2

The Italian Language Press and Africa

A day after the brutal lynching of eleven Italian immigrants in New Orleans in 1891, Il Progresso Italo-Americano published a letter on its front page written by an Italian American named Marchese. Marchese expressed outrage over the cruel work of the mob in New Orleans and added that his hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts, commiserated with the victims. Moreover, he expressed particular shock over how this could happen in a “civilized” nation such as America. Echoing a sentiment that prevailed throughout the Italian American press, Marchese concluded that the barbaric act of lynching might be expected in Africa tenebrosa (dark, murky Africa) but not in the United States.1 In a letter to Cristofero Colombo, another New York Italian American daily, Alberto Dini went one step further by maintaining that “not even the savage population of Central Africa would approve of such a disgraceful action.”² According to a cynical Italian American press, the line between African “savagery” and American “civilization” became blurred: “But where are we? The only difference now between the free sons of America and the savages of Africa is that Americans have yet to become flesh eating cannibals.”³ In a scathing indictment of American lawlessness, African “savagery” was held as the standard against which to judge American society. In response to Dini’s letter, the Cristofero Colombo asserted, “At least cannibals respect the laws of primitive tribal justice so that a massacre like this would have been avoided.”⁴

Marchese’s and Dini’s letters reflect not only the vicissitudes of Italian immigrant topographies of race, color, and civilization in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century U.S. society but also a transnational racial awareness. These immigrants had seen parallel issues in their homeland. Coming out of Italian unification in 1860, Italians wrestled with the task of constructing a unique Italian identity from the fractious provincial and regional identities that had characterized Italy’s history. Compared with its European neighbors, Italy suffered from high illiteracy rates, low educational achievement, infrastructure problems, and low political participation that rendered the task of nation building rather bleak. However, using the state and the military as the means through which to consolidate power, Italy’s bourgeoisie—held together by a common language and literature—used the language of patriotism to mold a nationalistic history connecting postunification Italy to a distant past. According to John Dickie, the proliferation of racial stereotypes related to the problem of the Mezzogiorno (Italian South) must be viewed within the context of upper-class and elite Italian anxiety over the probability of creating a successful nation-state after unification.5 Indeed, a critical theme informing nationalistic and patriotic attitudes disseminating within Italy’s elite classes revolved around the emerging concept of the South as a region marked by backwardness and criminality, savagery and darkness. Fused with these perceptions was the Mezzogiorno’s negative connection to Africa, especially central Africa, as the ultimate image of darkness and savagery. One of the many factors creating “imagined communities,” to borrow Benedict Anderson’s phrase, is positing a normative value to one’s version of nation by employing definitions of what it is not. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, imagined constructions of Italian identity and Italian nationhood emerged simultaneously with alternate constructions of a backward, criminal, and African South.⁶

For Italian immigrants negotiating a harsh, nativist environment, the pages of mainstream newspapers in New York City became a site for identity formation, for editors and journalists put forth a fledgling notion of Italian identity that had only recently emerged out of postunification Italy. Reacting to American violence against Italians, especially instances of lynching, Italian language newspapers propped up Italian civilization in stark contrast to the savage barbarism of American mob violence. Influenced by contemporary attitudes in Italy that exalted italianita by degrading the darker other, including southern Italians, Italian language newspapers were quite comfortable with a racial hierarchy that positioned Africa as the lowest rung on the racial ladder. Frequently New York’s Italian language press constructed Africa as a primitive, savage continent, the polar opposite of European, Western societies, and often employed the phrase continente Nero (black continent) or Africa tenebrosa (murky, dark Africa).7 Africa became a convenient trope for Italian language newspapers wrestling with their own questions of Italian American identity in a new and often inhospitable country. In addition, radical Italian language newspapers utilized this image to express their incredulity over how gullible immigrants allowed themselves to be bamboozled by religious doctrines and leaders. For mainstream newspapers, however, their portrayals of Africa as the savage, black continent served multiple goals. Empowered by the moral certainty of their case, mainstream newspapers responded to American violence and American calls for race-based immigration restriction by questioning American civilization. This harsh rhetoric, and the inflated sense of their own community’s civility, bolstered an emerging Italian identity. In addition, Italian colonial ventures into northern Africa in the 1890s and again in 1911–1912 served to further inform this identity by providing fertile ground for hypernationalistic appeals within the Italian immigrant community. The perception of Africa as uncivilized, savage, and dark was a key element of this strategy.

