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Historical News and Anecdotes from San Pietro Avellana - Chapter 6


Circumstances from 1860 to 1914

Translated by Lorry Labate.

Around 1800, the Neapolitan kingdom, because of the instability of the governments of that time and of the consequent weakness of the authorities raged again with sad brigandage. In 1807 a gang of strong thugs of beyond 100 men, invaded S. Pietro A. and attacked the town hall. they put it to fire and scattered the records and killed Paolo Salvatore, physician, a Colaianni and a [guardiaboschi communale] They invaded also (the home of the priest Don Giovanni Salvatore, burning the registers of the civic state from 1802 and afterwards.

Other calamities and small circumstances followed in the ensuing years, during which the historical events of the epoch reflected deep disturbance in the life of the small community. Afterwards, the lives of the entire populations of the Abruzzo and of the Molise were upset. It was a terrible [brigataggio] that raged toward 1860.

The state of terror and of orgasm which the [brigataggio] had assessed on the population, such that the farmers not certain of being able to approach the labors of the fields without exposure to the serious hazard of damages and overbearances on the part of the bandits, or even of being able to reside peacefully in their own residences."

The names of the heads [bandit] Crocco, Crucitto, Berardelli, and others of this kind, became synonymous with [sparvento] and of wickedness, because of the endless iniquitous [impree] by the rascals.

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Among the so many incidents related locally of anointed poor farmer, of whom husband was wanted by the brigands for a vengeance that he wanted to draw aside, surprised in the farms of Christ by the bandits, and not having wished either could stand up again the place [ove nascondevasi] the consort it was [atrocemente seviziata] with the do it drip [sule] you depart [deretane] of the boiling lard!

Only later the establishment of the National Guard and the operation of the regular Army, first [infrenarono] and then [stroncarono] the shameful and sad social calamity.
E'appunto of this epoch an event of the guerrilla against the [band] which they infested our regions, event which places the boldness and the organization of the National Guard of S. Pietro A. in beautiful light.

A mass of brigands, of more than 100 men, well armed and equipped, and mounted on horses, and reporting to an ex captain of the army [borbonic] wandered between the [tenimenti] of Agnone, Caccavone and S. Pietro A. National Guards of this Common will be dictated it known something about converge [ove] in the place was known how to be the gang, and of give her [contemporaneamente] the assault encircles it. Senoche's National Guard wanted alone attack the brigands.

It was the eve Easter [de]. The leader of the brigands sends a message to the [caccovonesi] to warn them that if they return to any to village to enjoy the holidays [paquali] they can count on an attack. The brave guard is [atrocemente] decimated and [costretie] to retire.
 
The bandits moved at the time of the [aquilano] trying to remain unnoticed in the territory [sampietrese], whose Guard [nazional] had great fame of being [agguerrita], because it was composed mostly of excellent hunters with firm wrists and [dall] correct  aim. Their commander was Giovanni Mariani, captain. They received information of the location of the gang which defeated [de caccavonesi]. They followed unmolested the brigands through our territory, hoping to catch up with them and
encircle them in the dense woods of S. Martin and Cantaupo, through which the bandits were obliged to [forzosamente] transit.

In fact, Mariani, captain, stuck to the heels of the gang, and reached them, unseen, in the thick of the brushwood during the night, and since the bandits had camped beside a [cascinale] for [sostarvi], the captain divided his men in small squads that were [dislocati] in way from [cincondare] the place where the brigands were camped.

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However, before completing the encirclement a national guardsman saw a bandit hidden in a [cespuiglio] , and forgetful of the order of don't   fire until the agreed upon signal, shot a [fucilata accoppando] the [brignte] giving the alarm to the gang that immediately sought to escape.

In vain attempt, however, [incapparono] by the squads   by the national guard who lay in ambush, they with precise shots made deserved slaughter of some. Only few were able to break the encirclement, but for fall in the hands by a company of the regular army, [sopraggiunta] from Castel del Sangro, that a complete destruction of did not happen.

