The Mafia, a network of organized-crime groups based in Italy and America, evolved over

centuries in Sicily, an island ruled until the mid-19th century by a long line of foreign
invaders. Sicilians banded together in groups to protect themselves and carry out their own
justice. In Sicily, the term “mafioso,” or Mafia member, initially had no criminal connotations
and was used to refer to a person who was suspicious of central authority. By the 19th
century, some of these groups emerged as private armies, or “mafie,” who extorted
protection money from landowners and eventually became the violent criminal organization
known today as the Sicilian Mafia. The American Mafia, which rose to power in the 1920s, is
a separate entity from the Mafia in Italy, although they share such traditions as omerta, a
code of conduct and loyalty.