* * *

From the 1880s through the 1920s, Italian language newspapers consistently employed the image of Africa as the most appropriate way to convey savagery. Much like American contemporaries, the editors subscribed to a hierarchical notion of race. Designations of civilized and savage nations littered the pages of mainstream and radical newspapers that generally regarded European nations, as well as the United States, as free, democratic, and civilized nations.⁸ For instance, the anarchist publication Il Grido degli Oppressi mocked the tainted accomplishments of Christopher Columbus in a scathing indictment of the man, as well as the Italian people who revered his image: “Rather than slavery and destruction to the Natives living in America, Columbus could have brought what is European civility to America and returned to Europe only what was superfluous of the natural wealth of the American land.”⁹ For the anarchists, therefore, the humanistic goal should have been European civilization rather than civilization in the form of colonial exploitation. Who was civilized and who was primitive was never in doubt. Similarly, Il Proletario deployed the trope of primitive behavior to ridicule militarism and senseless killing among nations and peoples. In an idealistic critique of why civilized nations make war, Il Proletario stated, “When we speak of cannibalism, we smile with pride and say we are superior to the savages. But who are the true savages?”10 Yet the paper clearly spoke to the belief in a hierarchy of civilization that was not only understood but also acknowledged.¹¹

In particular, Italians extolled American civilization as an appropriate model to emulate. For instance, in the midst of the Civil War, Filippo Manetta, the author of an influential treatise on black slavery, argued that contact with “white civilization” would be the only way to partially uplift those occupying the “lower rungs” of the racial scale. Writing to defend the Southern states’ position in the Civil War, Manetta proclaimed, “I am of the opinion that the dogma of the equality of man is damaging to our civilization…. If there are differences between individual and individual, why not between nation and nation, and between race and race? Why should there not be a sharp distinction between the European and the Black, or between these two and the Chinese and the Hindustani?”¹² Clearly, Manetta believed that the only way to partially civilize African Americans was to hold them in slavery under the dominance of the white man. In addition, some Italians, such as Giuseppe Giacosa, a northern Italian playwright who toured the United States in the 1890s, endorsed America’s self-proclaimed role as a “civilizing nation.” Giacosa declared, “Anyone who has lived here for any length of time must readily acknowledge that the [American] people behave in a more civilized and dignified manner than ours.”¹³

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, American civilization became a topic of intense debate in the Italian language press as Italian immigrants faced negative perceptions, discrimination, and violence upon their arrival. For the Italian language mainstream press, in particular, dark Africa, or Africa tenebrosa, became a useful vehicle, a familiar language, to channel disappointment and outrage over American mistreatment and negative portrayals. “How can they be the most civilized people in the world if they lynch people?” asked Il Progresso. “Lynching only occurs in uncivilized nations…. And if it is a civilized nation, she [America] has a duty to educate the barbarians from the South.”14 Unlike their own claims supporting Italian colonial ventures into Africa, mainstream newspapers attacked American imperial claims of bearing the white man’s burden. Indeed, the press ironically mocked American missionary excursions into China and central Africa in light of the uncivilized behavior directed at Italian immigrants in the United States.¹⁵ Perhaps the harshest contemporary criticism “demoted” American civilization to a racial classification akin to African. In 1899, the mainstream Il Progresso declared, “Why do they say they [Americans] have to send people to civilize the barbarians in the Philippines when we have white Matabeli here in the United States?” The word Matabeli is derived from “Matabeleland,” which is contemporary Zimbabwe. In this example, the uncivilized actions of Americans contradict their supposed mission to civilize Filipinos. However, by juxtaposing racial signifiers and giving the “savage” a white face, use of the term “white Matabeli” raised questions as to whether Il Progresso believed Americans could ever be completely equivalent to “uncivilized” and “black” Africans.¹⁶

Although espousing a progressive agenda toward human rights and social, political, and economic equity, the Italian language radical press also embraced the familiar language of racial hierarchy, in particular the image of Africa tenebrosa. Inveighing against capitalism, southern Italian ignorance, religion, or prominenti, the radical press, much like its mainstream counterpart, often expressed scorn and disappointment through comparisons to savage Africa. For example, “Ancient and Modern Cannibalism,” an article in the anarchist La Questione Sociale, lamented the exploitive character of capitalism by juxtaposing modern nations with primitive societies. “We are worse than the savages because we have a keenly developed intellect and should know better…. in the so called civilized countries and especially in those we inhabit the form of savage African cannibalism does not exist…. however, many people are still killed by the thousands in different ways every day.”¹⁷ Radical papers often employed the image of African savagery even when condemning race-based theories of oppression. In 1916 the socialist Il Proletario sarcastically chided a Boston clergyman for promoting race purification theories. The paper added that the reverend was fortunate his comments had a forum such as America, “which is the land of the cowboys and where civilization is on a par with the barbarians of equatorial Africa.” Ironically, this example illuminates the facile manner in which the press could criticize racial hierarchy by simultaneously sustaining the image of primitive Africa to convey America’s descent into savagery.18 Many other examples similarly utilized language likening American capitalism to “savage beasts from central Africa”¹⁹ or “conquistadors of savage Africa.”²⁰

