli, Mayor Shakspeare had been elected as a Reform Democrat with the backing of the Louisiana Republican Party, which had grown increasingly powerless following the end of the Reconstruction era.

When asked who had shot him, Hennessy reportedly whispered to Captain William O'Connor, "dagos" (a derogatory term for Italians and others of Mediterranean heritage).

"[14] He appointed a Committee of Fifty to investigate "the existence of secret societies or bands of oath-bound assassins...and to devise necessary means and the most effectual and speedy measures for the uprooting and total annihilation" of any such organizations.

The letter ended on a menacing note: We hope this appeal will be met by you in the same spirit in which we issue it, and that this community will not be driven to harsh and stringent methods outside of the law, which may involve the innocent and guilty alike...Upon you and your willingness to give information depends which of these courses shall be pursued.

[16] Other prominent members of the Committee included General Algernon S. Badger, Judge Robert C. Davey, politician Walter C. Flower, Colonel James Lewis, and architect Thomas Sully.

One was a muzzle-loading shotgun of a type which was widely used throughout the American South but which the New Orleans Police Department claimed was a lupara, a "favorite" weapon of the Sicilian Mafia.

[21][10] Spurred to action by the popular accounts of Hennessy's murder, a 29-year-old newspaper salesman named Thomas Duffy walked into the prison on October 17, 1890, sought out Antonio Scaffidi, whom he had heard was a suspect, and shot him in the neck with a revolver.

The murder had taken place on a poorly lit street on a damp night[27] in a notoriously corrupt city[7][28] and the eyewitness testimony was unreliable.

[29] Afterward, when federal district attorney William Grant looked into the case, he reported that the evidence against the men was "exceedingly unsatisfactory" and inconclusive.

[36]As thousands of demonstrators gathered near the Parish Prison, Pasquale Corte, the Italian consul in New Orleans sought the help of Louisiana governor Francis T. Nicholls to prevent an outbreak of violence.

[37] Meanwhile, at the Clay statue, attorney William S. Parkerson was exhorting the people of New Orleans to "set aside the verdict of that infamous jury, every one of whom is a perjurer and a scoundrel.

[44] Although the thousands of demonstrators outside for the lynching were a spontaneous outburst, the killings were carried out by a relatively small, disciplined "execution squad" within the mob led by Parkerson and three other city leaders: Walter Denegre, lawyer; James D. Houston, politician and businessman; and John C. Wickliffe, editor of the New Delta newspaper.

Shortly after Hennessy's death, the Daily States informed readers that the suspects were "a villainous looking set" and described their appearance in ethnic terms, concluding, "They are not Italians, but Sicilians.

Depending on the source, "The Innocents" were either a White Supremacist street gang employed by the Regular Democratic Organization to commit voter intimidation and murder,[59] the beginning of the New Orleans crime family, or security guards hired to protect Macheca and his various businesses.

[61] For example, Colonel James Lewis, a member of the elite Committee of Fifty, was a mixed-race African-American man who had been an officer in the Louisiana Native Guard and leader of the New Orleans Republican Party.

[62] In fact, Lewis was one of the signatories of a letter to the Italian community, urging people to inform the Committee of Fifty about the suspects and threatening extrajudicial action.

[66][68] Massachusetts representative Henry Cabot Lodge, for example, claimed to deplore the mob's behavior and then proceeded to justify it while proposing new restrictions on Italian immigration.

The Italian consul Pasquale Corte left New Orleans in late May 1891 and the New York Times published his statement accusing the city politicians of responsibility for the lynchings.

[79] When President Harrison agreed to pay a $25,000 indemnity to the victims' families, Congress tried unsuccessfully to intervene against the reparations, accusing him of "unconstitutional executive usurpation of Congressional powers.

The Italian-American vote, which remained even more firmly on the political machine's side for decades after the lynchings, was a decisive factor in Mayor Shakspeare's defeat.

[83] Gaspare Marchesi, the boy who survived by hiding in the prison while his father was lynched, was awarded $5,000 in damages in 1893 after successfully suing the city of New Orleans.

[84] In an influential essay, Henry Cabot Lodge pointed out that "the paupers and criminals of Europe" were "pouring into the United States" and proposed a literacy test to weed out the least desirable immigrants.

[87][88][89] After the lynching, newspapers circulated wild rumors that thousands of Italian Americans were plotting to attack New Orleans and were wrecking railroads in New York and Chicago.

[97] In Vendetta: The True Story of the Largest Lynching in U.S. History (1977),[note 1] Richard Gambino, a professor at City University of New York, raised numerous questions about the investigation and trial and proposes an alternative theory about Hennessy's murder.

Among other things, Gambino notes that Hennessy had a "colorful" past that provided any number of possible motives to be subject to murder, none of which the police chose to investigate.

[62] In a film review that appeared in the same journal in 2000, Clive Webb calls the movie a "compelling portrait of prejudice" and recommends that historians consult the book for more information.