Meanwhile, Captain Mariani had seized all the [equipaggiamneto] of the gang, that, composed of horses well saddled, he confiscated [raggurdevale] loot for the national guard, but the captain of the army didn't recognize valid the [seqquestro] and ordered him to forfeit the loot, despite the objections of the Mariani. To which you are owed whether the attribution of the spoils of the defeated doesn't produce a conflict between soldiers and national guard. Mariani, however didn't challenge the behavior of the captain, and known after any days that he had approached him in Roccaraso, and challenged him to duel with serious conditions. The Angelone Baroness of Roccaraso, intervened and succeeded in avoiding the duel, and entertained the contenders in a sumptuous reception, where the two brave captains cordually
shook hands.

On the episodes of the brigandage and on the life of the banished heads the popular imagination and that of insincere writers, one [son sbizzarrite] embroidering you above [miraabolanti] legends, interwoven of events invented exaggerated [od] or [traavisati], and weaves you histories of legendary treasures [consituiti] from the robberies of the bandits, and hidden in caverns and inaccessible places , watched over from spirits and malignant [genii]. These histories and legends survive still, and quite a lot remain, in spite of the most intense investigations. They remain today.

A sad product of the social and political [pertaburnenti] during this era which upset our regions. This is one of the episodes of the [brigataggio], relative to the political events of the time.

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Our old men have narrated to us that hard times fell on our villages, parties of armed men of [appertenevano] the party of the [borboni] versus those of the liberal, is noteworthy to recite of the supporters of the united Italy.

These parties arrested the citizens demanding who they supported and if they answered the interrogator incorrectly, [grigando] the [borbonici] or the liberal, or hurray to the [garibaldini] to the [borbonici], they incurred retaliations and sometimes also death.

It is told that a poor sampietrese, this Anthony Morelli, placed the [securo] amazed [dale] he had prepared [borboniche] of [coccarde], [garibaldine] and liberal, and according to the occasions if any decorated displaying it to the presence of the parties of which and told from now on. Now it happened that once Morelli made a mistake (political address) and having happened a gang of [garibaldina] that he mistook for [borbonica], conferring upon [dell] good reactionary [coccarda] and doors [pettoruto] in plaza to [farne] beautiful show For his mistake, he was clubbed by the [garibaldini] and lingered a long time between life and death. Another [voltra] company of [garibaldini], strong of around 160 men under the [camando] of De Christinis, an energetic and resolved man, invaded S. Pietro A. capturing any notable suspected of be reactionaries, and they captured D. Pietro D' Alena, Fernando Perilli and others of the family Salvatore. The prisoners, were tied up [solidamente] with ropes and taken to Roccaraso to be executed [sommariamente].

During the journey Perilli was hit with a gun under the chin losing teeth, but escaped from other injury by virtue of his son, Eugene, who refused to abandon his father.
De Cristinis having noticed the persistence of the stripling and understanding the motive, consented to free the father after payment of two hundred ducats. Meanwhile, baron Federico D' Alena, aware of what they had destined for the captives, sent to Roccaraso to his keepers, with a letter to the baroness Donna Teresa Angelone, in which he pleaded intervention for the escaped sampietresi.

The Angelone baroness convinced De Cristinis to free and the [notoabili] of S. Pietro A. Another sampietrese, Doctor Gennaro Jannone, physician and philosopher, for his feelings of [italianita] had been persecuted by the [borbonici], and stricken with order of capture had to hide

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in the fiends hidden days under a heap of [ceppame]. Sheltered in the home of Vastogiardi another fervent liberal, Don Giuseppe Marracino, he remained hidden until the storm passed and could return to his own abode.

Afterward, Jannone could make precious service to the Marracino. In fact, a gang of brigands attacked the house of the Marracino to destroy it for the foolish behavior of the owners, but knowing of Dr. Jannone, prompted the [figliasatro] Giovanni Mariano, [commandante] of the national guard, to approach [immantinenti] in Vastogirardi and help of the Marracino. Mariani immediately mobilized the Guard in time to react against the bandits and they were forced to flee.