Perhaps the radical press’s most compelling narrative compared southern Italians, both in Italy and in the United States, to African savages. Flowing from a deep-seated animosity toward the Catholic Church and clergy, radicals consistently targeted immigrant religious traditions and rituals as objects of scorn. Radical newspapers often described transplanted public processions venerating local patron saints or Madonnas as festivals of “superstition, prejudice, and ignorance—a celebration of darkness in the middle of so much light, civility and progress.”²¹ Further, they portrayed southern Italian immigrants as “savage people from the backcountry of Calabria and Sicily—without shoes, with long hair resembling witches more than human beings.”²² The radical press’s critique illuminates how easily the civilization of southern Italians could be questioned and marginalized. In addition to condemning priests and prominenti, sovversivi took aim at mainstream Italian language newspapers such as Il Progresso Italo-Americano and Bolletino della Sera, criticizing them for their support of a “feast organized by a mass of criminals.”²³ For example, ridiculing Italian immigrants and the mainstream newspaper Bolletino della Sera, the anarchist La Questione Sociale stated that “Italians above all people believe in miracles as if they were in the Middle Ages…. it is a conflict between ancient barbary and modern civilization.”²⁴ From their perspective, some of the blame could be attributed to an infantile trust in priests that permeated southern Italian actions. The anarchist La Questione Sociale explained that this behavior was not unique to Italians but was exhibited often by Zulu tribes in Africa.²⁵

Much like its opponents in the mainstream Italian language press, the socialist Il Proletario remained quite conscious of the perception and image of Italian immigrants. To radicals, “ignorant, illiterate, superstitious southern Italian immigrants” had become an easy target for swindling priests and the prominenti who supported them. And, according to the Italian language radical press, spectacles such as religious feasts and processions served as a clandestine ruse designed to divest the Italian working class of its wages. For example, every summer, socialist and anarchist newspapers served to reinforce existing images of civilization and savagery in its coverage of the religious feast held at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in East Harlem. Embarrassed and frustrated over the behavior of their countrymen and countrywomen, Italian radical newspapers excoriated southern Italian immigrants for their gullibility and ignorance. Il Proletario asked incredulously if the “orgies and fantasies of the pelli rosse or the ottentoti could be any more inferior to the sad spectacle our Italian colony has offered us the last few days.”26 Pelle rosse (redskin) was a frequently used term for Native Americans in both the mainstream and the socialist press. Referring to the language of the Khoikhoi peoples of southwestern Africa and Namibia, ottentoti derived from the Italian word ottentotto, meaning Hottentots, and was an oft-used marker to distinguish savage from civilized in the Italian language press during the period of mass immigration.²⁷

“The Hearts of Immigrants Beat in Unison with That of Mother Italy”

An Italian civilization defined in part by the image of a black, African other informed the emergence of an Italian identity within the pages of Italian language mainstream newspapers. Given that the Italian language press so frequently associated what was considered uncivilized or savage with Zulus and Hottentots, it was unsurprising that Italians perceived themselves as quite the opposite. And, for immigrant arrivals who did not possess a strong sense of nation or Italianness upon arrival, the Italian government’s late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century colonial wars with African countries served as a graphic example of this perceived racial hierarchy.

Following the example of other European states in the late nineteenth century, Italy embarked on a colonial path into Africa. This was fueled by a belief that only European civilization could deliver Africa, yet African conquest would solve domestic problems as well. For the recently unified Italian nation, the “scramble for Africa” served to awaken political and popular consciousness about people of color and highlighted issues of national prestige, foreign diplomacy, and domestic overpopulation.28 Quarrels with France over colonial possessions, trade agreements, and control of the western Mediterranean caused Italy to come to the imperial table later than France and England. The French occupation of Tunis in 1881, in particular, was a heavy blow to Italy, both in prestige and in national interests, especially because more than 9,000 Italian settlers lived there as compared with only 200 French. In an attempt to protect its interests and prevent isolation in world power politics, Italy signed a defensive alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary known as the Triple Alliance. Although the alliance provided some security, it did not give Italians the sense of pride and glory that many hungered for.

