Picture, if you can, a tiny spot of old world
culture transplanted into the new world, a people following the
traditions and pursuits of their Italian ancestors. Such a spot is
Tonitown, an Italian village, located near Fayetteville, in northwest
Arkansas.
Ever since its founding Tonitown has been the
center of grape cultivation in Arkansas. One farmer says that from a
vineyard of 70 acres he got 6,200 pounds of first-class grapes. Until
recently these grapes have been sold to grape juice companies, but since
legalization of wine for out-of-state sale, the Italians are in a
position to use the wine-making ability inherited from their
forefathers. Because of this they will realize a much larger profit than
ever before from their excellent and extensive vineyards.
For 36 years, ever since the time they followed
Father Bandini from Sunnyside, in southern Arkansas (Chicot County), to
make their homes in some friendlier spot, the inhabitants of the little
village have slowly prospered.
It has taken a long, hard struggle for this Italian
settlement to become permanent. The ancestors of the present
inhabitants came west under the leadership of the last Austin Corbin, a
New York capitalist, who realized that they would never be happy in the
Eastern Industrial centers. He brought these people to Sunnyside, but
soon after the settlement was started Corbin became ill and died. His
heirs, of course, were not very enthusiastic over the philanthropic
experiment of their kinsman and refused to continue giving money for the
advancement of the settlement. This was one of the first of many
hardships undergone by the settlers. An epidemic, which was later
recognized as malaria, broke out among them and dozens died because they
knew no remedy for this strange sickness. Some of the Italians came
from different sections of Italy and began to quarrel among themselves,
several of the overseers left, the food supply was getting low. The
colonists were, indeed, facing a tragic situation.
Wrote Home For Help
It was impossible to return to Italy and almost
equally impossible to make their way back to the Eastern industrial
sections. They wrote home for help, and they asked for aid from Italian
consuls in America.
One man, Father Bandini, a parish priest in New
York, heard their cry for help, and sensing the real danger his
countrymen were in went to aid them.
He studied agricultural reports and maps to find a
healthful location for his followers. He was convinced the only way for
these Italians to earn their own way was by farming on a small scale.
By the time he reached Sunnyside only 26 families
were left. They packed their few belongings and made their way, on
foot, from the malaria-infested region where they had been living to the
hills north of them.
Father Bandini borrowed enough money to purchase
300 acres of land, for which he paid $15 an acre. The land was divided
into lots varying from five to twenty acres, each man paid what he could
and gave his note for the rest of the money.
Their new home was named Tonitown after Enrico
Tonti, who served as a lieutenant to La Salle, and was the hero of
Starved Rock on the Illinois river.
With the first money a school was built, then a
church. Within two months after the colony was founded a cyclone
caused considerable damage and one of the youngest men was killed. The
first winter there was very little food, and the men and boys went to
the coal mines of Oklahoma to make enough money to sustain their
families. The following summer a drought destroyed half of the crops.
Eight of the 26 families left in despair, and those remaining used corn
meal as their main food until spring.
Then the tide changed, bountiful harvest were
gathered in every fall. A story of success went back to the old country
and new immigrants came from the slums to win prosperity.
Bruno Roselli, an Italian, who visited Tonitown,
said: “I, for one, consider it neither a strictly American town nor an
Italian colony, but a most amazing replica of a medieval republic of,
one of those free and proud cities, battlemented and turreted;
self-sustaining and self-reliant, ceaselessly glorifying in their
Italian civilization.
External Links:
