The world saw six Cholera Pandemics between 1820 and 1923 in which Italy had numerous serious outbreaks. During what is known as the Fourth Cholera Pandemic which lasted from 1863 to 1875 approximately 113,000 people died in Italy during the year 1867 alone. The public was gripped with fear of the disease and a distrust of the doctors due to poor reporting in the media.
"Cholera Riots" were reported all over the world including Italy. In particular Central Italy became an area of civil unrest. Conspiracy theories ran rife and many believed that the authorities were deliberately trying to poison them as a means to control overpopulation and that the pandemic was an intentional man made disease spread by the medical profession and the Carabinieri.
In August of that year Paduli was in the midst of an outbreak - and on 13 August 1867 rumours spread throughout the town that carabinieri were poisoning the stream. It did not take long for a crowd of rioters to assemble. They marched to the stream but failed to find any evidence of the said poisioning. Unfortunately a city chancellor came accross the rioters and the crowd turned it's anger upon him and he was sadly beaten to death.
In Paduli, when the rumor spread in the evening that eight carabinieri were poisoning a stream, the furious crowd headed for the place indicated. Here, not having found the supposed poisoners, they beat a municipal chancellor to death (Comandini)
As Pietro Paolo Russo + Maria Grazie Perlingieri (our direct ancestors) were still living in Paduli and having children until 1872 (Maria Teresa Russo born 22 March 1872 in Paduli) this would be an event they had lived through. Given it is highly plausible that Paolo contracted and died from Cholera in the 1887 Altavilla Irpina Cholera Epidemic it is rather ironic.
I have yet to find any detailed report of the riot and/or who was involved (surely there will be some court records somewhere) - either way it would be a distressing time to live through for our ancestors. Please be assured as soon as I do find some more detailed information I will be updated this story.
In central Italy, the popular unrest, which gives rise to the export of cercali, is constantly complained of by the newspapers; and popular uprisings also continually deplored in southern Italy, originating from fears and prejudices about the choleric invasion.
Today's Naples folios report that a poor wretch was barbarously killed in S Paolo Albanese di Basilicata by the mob, and others would have had the same fate if not a great deal of force would come to quell the unbridled riots. In Paduli, province of Avellino, a public official was treacherously killed; in Spinazzola there was opposition to the public force and some soldiers were wounded; and in Corigliano del Rossanese all the families abandoned their own homes, where only the men armed with rifles remained, who began firing from the windows. Bersaglieri and carabineiri ran, but it took a long time and effort to calm the tumult, which was then sedated with the arrest of the most troublemakers.