According to Martin Clark, “Italian colonialism was not founded on any need to secure raw material supplies…. it was the agricultural crisis of the mid-1880s and the need to export social problems that underlay it, together with a frustrated desire for self-assertion.”²⁹ Indeed, some of the greatest enthusiasm was to be found in the South, where the pervasiveness of agrarian misery and overpopulation made the idea of emigration to foreign territories under the Italian flag attractive.³⁰ In Italy’s effort to carve a niche for itself on the African continent, initial interest centered on the Red Sea around the port of Massawa, which Italy occupied in 1885. By 1890, Italy had established a protectorate over Ethiopia (Abyssinia) and pushed farther inland, linking its Red Sea possessions of Massawa and Assab to form Eritrea; Italy also began the conquest of Somalia, which formally became an Italian colony in 1905. However, disputes between Emperor Menelik and the Italian government over Italian claims of a protectorate over Ethiopia, as well as campaigns to prevent the French from gaining a foothold in the region, resulted in the eruption of hostilities between Italian forces and Menelik’s indigenous army. By the late 1890s, Italy had become embroiled in a very expensive colonial war in Africa.³¹

Although the Italian military had already experienced a bitter colonial defeat at Dogali in 1887, the battle of Adowa in March 1896 proved to be the most humiliating and enduring. Italian prestige and honor, both domestically and internationally, suffered a crushing blow after the defeat at Adowa, resulting in the exit of disgraced Prime Minister Francesco Crispi. When news of the defeat reached Italy, the country rose in open protest as tens of thousands of workers marched into the Piazza del Duomo in Milan to demonstrate against Crispi, shouting, “Viva Menelik,” “Abbasso Crispi,” and “Via dall’Africa.” According to Umberto Levra, a “preinsurrectional tension exploded in spontaneous demonstrations in the piazzas of Italy.”32 Although Italy retained the territories of Eritrea and Somalia, the defeat at Adowa remained embedded in the collective popular consciousness of Italians. Mass-produced pamphlets containing songs and poems were sold and circulated widely throughout the country in the aftermath of Adowa. One particular pamphlet, in an effort to avenge the defeat psychologically, drew attention to the period before Adowa as if to deny the experience of disaster. Entitled “Vittoria Italiana in Africa” (Italian victory in Africa), the epic poem describes the honor and valor of Italian soldiers as they battled the “wicked and nasty” African soldiers. The image of the African is that of the barbarian savage who engages in military subterfuge that “civilized” nations such as Italy would not employ in battle. Produced for mass propaganda, these kinds of pamphlets created a negative image of the African that seeped into the popular mind.³³

Despite the disappointing outcome, Italy’s attempts to colonize Ethiopia in the 1890s functioned as an important element in community formation within Italian immigrant enclaves.³⁴ A leaflet that was printed in Baltimore by Il Comitato Italiano, an Italian immigrant organization that supported Italy during its Ethiopian campaign, stressed, “Although there is support in Italy, we here in the United States want to assert our solidarity with our brothers across the great ocean…. our sentiments are so strong we need to assert ourselves as Italians.”³⁵ Addressed to “Connazionali,” or countrymen, the leaflet was distributed all over the country and even as far away as Denver, Colorado, to champion the cause of the homeland. Throughout the campaign, which had begun in January 1896, such manifestations of support for Italian victory over African forces appeared to be ubiquitous within the Italian immigrant communities from Lawrence, Massachusetts, to Chicago, Illinois.³⁶ Italian immigrants inaugurated new ethnic organizations that began by “saluting the heroic Italian soldiers in Africa and the hope for a deserved victory.”³⁷ A group of Italian women in Chicago organized within the ethnic community a collection drive specifically for the war with Ethiopia, the proceeds of which were sent directly to Queen Margherita of Italy.³⁸ Italian American men were sufficiently inspired to offer their lives in the war against Africa. In Colorado, some wrote letters to the Italian ambassador in Washington requesting permission to send volunteer soldiers to fight in Eritrea.39 In New York, one Italian captain recruited men to fight in the name of the Italian ambassador until it was discovered that he was not authorized to do so.⁴⁰ Perhaps the most symbolic example of the nationalist sentiment provoked by the African campaign came from a letter to the Italian ambassador in Washington. The letter was written in the name of a retired captain who had served in the Italian cavalry in 1867 and now asked if he could be accorded the honor of serving as a simple soldier in the Italian war effort in Africa.⁴¹ Although the Italian embassy politely refused all considerations for Italian American volunteer soldiers, not to mention the symbolic gesture of a retired officer, such overtures illustrated the range of enthusiasm for Italian colonial aims in Africa.