Fortunate times and dramatic! Always, the population, was impoverished materially and morally from centuries of slavery. It is easy to understand the flame that burned in the minds of the people who advocated a free Country and people.

Anything of the old times, for instance the [strofette] of the song: [palummella janca] that the farmers were accustomed to sing in reaction to the liberal, they took care of a patriotic active and intense propaganda, kind with the destruction of printed booklets to the stain, and with easy and plain narration tried to divulge the vision of a bigger Country. To read the deliberations of the towns representations of the [temp] you had the precise documentation of the state of mind of the citizens of that time. Continuously, the authorities were called against the promoters of the upsetting the order [constituito] and [gilanza] toward those suspected of not being faithful and loyal citizens. Treated in this way by the authorities, and police organizations, the towns representatives abandoned in [proferte] of [Iealismo] and regal fidelity, disguising such feelings in [delibezioni] and addresses in which however transparent hid imposition.

The Borboni, first collapsed in Rome, capital of Italy the rebirth of the national and patriotic feelings of our populations was rapid and widespread. On the announcement of the taking of Rome, the representatives of S. Pietro A. expressed exultation in a deliberation in which, in the hymn to the King, like proof of [attacamento] and of as regards his venerable person, was granted the Regal Maesta of power [libermente] in the estates of S. Martin and Cantalupo. Offer that in this simplicity denotes the spontaneity of the feelings that they animated and the jealous and innate apprehension of the town patrimony.

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In 1879, the first demonstration of the emigration phenomenon in our regions began, a phenomenon that assumed imposing proportions. Easy earnings: deluded by the fabulous news of wealth, of a marvelous land, our farmers emigrated in numerous parties, abandoning [camp] and [casolari] and embarked for the United States or Brazil.

From the stories of any venerable old men is learned of how many tears and of how much unheard of sufferings were endured in the foreign countries   by these, our first emigrants! They embarked on [bastmenti] from load, and were herded like beasts into the holds; after trips that lasted months, disembarked in the harbors of the South or   North America , [ove] speculators without scruples bought them up [avviviandoli] for the plantations of the unexplored regions from Brazil, or for the deserts of   Arizona and Nevada.

Subdued to [faiche] by brutes, their company in work were the Negroes, for [mercedi irrisorie] constructed roads and [ferovie], they dug the viscuses   of the earth, in dried up regions, often paying with their lives the work of civilization that they completed was for a nation that was not their country.

Of quite a lot of these emigrants, ignorant in the beginning, and [probablimente] they have stayed suffering from the yellow Brazilian fever, or they have stayed buried from the bursts of [grisou] in the mines of coal from starry republic. Enough flow the registers of the civic state for see how much and how much actions there results annotated for deceases happened to the foreign   countries because of accidents and of disasters. Our other emigrant poor men were not considered the beasts of burden or belonging to a race of people from the level of very low civilization.

And unfortunately, the appearances were such that justified [siffatti] prejudices partly. The herds of our emigrants, in truth, were composed of poor illiterate farmers, or in least part with rudimentary education unaware of the world, of which they knew only their own mountainous [paesello], and disembarking in a new land operated from throw to the [sbarglio], none knew of the humiliation of the condition of job to which they came subdued. They came designated with the despicable appellation of "dago", a word that no one has the exact translation in our language, but that for the Americans used synthesis for each low conception in the respects of our workers, and our divine Country [veiva] they  called degradingly ''Little Italy.''

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And as if this has not been enough, our emigrants are classified as "undesirables"  to the equal of the Negroes and of the Chinamen, and given a foolish legend of ferocity and of crime. It happened that among the mass of honest and rough workers, corrupted people also emigrated, refusal of the Jail and of the society, and this pack owing from the crime draw the fonts of the existence, discredited the Italian name with the criminal deeds. From this and from the fad that our emigrants, dealt with sudden divergence of people by nature and education, were made ugly often from weary jobs, in front of the [soprusi] and by the obstacles which they were seen to cross wrong, became justice sometimes, slipping in this way easily in the eddy of the crime, and produced a distorted conception of the criminality of our people.

