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The Mafia can be traced back to the ninth century, when Sicily was invaded and then ruled by Arabs. The Arabic word Mafia means "place of refuge," and this term gave meaning to those Sicilians who were hillside refuges to which suffering inhabitants of the island fled. In the eleventh century Sicily was overrun by Norman invaders. They captured Sicilians and turned their farms into grand and glorious estates. The Sicilians were made slaves and …

…had been The criminal power for quite some time. Operations in France and Spain along with other Latin-language countries were limited to cooperation with already established criminal gangs. The most lucrative opportunities were in the U.S. In the 1890s thousands of Mafia gunman and thieves swarmed to the U.S., with them joined hundreds of thousands of Italians and Sicilians who were! seeking out a better life, in the land of opportunity. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**