However, the Italian language mainstream press stoked this fierce nationalist support and played a significant role in making the African campaign a cause célèbre within Italian American communities. Newspaper owners such as Carlo Barsotti fostered a collective sense of Italian patriotism and fidelity to la patria most immigrants had never experienced. Even efforts to raise funds for the war effort became competitive ventures as Barsotti’s Il Progresso Italo-Americano indicted a rival paper, L’Araldo Italiano, for allowing an Italian committee from Baltimore to fund-raise through that newspaper. L’Araldo Italiano responded by accusing Barsotti, owner of Il Progresso Italo-Americano, of embezzling contributions from his constituents.⁴²

The Italian language mainstream press, in particular, justified Italian aggression in Africa on the basis of Italian civilization, and coverage of the war frequently defended Italian colonial initiatives for that reason. According to L’Eco d’Italia, “Success in civilizing the African and suppressing the inferior race will hopefully benefit the civilized world…. Black, obscure Africa is almost coming into the light. European civilization will be imported by love or by force—with religion or with the machine gun. Civilizing the inferior races is not a question of sentiment, it is a necessity that the civilized races cannot ignore.”⁴³ In Il Progresso, Leopoldo Franchetti, an Italian politician who had helped expose the terrible conditions in Sicily and now urged colonization of Eritrea by Italian peasants, warned that “to abandon the Italian colonies was impossible. The great benefit would be in creating an Italian race on the other side of the sea—a democratic society made up of proprietary farmers.”44

After Italy’s costly defeat at Adowa in 1896, Italian Americans feared that losing to an African army would not only damage Italian prestige internationally but exacerbate an already negative American perception of Italians. Therefore, although Adowa did not produce the victorious result desired by the nascent immigrant community, the mainstream press continued to depict Ethiopia with racially informed and bitter characterizations. For instance, various newspapers described victorious Ethiopians as “barbaric cannibals who eat raw meat and do not wear shoes.”⁴⁵ L’Eco d’Italia vividly described the physical attributes of Menelik, the Ethiopian emperor who led the war against Italy, and emphasized his “flat nose with large nostrils, a mouth that is too large along with large teeth that protrude outward and are very visible as soon as he opens his fat lips.”⁴⁶ The Italian language mainstream press also directed some bitterness toward European countries that had assisted African nations with military aid. L’Eco d’Italia lamented that through military assistance to African nations, European countries such as Russia and France had violated custom and degraded them. “Russia and France have broken the usual agreement that European nations do not help these kinds of barbarians…. it was understood that European nations went there to bring civilization and progress and that is what Italy is doing.”⁴⁷ While incredibly humbling and unsuccessful, Italian colonial efforts in Africa during 1896 provided Italian immigrants in the United States an opportunity, albeit brief, to uplift the Italian race. It is not at all inconceivable that the rhetoric of Italian civilizing missions in Africa ameliorated immigrant self-consciousness, as well as informed a concerted effort to impress American detractors who questioned the racial suitability of Italians. Only fifteen years later, events in North Africa would provide Italians in New York City with another opportunity to bask in the civilized glory of the Italian race and nation.

Libya and Tripoli, 1911–1912

After the prospect of colonizing Ethiopia ended abruptly with the defeat of the Italians at Adowa in 1896, an opportunity to avenge this disaster emerged when Italy invaded Tripoli at the end of 1911. As it did in the late nineteenth century, the recently unified Italian liberal state felt the need to assert itself on the stage of geopolitical imperialism. Although Italy was part of the Triple Alliance with Austria-Hungary and Germany, its leaders were aware of their nation’s relative lack of power and wealth compared with its neighbors. Therefore, late to the table of territorial acquisitions, Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti resuscitated the Italian campaign for Africa by targeting one of the only remaining areas of Africa to which Italy might possibly lay claim.

Although Libya was a desert and not very fertile, one of the primary motivations of the colonialists was the hope that this new colony would provide an area of settlement for the vast number of poverty-stricken southern Italians. Italian nationalists hoped that once Libya was an Italian possession, the tide of southern Italian migration would be rerouted closer to home rather than continuing their journey to New York or Buenos Aires. In 1905, Italy had begun a policy of peaceful economic penetration into Libya and slowly created an uncomfortable situation for the Ottoman Turks who ruled the territory. Creating a situation where Italian business interests would seem to need protection, it was the apparent assassination of two Italian officials working in Tripoli in the fall of 1911 that set off a military conflict. Despite the fact that the war remained at a stalemate for months, Italy achieved its aim by default. Benefiting from the Ottoman Empire’s increasing weakness, in July 1912 the Turks and Italians negotiated a peace settlement. With the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne on October 8, 1912, Italy formally annexed Libya.

