Italians in the American Revolution

I would like to highlite the wonderful italian Revolutionaries who were inspired by our cause and the idea of personal freedom in 18th century America. Although there was much prejudice against catholics, particularly in New England, Philadelphians welcomed many courageous Italian citizens to the city and the colony of Pennsylvania. The following is a list of the major personalities who participated in America's great experiment from the very beginning:
Italian officers in the American Revolution include:

• William Paca (October 31, 1740–October 13, 1799), was a signatory to the United StatesDeclaration of Independence as a representative of Maryland. He was reelected, serving until 1779, when he became chief justice of the state of Maryland. In 1782 he was elected governor of Maryland. In 1789 he became federal district judge for the state of Maryland, and served as such until his death.

• Filippo Mazzei, a Tuscan physician, fought alongside Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry during the American Revolution. Mazzei drew up a plan to capture the British in New York by cutting off their sea escape, and convinced France to help the American colonists financially and militarily in their struggle against British rule. He also inspired the Jeffersonian phrase: "All men are created equal" when he wrote "All men are by nature equally free and independent."



• Italian officers in the American Revolution include: Captain Cosimo de Medici of the North Carolina Light Dragoons; Lieutenant James Bracco, 7th Maryland Regiment, killed at the Battle of White Plains; Captain B. Tagliaferro, second in command of the Second Virginia Regiment, a direct subaltern of General George Washington; 2nd Lieutenant Nicola Talliaferro of the 2nd Virginia Regiment; and Colonel Richard Talliaferro, who fell at the Battle of Guilford. Other Italian officers, most from Massachusetts, are on regimental rolls of the Continental Army.



• Major John Belli was the Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army from 1792 to 1794. The first settler in Scioto County, Ohio, he lived there until his death in 1809.



• Three of the first five warships commissioned by the Continental Congress of the new American government, were named Christopher Columbus, John Cabot and Andrea Doria. Doria was a 16th century navy admiral from Genoa who was still fighting the Barbary pirates in his mid 80s.



• Francesco Vigo (1747-1836), is believed the first Italian to become an American citizen. A successful fur trader on the western frontier (today the mid-western states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio), Vigo served as a colonel, spy, and financier during the American Revolution. He died a pauper, but in 1876 the U.S. government gave his heirs about $50,000 to repay them for Vigo's financial support of the Revolutionary War. Along with George Rogers Clark, he helped settle the Northwest territory.

• In music for example, Italian opera was first brought to America in 1750 with the Beggar's Opera. By 1758 troupes of Italians were touring the colonies giving concerts; John Palma of Philadelphia gave the first concert on record in the colonies in 1757. Giovanni Gualdo, an Italian wine merchant, was a well-known composer and performer in Philadelphia in 1767. Thomas Jefferson recruited the first professional band for the United States Marine Corps from Italy in 1803; fourteen Italians were brought from Catania and launched the distinguished career of the Marine Corps Band.