Some think that I exaggerate on the subject but the [erraneo] prejudice engaged in gained so much notoriety in the past, that from the desk of the Neapolitan University, the figures and the [riciami] to the millennial Italian civilization, thunder violently against the insane belief. By now the time and the honest recognition of the same Americans, they have executed of similar [predgiudizi], and the authority of the new national government has conferred on our emigrants a dignity of which in the past never [avevan] dreamed of power enjoy. As then to the intensity of the phenomenon [emigratorio], we will remember that our regions have had cheerful supremacy in the [masa espatriante] a little bit. It is enough to consider that until 1887 had departed from the country well 49 500 people, with 13 percent from the whole population of the region!

The first emigrants from S. Pietro A. was in 1879, a year in which the first four fellow citizens left their native country for Brazil [pel]. The ship however was shipwrecked in the oceanic abysses and disappearing with the full human load.

The second consignment of emigrants was on 15 January 1881, and was composed of 63 sampietresi which after attending to the religious functions, in [cortico] and to the sound of the [tamburo], they their homes to meet at the foot of Cajanello, from where they caught the train for Naples.

They here embarked for New York after a journey of 27 days duration. Due to the immigration phenomenon, limited only recently by the provident restrictive laws of the expatriations, that around a THOUSAND and more of our citizens reside today In America of the North or in the republics of the South.

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A few established economic notable positions, some achieved public notable positions, but the an mass remained that of honest and hard-working people with prohibition of their customs, and the parsimony of the demands has known how to accumulate modest [peculi] fruit always of sweaty works and of years of deprivations

The replacements generally from the foreign countries has contributed notably to the economic amelioration of our town but when the loss, the more than the definitive times, is considered of [centinala] of valid arms, the decline of the agriculture, appears of illness first strangers, you always see that there are greater the advantages of the emigration, or not very many harmful effects of the expatriation of a much valid people

The decade from 1885 to 1895 mark for our regions and for S Pietro A. two memorable events. The construction of the road [rotabllle], and that of the Isernia-Sulmona railroad The [rotabile], [lnnestandosi] to the road national [sangritana], put [agevole comunicazione] our town with all the communities of the Sangro valley, and produced relationships of exchanges and of commerce. A transition of the carriages to four wheels and wagons then, vehicles that are prodigies of convenience in comparison, appeared on the primitive trail that until then carried half the transport of the dispositions of the place.

The railroad can easily approach the important centers. It transformed all our customs and our habits which quickly one adapted to the new demands and to the new laws of life. One remembers that to go to Naples we had to go to Cajanello to board the train, now that is like a legend of very distant time.

To complete the enumeration of the earthquakes that has often delighted our regions, finally we will remember the [sommovimenti tellurici] of 1875, of 1915, and of 1925, that they fortunately have [arrecato] only damaged buildings and much fear for the inhabitants Among the buildings hardest hit by the earthquake of 1915, the mother church, of which collapsed the Bell Tower. That the chapel of the SS Sacrament was also damaged

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seriously and demolished in succession and   recently   has been remonstrated, while that of the church waits still to be restored

Of the earthquake of 1875 is told a strange circumstance: the following:

From 1456 In St. Pietro A it had always been tradition to celebrate December 6 as a solemn religious function, in honor of S. Nicola and in remembrance of the terrible earthquake that in the night of 5 to 6 December 1456 destroyed the country completely. [Orbene] this custom remained respected until at 1874 a year in which the town counsel, for aversion to the priest of the time, wanted to abolish [nunicipale] the modest sum that served for the celebration of the function exactly from the budget of which above. In the following year, 1875, [avvenue] that a new earthquake is verified on the day of S. Nicola, and the only house to fall was the town hall. Priest's robe [stranissme] coincidence, historically exam, It upset the mind of the citizen, what a claimed from the advisers the [reiscrizione] in budget of the bottoms for religious functions and from the 1874 nobody has thought about abandoning this secular tradition. 

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