Unlike New York’s Italian language mainstream newspapers, the radical press moved quickly to criticize and expose Italian rationales for war with Libya and the Ottoman Turks. Sovversivi argued that imperialist gains, rather than advancing civilization, motivated capitalist nations. However, although condemning the Italian government’s imperialism, and by virtue of this critique defending African sovereignty, the radical press still maintained a perception of Africa as uncivilized.48 Il Proletario denounced all forms of blind jingoist patriotism as propaganda to keep the population ignorant or distracted from their miserable plight. Its criticism of the Italian government’s inability and seeming unwillingness to civilize southern Italians resembled a subtle embarrassment over a certain class of Italians: “Why is Italy going to Tripolitania when it can bring civility to Italy first…. It appears that the primitive tribes are happy the way they are as opposed to southern Italians who are miserable.”49

The small town of Africo, Calabria, provided a graphic example of how sovversivi relied upon the image of Africa to construct the ideal Italian immigrant and in doing so often embraced a perception of Africa very similar to that of Il Progresso Italo-Americano.⁵⁰ Writing in Il Proletario, Leonardo Frisina, a Calabrian and occasional contributor to the socialist newspaper, argued that Italian governmental resources could be better spent at home and attacked the misdeeds of Italy’s colonial effort in Libya. To defend this premise, Frisina cited an article published in 1912 in the patriotic and influential Italian journal Tribuna Illustrata. Africo, the article informed, probably received its name from the descendants of African slaves who were captured, and possibly escaped, during the days of the Roman Empire. Differentiating between African and Italian culture, the author explained the unique customs and practices particular to this town, such as burying pigs before eating them, stealing sheep, and begging in the streets.

According to Frisina, when socialists argued “in Calabria there still existed barbarous and savage villages,” Italian nationalists had summarily dismissed their views as the rant of political extremists.⁵¹ With some measure of sarcasm Frisina played an interesting game of logic as he attempted to expose the hypocrisy of the Italian government’s colonial excursions. Criticizing the patriotic and self-aggrandizing habits of the Italian government, and in particular the Tribuna Illustrata (a paper that the socialists perceived as a government-subsidized mouthpiece), Frisina stated that “if Darwin could show in 1912 that Africans in Calabria were nearer to orangutans than Adam and Eve, this demonstration still would not satisfy the Tribuna Illustrata because they must always adhere to the notion that Italy is a civilized country.”⁵² However, in an effort to condemn the jingoistic patriotism of a journal such as Tribuna Illustrata, he conveyed an acceptance of the Italian belief of Africa as uncivilized: “Never would they [Tribuna Illustrata] say there are uncivilized people in Italy…. In fact, when there are feasts these African people sell our sons and daughters into slavery to rich people … we suggest that Tribuna Illustrata advise the Italian government to spend more money to civilize Africans in Italy, rather than spending it in Tripoli.”53 The discussion over Africo reflected how the unspoken and uneasy association between Italy and Africa often intersected problematically for Italian immigrants.

Il Proletario facilely employed Africa as the litmus test by which savagery should be measured. Questioning the Italian government’s rationale for venturing to Libya to “civilize savages,” the paper cynically insisted that the government should redirect its energy to civilize many parts of southern Italy beyond Africo.⁵⁴ For example, Il Proletario described the actions of the “devoted imbeciles” from Catania (Sicily) as they celebrated the Feast of Saint Alfio and stated, “We have seen things there that you can only equate with things you would see with tribes in the indigenous Congo.” According to Il Proletario:

Many of these people go to the feast at midnight and the men and women begin by walking completely nude except for a small piece of red cloth that barely covers their private areas. They run through main avenues of the city like this just to try and obtain miracles. Ha! If a foreigner would see us! Surely, they wouldn’t think to find this behavior in Italy, not even Tripoli, but probably it would be expected more from the cannibals of central Africa. They shriek and act like Indians.⁵⁵

Once again, Indians and Africans are lumped together as symbols of the savage half of the dichotomous civilization/savagery construct.

The Italian language mainstream press interpreted events in Libya through a much different lens than did the radicals. By this period, the mainstream press in New York City had combined circulations of more than 200,000 copies and enjoyed a much wider readership among Italian immigrants in New York City, as well as outside New York. Proprietors such as Barsotti at Il Progresso and Frugone at Bolletino had established themselves as community leaders within the Italian colony of New York City. In line with patriotic Italian journals such as Tribuna Illustrata, Barsotti and Frugone, along with the papers’ editors, interpreted the Libyan conflict as a means to attain respect not only internationally but also in a more immediate sense domestically and locally.

