Lynching of Paulo Boleta

The lynching of Paulo Boleta took place on December 14, 1916, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan in the U.S. state of New York. Boleta, a working-class Italian immigrant, was beaten and trampled by a mob of 500 men and boys after randomly firing his revolver on the street. Hospitalized, Boleta died of a fractured skull that same day. Nobody faced criminal charges or convictions for the murder.[1]

Lynching of Paulo Boleta
LocationGreenwich Village, Manhattan, New York, U.S.
DateDecember 14, 1916
Attack type
Lynching
Deaths1
PerpetratorsMob
No. of participants
500

Background

Boleta was a working-class Italian immigrant who worked as a shoemaker and lived at 226 West Houston Street in Greenwich Village.[2] Stressing his marginally white status as an Italian and immigrant, The Morning Telegraph compared Boleta's standing in the community to that of "an ignorant and friendless Negro."[1]

Shooting and lynching

On the morning of December 14, 1916, Boleta left his home, according to his family to purchase a toy piano for his little daughter.[3] While he was walking along a crowded street in Greenwich Village, the Commercial Advertiser reported that "he is believed to have become suddenly insane."[4] Boleta allegedly discharged his revolver at a passing car without warning. He then chased three loungers, shooting Archibald Madison in the wrist.[2] Hundreds of children, women, and men bolted for cover as Boleta fired randomly at bystanders, narrowly missing one or two little girls.[5] When he had emptied his six-chamber revolver, men rushed to tackle him. Patrolman Bradt tried to arrest Boleta while holding back the mob of 500 men and boys, who beat and stomped on the shoemaker before police reserves arrived and dispersed the mob.[6] Boleta died of a fractured skull within a half-hour of arriving at Bellevue Hospital.[2]

"For the first time in fifty-three years," commented a widely printed United Press account, "lynch law held a section of New York in its grip."[7]

Legacy

"Although surviving records are thin," commented one historian, "Boleta's lynching seemingly provoked little controversy."[1] The Chicago Tribune included Boleta on its 1916 list of lynchings,[8] but little subsequent coverage ensued, and even though police searched the neighborhood for the mob's ringleaders, newspapers reported no arrests or convictions, and Boleta's name rarely appears in print after the events of December 1916.[9] This seeming indifference may be attributed to Anglo-American prejudice against Italians, seen as racially inferior like Mexicans and Chinese and hence likelier to be lynched.[10][11] Boleta's native Italian name may have been "Paolo Boletta," implying that the newspapers could not be bothered to spell the victim's name correctly.[10]

Some secondary sources have inaccurately reported the location of the lynching to be the town of Greenwich in upstate Washington County.[12][13]

References
  1. Barrow, Janice Hittinger (2005-09-01). "Lynching in the Mid‐Atlantic, 1882–1940". American Nineteenth Century History. 6 (3): 241–271. doi:10.1080/14664650500380969. ISSN 1466-4658. S2CID 145381828.
  2. "500 in Mob Beat Man to Death. Police Defied as Crowd Avenges Shots Fired by Gunman". The New York Times. 1916-12-14. p. 1.
  3. United Press (1916-12-14). "Dies in Hospital When Beaten By Mob". The Buffalo Times. p. 9. Retrieved 2023-06-26.
  4. United Press (1916-12-14). ""Beaten by a mob..."". Commercial Advertiser. p. 6.
  5. "Angry New York Crowd Stamps Out Life of Shooter". Asbury Park Press. 1916-12-14. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-06-26.
  6. "Trampled to Death - Mob of Men and Boys Kill Bad Man in New York". Mansfield News Journal. 1916-12-14. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-06-26.
  7. "First Lynching in Years Occurs in New York". Syracuse Herald. 1916-12-15. p. 7.
  8. "Lynchings in 1916". The Chicago Tribune. 1916-12-30. pp. A13.
  9. "N. Y. Gunman Killed by Infuriated Mob". Middletown Times-Press. 1916-12-14. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-06-26.
  10. Borsella, Cristogianni (2005). On Persecution, Identity, and Activism: Aspects of the Italian-American Experience from the Late 19th Century to Today. Wellesley, MA: Dante University Press. pp. 69, 86. ISBN 978-0-937832-41-7.
  11. Cutler, James Elbert (1969). Lynch-Law: An Investigation into the History of Lynching in the United States. New York: Negro Universities Press. p. 272. ISBN 978-0-8371-1821-5.
  12. Dunham, Janice K. (2005). "Lynching". In Eisenstadt, Peter (ed.). The Encyclopedia of New York State. Syracuse University Press. p. 937. ISBN 978-0-8156-0808-0.
  13. Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889–1918. New York: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. 1919. p. 83.
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