Bonventre family
| Bonventre family | |
|---|---|
| Sicilian and Italian-American blood family | |
 Vito Bonventre (1875–1930) in a 1919 passport photograph; his criminal associations do not characterize every family member | |
| Country | Italy United States |
Current region | Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily Williamsburg, Brooklyn |
Place of origin | Castellammare del Golfo, Trapani, Sicily |
| Members | Martino Bonventre (born 1854) Caterina Bonventre (1883–c. 1920) Vito Bonventre (1875–1930 branch) Vito Bonventre (born 1891, separate branch) Pietro Bonventre Giovanni Bonventre Giuseppe Bonventre |
Connected members | Joseph Bonanno (son of Caterina Bonventre) |
Connected families | Magaddino family Bonanno family Di Benedetto family Galante family DeSalvo family |
| Distinctions | Several individual members participated in Castellammarese migration and Mafia networks; the family itself was not a criminal organization |
The Bonventre family is a Sicilian and Italian-American blood family originating in Castellammare del Golfo. Several individual Bonventres became involved in the Castellammarese Mafia milieu in Brooklyn, but the surname and blood family did not constitute a criminal organization.
The historical record contains multiple Bonventre branches and at least two relevant men named Vito Bonventre. They must not be conflated.
Magaddino–Bonanno branch
[edit]The strongest documented connection begins with Martino Bonventre (born 1854), son of Giuseppe Bonventre and Caterina di Benedetto. Martino married Carmela Magaddino on July 14, 1876.[1]
Their daughter Caterina Bonventre was born March 23, 1883.[2] She married Salvatore Bonanno and became the mother of Giuseppe or Joseph Bonanno. Carmela's brother Giovanni Magaddino was the father of Stefano Magaddino, making Stefano Joseph Bonanno's first cousin once removed.
A son of Martino and Carmela, Giuseppe Bonventre, married Francesca Galante in 1910. These civil-record relationships document blood and marriage ties among the Bonventre, Magaddino, Bonanno, Di Benedetto and Galante families; they do not establish criminal membership.
Separate Vito Bonventre branches
[edit]Vito Bonventre (1875–1930)—the man central to the 1921 arrests and the 1930 killing—was a baker, husband of Rosa DeSalvo and resident of 115 Roebling Street in Brooklyn. Critchley describes him as a second cousin of Joseph Bonanno, but the reviewed records do not expose every intervening ancestor; the common ancestor should not be invented.[3]
A separate, younger Vito Bonventre (born 1891) was the brother of Giuseppe (born 1881), Pietro and Giovanni Bonventre. Giuseppe and the younger Vito were held as suspects in Giovanni Carollo's 1908 death, but no conviction was located. An FBI report later identified the younger Vito as an inducted member of the then-Sciacca or Bonanno family.[4]
The younger Vito must not be assigned the older Vito's 1921 arrest, wealth or 1930 death. Conversely, the older Vito should not be given the younger man's brothers or later FBI identification.
Person-specific organized-crime associations
[edit]- Vito Bonventre (1875–1930) was identified by Critchley as a Schiro caporegime and by Hunt and Tona as an alleged Good Killers leader. He was arrested after Fontana's 1921 accusation and released because the evidence was considered poor. He later became a wealthy bootlegger and was shot to death on July 15, 1930.[5][3]
- Giovanni “John” Bonventre was identified in 1963 as associated with the Bonanno crime family.[3]
- Pietro Bonventre was a brother-in-law of Salvatore Bonanno and therefore Joseph Bonanno's uncle by marriage. The reviewed passage does not itself establish Pietro as a mafioso.[3]
No reliable descent from these early branches to later figure Cesare Bonventre was established in the reviewed records, so that relationship is not asserted.
Relationship to the Magaddinos and Schiro organization
[edit]The Bonventre and Magaddino blood families were joined by the 1876 Martino–Carmela marriage.[1] Individual relatives and allies participated in the vendetta environment exposed by the Good Killers case. The Schiro borgata drew members and associates from the same Castellammarese milieu.
This does not mean that two blood families merged as corporate gangs to create the Schiro family. Schiro's Williamsburg borgata already existed and recruited particular people through overlapping kinship, migration and criminal relationships.
References
[edit]- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Castellammare del Golfo civil marriage act no. 66, July 14, 1876.
- ↑ Castellammare del Golfo civil birth act no. 174, March 1883.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 David Critchley, The Origin of Organized Crime in America: The New York City Mafia, 1891–1931 (New York: Routledge, 2009), pp. 214–230.
- ↑ Critchley, Origin of Organized Crime, pp. 222–223 and associated notes.
- ↑ Thomas Hunt and Michael A. Tona, “The Good Killers: 1921's Glimpse of the Mafia”.