On September 28, 1911, Bolettino della Sera ran a three-row headline that shouted, “40,000 Italian Soldiers Headed to Turkey—Italian Ultimatum to Turkey Blows Today.” Only two days later the headline read, “Tripoli Ours.”56 Bolletino’s coverage of the conflict was not unlike that of other Italian language mainstream dailies that draped their front pages with news about the war, Italian soldiers, and international reaction. This coverage lasted for several months and created an opportunity for Italian language newspapers to build upon the virtues of Italians, the narrative of Italian civilization, and, more broadly, the continued construction of an Italian racial identity. The mainstream press was keenly aware of past military failures in North Africa, particularly the defeat at Adowa in 1896. Frequent allusions to Adowa rationalized the defeat as a function of weak national will, while others referenced how these perceptions remained misguided. Either way, Italy’s defeat only fifteen years earlier to Ethiopian forces remained fresh. Although the failed colonial venture in Ethiopia in the 1890s rallied a nascent nationalism among immigrant Italians, the bitter defeat to Menelik’s forces certainly stung those Italians in the United States who hoped to gain a measure of respect from imperialist ventures abroad. Newspaper coverage of Italian ventures in Libya in 1911 and 1912 served a crucial role in solidifying an emerging nationalist identity, while simultaneously functioning to influence American perceptions of Italians.

Unsurprisingly, the mainstream press portrayed Italy’s motives in initiating military actions in Libya as noble and unselfish. Some rationales went as far as implying that Italy was a reluctant aggressor, only becoming involved out of patriarchal obligation to reconstitute a fatherless family.⁵⁷ Il Progresso declared that “Italy’s glorious tricolor flag” would “open the eyes of faraway people in a new era of redemption. It’s not the cannon that pushes Italy in Tripoli, but the voice of conscience that brings us to the land of Mohammed to bring a new civility. Providence will guide this patriotic action and vile are the people that try to stop the glorious sons of Italy.”⁵⁸ Bolletino della Sera agreed, stating that “every honest person who knows the situation has to credit the Italians in that Italy does not ask for glory in victory over Turks, but simply wants to end the brutality and protect justice and its people.”⁵⁹

Intense coverage of the Libyan conflict littered the pages of Italian mainstream newspapers and offered editors and owners a ready-made opportunity to assert Italian civilization. Although northern Africans had sometimes been distinguished from central Africans, in this instance the mainstream press facilely depicted Africans in Tripoli as savage and neatly viewed the region as part of Africa tenebrosa.60 Along with descriptions of Turks as “barbarous” people who represented a “black spot” on human progress, Italian language newspapers perceived the conflict as a battle between civilization and savagery, Islam and Christianity, light and darkness.⁶¹ For example, citing the proximity of Tripoli to the island of Sicily as a prime and obvious factor in the Italian government’s interest in the area, Il Progresso Italo-Americano remarked that the city “remained in the hold of medieval barbarism.”⁶² Bolletino della Sera added that “there has never been a more favorable occasion to redeem European civilization and put an end to the orgies of Turkey that consist of slaughtering Christians.”⁶³

To Italian language editors and owners, the reaction of the American and many European newspapers to the outbreak of hostilities in Libya served as an occasion to defend Italian honor and contrast Italian civilization with African.⁶⁴ In one instance, Il Progresso scolded American newspapers, in particular a London newspaper cartoon that lampooned the Italian colony by branding Sicilians in Libya criminals. Sensitive to negative depictions of southern Italians as prone to criminality, Il Progresso seamlessly conflated its defense of Italians within the context of African colonization, stating “that it was high time for the world to stop printing nonsense about Italians in general and Sicilians in particular.”⁶⁵ Italian language newspapers interpreted Italy’s invasion of Libya as proof to Americans that Italy, and by extension Italian immigrants, belonged within the pantheon of civilized nations and peoples. To that end, Italian language mainstream newspapers closely monitored American press coverage and frequently updated its readers with translations of American newspaper articles supporting Italian colonialism in Africa. In one instance, multiple newspapers swiftly praised the work of journalist Arthur Brisbane, who wrote for the New York Evening Journal, for defending Italian actions in Libya. Almost as if to convince Italians rather than Americans, L’Araldo Italiano insisted that “without a doubt, with this war American sympathy will be with Italy, that is, with intelligence and civilization against barbarism.”⁶⁶ American responses that questioned Italy’s motives and methods in Libya only served to frustrate and anger Italian language mainstream editors and owners. In an article titled “Civilization and Chivalry of the Italians,” the author is confused as to how American journals could possibly defend savagery over civilization. Highlighting differences between Western, civilized, and Christian nations and Muslim countries, Il Progresso reminded Western newspapers of Turkish massacres in Armenia and added, “The difference between Italian civilizations is that we treat all people the same way.”67

