Recently read a post where a person dispelled that 5 families were created in New York by Maranzano but rather a family structure already existed and families were in place by defacto based on the regions of Sicily they came from. He's basing this off an article from a mob magazine, although I can't find much to support his statement I thought about it a little and a default family structure without needing to be defined seems plausible.

Thoughts?

Very plausible.

Those articles are usually speculation, but there may have been groups of families in place that the Americanized members took over that were in place. I think the 5 in New York would have to have been very small in numbers of overseas born members for the American group to take over, The American group would of course include members born overseas but raised here.

According to Selwyn Raab in "The Five Families": Following Maranzano's assassination and the conclusion of the Castellemmarese War, Luciano and Bonanno "held a conclave with the heads of three other substantial borgatas in New York. The other bosses were Gaetano Gagliano, Vincent Mangano and Joe Profaci. Without any specific blueprint, in 1931 five Mafia families had evolved from a convulsive decade."

Sounds like the truth. The families just evolved on their own rather than being appointed.

What you read is 100% correct. In fact, its 1000% correct. Long before Salvatore Maranzano ever came to prominence there were "families" or "borgatas" firmly in place in many little villages, towns, and cities all across Sicily. These "clans" (what we now call families) were based and developed naturally from the particular town or village they hailed from.

Upon arriving to America these various clans (some of which were quite tiny, some of which were quite large) settled into various sections of the United States where their fellow townsmen had settled. Maranzano (who was from the town of Castellammare del Golfo) helped develop that particular family (the Bonanno Family). His amici Magaddino (also Castellammarese) later expanded their influence up to Buffalo NY. The "Palermo based" clans (think Gambno Family) also developed this way, as did another clan up in East Harlem that hailed from another section of Sicily. What became the Colombo Family had much of their original membership from Villabate (Palermo Province) and its outlying areas. The (village of Ribera) produced the DeCavalcante Family of NJ...And so on and so on. Agrigento, Alcamo, Trapani, etc. This has been well documented with all the other Mafia clans throughout the U.S.A.

What was done; both before, during, and especially after the infamous Castellammarese War of 1929-1931, was that many of the smaller clans (that had only 5, 10, 20, 30 members) were slowly absorbed into the larger families which created a sort of "umbrella" organization across the U.S. Hence creating the 26 or so "traditional" families the FBI has documented over the years.

Another fallacy is that Lucky Luciano was the "architect" of the modern Cosa Nostra. Nothing could be further from the truth. Does anyone really think that the Mafia waited hundreds and hundreds of years for Luciano to come along to "create" the hierarchy and structure? The vast majority of these hierarchical postions was well in place long before Luciano was even born; Capo, Sottocapo, Soldati, etc. Even the so-called Consigliere position (said to be a creation of Luciano) is a fiction.

The smaller clans with only a dozen or several dozen members didn't generally have (or need) a "counselor" per se. They were ruled by a "Capo" (Boss), who then had a regime of soldiers. The larger families with 50, 75, 100, 150, 250, members, etc., found the need to have a man, designated as a "consigliere" available to the general rank-n-file membership to hear and air out any grievances among the troops.

Likewise, the positions of "Sottocapo" (underboss), and "capo di decina" (captains), were only advantageous and helpful in the large clans because of the sheer number of soldiers in a large family (think 100, 200, 300 men). So "sub" leaders, "capo regimes" were designated to head small groups of soldiers to better handle the family. Salvatore Maranzano can be credited for implementing these positions for the Family bosses to better control the huge borgatas that developed in the states.

What WAS accomplished by Luciano was that after the Castellammarese War the door were swung open for ALL Southern Italians to join up with the previous Sicilians-only Mafia families. Calabrians, Neopolitans, Puglians, etc., were now candidates for induction. This "blending" in America of three separate organizations; the Camorra, (Society Onorato) N'drangheta, and Mafia, formed the overarching "Cosa Nostra" (translated to "Our Thing") that we know of today.

Wow, fantastic info that was a great read. I just learned quite a few new things from this post, thanks for this.

I know that the Sicilian mafia had clans based on their region which by default was how their family was defined and it only makes sense that the same concept carried over to New York.

I'm glad that you enjoyed reading my "manuscript" so much Iceveins, lol. And I'm glad that I was able to explain it properly so that you'd understand what I was trying to convey. The Mafia is a very complex international conspiracy that had been going on for hundreds of years. So it's not the easiest thing to digest and absorb all its tentacles and complexities.

But one things for certain...The "Brotherhood" was not put together flippantly, or by accident. lol

I'm glad you raised that point because, IMO, Luciano's great contribution to the American Mafia was to get the Dons and their families thinking like businessmen rather than glorified gabellotti. This was America--not rural Sicily, Part of it, as you say, was to recruit and reward talent from outside Sicily, Some non-Sicilians were included in families before the Castellemmarese War (Genovese, Costello, Anastasia). But Luciano--born in Sicily but a thoroughly modern American businessman--gave his blessing to it through the Commission. He even had non-Italians like Lansky and Siegel sit with the Commission as advisers and business partners.

The Genovese's have their roots in the Morello Family, who traces back to Corleone.

Exactly. That was another big benefit of Luciano's thinking. He "allied" the entire Jewish Mob in NY, and by extension, to the Luciano/Genovese Family. A partnership and alliance thats lasted over a century already. Irish too! But especially the Jewish Mob under Lansky

Correct. For that matter a large segment of the Gagliano/Lucchese Family traced roots back to Corleone also

Yep

The National Crime Syndicate was the name given by the press to the multi-ethnic, loosely connected American confederation of several criminal organizations. It mostly consisted of and was led by the closely interconnected Italian-American Mafia and Jewish mob; to a lesser extent, it also involved other criminal organizations such as the Irish Mob and African-American organized crime groups.

Joseph Bonanno confirms in his book that the families and ranks were already in place well before Maranzano

Well there ya go. More documentation (from one of the originals no less)