CHAPTER XXVI. EXTINCT OR PARTIALLY EXTINCT ITALIAN AGRICULTURAL COLONIES. INTRODUCTION. While by far the larger number of Italian rural settlements in the United States have been successful and permanent, there are a few here and there that have failed wholly or partially. No extended investigation was made to learn the number and location of these extinct communities or to study carefully the causes of failure, but in the course of the investigation in Alabama, two of the abandoned or semiabandoned settlements were visited and the facts presented below were collected. The significance of the presentation lies in the statement of the causes leading to their decline and abandonment. Both of the colonies were established in the midst of good natural conditions of soil and climate. Marketing facilities were fairly good and there was demand for a great variety of products. The McWilliams colony seems to have been a simple case of exploitation. The colony was established merely to aid in removing the merchantable timber and when they found they were being robbed of even their wages they gave up at once and the collapse was sudden and complete. Much the same may be said of the new Palermo venture. In this the lack of efficient, responsible leadership was the first factor in the disintegration of the colony. The other factor is discovered in the nonagricultural character of the colonists secured. Italians with urban training and urban instincts have succeeded in agriculture when settled on improved land and organized under careful, intelligent, and reliable feadership, Italian or non-Italian, but ordinarily the city-bred immigrant, does not make a good pioneer farmer. The two colonies are illustrative of the too frequent methods of exploitation of the ignorant, credulous, trusting newcomer by the brilliant but unscrupulous members of his own race. The facts in both cases are well authenticated. M'WILLIAMS, ALA. McWilliams, Ala., is a small town situated in the southeastern part of Wilcox County, Ala., on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. The total population does not exceed 100 persons. The town has a post-office, three general stores, and a boarding-house; also a cotton gin and turpentine distillery. There in the midst of a heavy growth of yellow pine timber a small company, known as the North Italian Colony Company, in 1906 secured options on 1,100 acres of land. Poor management as much as anything else has caused the failure of the colony. Only one of the Italians remains, and he has given up farming and is employed as a stone mason in the village. Eight men constituted the colony company, which was organized with sufficient capital to make the first payment on the tract of wild land. They expected to make the remaining payments from the returns from wood and lumber they intended to cut and sell. In the fall of 1906 ten families, numbering in all 40 persons, were induced to settle on the land. They all came from Norfolk, Va., where they had been engaged in various industrial occupations. Their first work was to build three rude houses, which at first sheltered the entire company; later, five more houses were built. The houses were two-room frame structures, unpainted and rough-boarded on the outside. After erecting the houses the Italians built a large sawmill which they equipped with modern machinery and an 80horsepower engine. Before they had hauled many loads of lumber they realized that the roads needed attention. They built bridges, removed the dead trees from the road, and straightened the curves. On the hills where the roads washed, they laid logs across and then covered them with dirt. In a few weeks they had 44 miles of the best road in the county. On this road a powerful traction engine was employed to haul trains of two or three wagon loads of lumber to the railroad station. In the spring the Italians started farming by planting small gardens near their little houses. It was their intention to remove the timber and then set out the land to fruit and grapes, and they planned to develop the largest area of orchards in the region. It was soon evident that the undertaking was by far too gigantic for a group of foreigners with very little money. At the head of the colony was the superintendent, who bought everything the colonists needed, handled all the mail, and sold and billed out the loads of lumber. The first superintendent had some trouble with one of the Italians, and endeavored to leave town unknown to the colony, but somehow the Italians learned of his intention and prevented his departure. For two days the local authorities stood guard over him while the Italians threatened vengeance, but finally he was allowed to depart unmolested after correcting his books. The second superintendent was dishonest. He falsified returns until he feared detection and then absconded. In the meantime the Italians were shipping one or two carloads of lumber each week. Most of it was consigned to Kansas City and points farther north. The Italians were receiving nothing but daily promises from the superintendents that they would receive full pay for their work and lumber as soon as the consignees, who were slow in paying their bills owing to the hard times, made a settlement. The Italians believed this until the second superintendent left and they received their mail direct. Then they found out that the checks for their lumber had been mailed regularly but had been made. payable to the company in New Orleans instead of to the Italians themselves. The Italians had been working in vain, and the superintendents had been the tools of the New Orleans stockholders and traitors to the local colony. For nearly a year the Italians had been working for nothing, living on the money they had brought with them. Finally, when their funds were exhausted, some sought odd jobs as carpenters or masons, but there was little opportunity for work in McWilliams and in the end the Italian consul at New Orleans was appealed to for aid and by January 1, 1908, all but one of the Italians had moved away. The land reverted to the original owner. In April, 1909, when the locality was visited, the houses built by the Italians were occupied by negroes. The sawmill was standing deserted and a carload of logs still remained upon the track which they had built through the woods. The little settlement was almost entirely deserted. Although the Italians came from the cities where they had been working as masons and carpenters, they were born in the northern part of Italy where many of them had been brought up on farms. Lumbering was an occupation to which they were not accustomed, but they made good lumbermen and undoubtedly they would have made a success of agriculture. When the Italfans first came to the locality the natives were very curious to see what a colony of 40 people could do out in the woods. The Italians worked indefatigably, never stopping on Sundays, and working every day from daylight to dusk. On Sunday afternoons it was a popular diversion for the natives to drive out to the Italian colony and watch the Italians saw the logs and stack the lumber. All the natives spoke favorably of the Italians and their public spirit in repairing the roads, and their uniform thrift and industry won for them great admiration. Their gardens furnished them with many of the necessities of life, but they were great lovers of macaroni and dried fish and at one time the station agent counted eleven different kinds of macaroni that had been shipped in from New Orleans. They liked Italian wine, which they secured in 2 and 3 barrel shipments, but no trouble ever arose from overindulgence. NEW PALERMO. One of the unsuccessful attempts to colonize Italians on the land was made at New Palermo in Alabama. Information with regard to this settlement was compiled from facts obtained from the report of Signor Rossi to the Italian Government," from the land and industrial agent of the Southern Railroad, and from personal interviews with citizens of Mobile who were interested in the establishment of the colony. New Palermo, named by the Italians themselves, is located about 40 miles north of Mobile, near Malcolm, in Washington County. The land in the immediate vicinity is moderately fertile and the climate is suited to a large variety of garden products. The annual temperature for Mobile is 66.7 degrees and the annual precipitation is about 62.61 inches, proving that from an agricultural standpoint little more could be asked for. In November, 1903, Mr. Salvatore Pampinella requested the land and industrial department of the Southern Railway to point out a desirable location for a colony of Italians. They desired • Adolpho Rossi, Report Bolletino Dell Emigrazione, No. 16, p. 74. a |