Mainstream owners and editors interpreted events in Tripoli within the context of an emerging collective identity as Italians informed by an italianita generated from their experience in the United States. And, as they had done in the past, they took the lead in stoking, and in many respects creating, a collective Italian racial consciousness. L’Araldo Italiano described the jubilant displays of Italians whose excitement and pride over the Italian conquest sent the paper’s editions, along with its evening journal, Il Telegrafo, flying off the newsstands. Reflective of the importance and reach of the immigrant press within Italian colonies, L’Araldo stated, “Whoever has a newspaper—and everyone has one in the Italian community—reads aloud the latest news to everyone.”⁶⁸ By March, readers could see full-page advertisements peddling the latest illustrated editions of the “true and complete history of the Italian and Turkish War.”⁶⁹ Akin to Columbus Day celebrations and exhortations to have Italian language taught in New York City schools, proprietors such as Barsotti organized subscription drives to collect money in support of Italian soldiers and their families. One such drive in Il Progresso in December 1911 pointed to the “colonies’ meritorious charity to the race” and listed the names of donors who were instrumental in “renewing the ancient glory of Rome” in their support of Tripoli’s conquest.⁷⁰ L’Araldo Italiano also ran a public subscription drive urging Italian immigrants to support the cause with the headline “For Heart, Patriotism, and National Dignity.”⁷¹ Quick to point out the fervency of the New York City Italian colonies in support of the Tripoli invasion, newspapers reported that the “hearts of immigrants beat in unison with that of mother Italy.”⁷²

Although loath to admit it, prominenti sought to capitalize on this moment of conquest, especially during this crucial period, by tracing Italy’s invasion of Tripoli as part of a legacy of imperialist conquest stretching back to ancient Rome. Articles laden with jingoistic language celebrated how military conquest would serve as redemption for Italians, and by extension Italian immigrants.73 L’Araldo Italiano positioned this battle neatly within the context of Roman history and proudly asserted that Italian soldiers were “fighting with heroism in their blood against a horde of marauding barbarians.” Il Progresso urged the Italian military to “re-conquer what used to belong to Rome.”⁷⁴ Some contended that Italy’s position was stronger now than in the past. According to Bolletino della Sera, “For centuries … the Italian people and the great people of Rome had soldiers trying to civilize Africa. So the civilized world should applaud Italy of today, stronger, better and more noble than ancient Rome for proposing to civilize Africa and transform its desert into fertile land.”⁷⁵ Differentiating between Italian civilization and African savagery, mainstream newspapers neatly incorporated Calabrians, Neapolitans, Sicilians, and all other provincial Italian immigrants into a collective identity that could stretch its lineage back to the Roman Empire: “The people from the Italian Alps, crowned with glory to the great and noble Sicily from the Adriatic to the Tyrrhenian sea littered with superb destinies where Galileo kept his head bowed on the sacred work has responded with a great patriotic fervor of the Italian Red Cross appeal in favor of families dead and wounded in the fighting in Roman Tripoli.”⁷⁶

“Viva l’Italia!” declared L’Araldo Italiano as it reveled in the glory of Italy’s attempt to bring “light” to the evil Ottoman Empire. However, addressing this historically fragmented community of New York Italians, L’Araldo cautioned that in this anxious moment, it was imperative to transcend differences and “only be Italian.” The paper fervently hoped that success in Tripoli would erase the “gray vision … of Adua in front of our eyes and in our soul.”⁷⁷ Consistent with prominent efforts to smooth over historical divisions among Italian immigrants, colonial ventures into the “dark continent” served multiple purposes. Portraying Italy’s motives as noble and benevolent, Italian language mainstream newspapers defended military aggression with paternalistic rationales resonant of the white man’s burden. Graphically differentiating Italian and Christian civilization from the Turk, the African, and the Muslim barbarians, prominenti utilized aggression against an African other to explicitly contrast civilized Italians with savage Africans. Italian immigrants were thus bombarded with patriotic and nationalistic rhetoric and images attempting to replace immigrant insecurities with Italian racial pride. Prominenti interpreted military ventures within the most glorious example they could conjure: the Roman Empire. In the process, the glory of Rome would serve as an instrumental force in healing the emotional and political wounds still lingering from the humiliation at Adowa. Consistent with subscription drives to honor Italian heroes such as Columbus and Dante, or efforts to have the Italian language taught in New York City schools, proprietors such as Barsotti and Frugone tapped into the glory of Rome as a strategy in identity formation well before Benito Mussolini’s rise to power in the 1920s. With an eye toward an American audience, as much as the Italian immigrant community, the prominenti press perceived and transmitted military dominance of an African country not only as evidence of Italian civilization but as a venture that was seamlessly rooted in the newly imagined Italian past.