Blood, Sweat, and Tears

History is complex, complicated, and boring for most. History, is nonetheless a testament of moments in civilization. The more time passes, the more the events become distant, compressed, simplified, and sometimes even misplaced or completely different from the original truth. When placed in context, any past event can offer an interesting perspective and can be appreciated. Anything in our lives that go back more than 20 years begins to be a distant memory. At more than 50 years it begins to be like a footnote in history. But time itself is neither quick or slow, it is a constant, or at least in by normal physics. So if a month's time is really full of an infinite number of events, moments, and passings, then it's absurd that when 50 years pass we might account for it in just one or two sentences? We say the dark ages and it is just one short phrase while it span many centuries - many generations.

I have no interest in telling historical events - I'm not a historian, I would be bored with precise and accurate historical details, and today the internet is more than a valid place to find any and all historical information - but lives matter and every person's ancestors were real people, not just a name, not just a date of birth and death, each lived a full life, some got to tell their stories, and others did not.

So follow me as we take a trip back in time to a moment and period, known to few because it is part of their family's heritage, known to others because of a location's history, and at least a footnote in others in some respects. For those involved and related it was an epopee spanning decades and monumental in the achievement.

Achille was a young man by all accounts but he had already been through much and wasn't a stranger to heavy work as his strong arms and stamina were almost a gift. He was a manual labourer in the region of Romagna, typically known as "bracciante" a term used to describe people labored with the strength of their arms, and was part of a community in the city of Ravenna in the delta of the Po river of the Italian peninsula. He had a craggy face with strong features, probably due to the Etruscan origins of the people in the area, and the hardships of times in the mountainous areas before reaching the lower delta. The year was 1873 and life was harsh and disheartening in the midst of an ongoing poverty and upheavals. His burden wasn't simple as he had a family with three mouths to feed. Most of the time he managed to be employed on the teams that maintained the network of canals in the delta of the Po river so that land that had been painstainkinly claimed from the swamps decades earlier continue to be fertile and gave the region an agrarian richness that others would always envy.

He had just recently accepted a proposal by his cousin, Nicola, to join a cooperative for the labourers of Ravenna to seek better opportunities. The idea was that as a cooperative they would have better bargaining power and more job offers would come, not for the single but for projects that required teams of workers. Achille wasn't literate due to a lack of education priorities and so the major changes the Italian peninsula was seeing were more of news through secondary word of mouth. He did, however, hear that the unification of Italy was successful and that now King Vittorio Emmanuale II headed the new Kingdom of Italy, and Rome as its capital. It sounded far away as much as it actually was in physical distance.

Little did he know how things would forever change for him.

Nicola was excited as a bearer of news. The parliament of the Kingdom of Italy had sent out a bid for works that required teams of workers with certain experience. The new capital, Rome, needed the delta of the Tiber river to be reclaimed as well a rendering it hospitable by controlling its malaria infested swamps. A project had already been defined and an overall technical strategy network of canals would be the fundamental solution to the problem. Digging and maintaining the canals was the task at hand. It wasn't the best of pay, but it was paid by the government which held a degree of promise for the future. Nicola was sure they would be seen favorably and would be selected. Achille did not know exactly what to think. His existence was meager one, just from one day to the next, getting up early and heading out to be in the queue to get work that would be assigned and paid at the end of the day. Those at the back of queue weren't so lucky as they would be turned down and to try the following day. If they got the job it couldn't possibly be any worse since everyone on the team wouldn't have to leave with the uncertainity of new day.

Not long after Nicola came back with the much hoped response. The Ravenna cooperative got the subcontract and it would be for four years. 500 abled men were chosen. They were divided into teams of 10. Since this work was far away from home and their families would not be with them, a group of 50 women were chosen to be part of the team in a role known as "azdora" in the region of Romagna. This was perhaps the single and unique element that mitigated the challenges of the endeavour.

L'azdora, as it was known in Romagna, was a unique role hardly found elsewhere and in any other time period. In the 18th and 19th century livelihood depended on the success of the family farm, but both family and farm are not what you would think of in modern terms. Farming was manually intensive and the more hands, the better. The family was also strictly patriarchal as in most societies but this also served Romagna's farming needs well - the family was always an extended family as women joined their husband's family, and with death rate of children, families with 7 or more children were not uncommon. An extended family could and would grow considerably, sometimes numbering in the hundreds. Making the farm a success was really an enterprise, it required managing the family workforce, and operating it as efficiently possible, and ensuring that the returns were met. The patriarch of the family was probably in his later years and physically limited. The men were illiterate. The matriarch of the family was certainly an important figure but authority was merely a consequence of time and lineage. None of this would be good for running such a large operation. Thus the azdora came into being. She was a woman and in today's term would be considered the CEO, COO, and CFO all rolled into one. Who was she? She would be one of the women in the extended family. She would have had some education perhaps, at least literate and functionally capable as well with numbers. She had to have a personality amenable to being lovable to everyone or at least respected. She also had to have confidence in order to direct the men of the family on farm tasks and to be able to deal with any and all types of clashes and objections. By default she also had to be capable in the kitchen as well in order to feed everyone everyday. Quite a tall order. It was a choice by consensus and commanded a tremendous amount fo respect. A farm would rise, would survive, or would fail, it all depended on the azdora chosen. Some women occasionally would be named a azdora for special needs and circumstances.

Preparations went on fervishly, almost like sending an army to war, and perhaps it wasn't so different afterall. When the time came, Achille joined the others for a long train trip. Indeed it was a special train convoy dedicated to the entire 550 men and women. The entire town so them off, to give well wishes, and to show the support.

It was to be a long trip, all day and all night, as the train went from the Po river delta heading south towards Florence before heading to Rome. The train labored as it took on the graded incline up the mountain range that is a natural boundary between the regions of emilia Romagna and Tuscany. It was slow as it chugged along. There was not much that Achille could do. Sleep wasn't easy in the crowded train and hard benches. The women azdora kept busy as they provided food to the men - better a full stomach rather than an empty one with everyone bustled together for hours on end. By the midday of the following day the train was getting closer to destination. The men were disappointed that the train would not arrive in Rome, but they understood that it was for the best. Rome was still Rome, and while it was the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, Ravenna and Romagna was known to be the hotbed of socialism and also sorts of ideologies contrary to Rome. Indeed it was easy to label this special train as one full of subversives, anticlericals, and even just knifers in general. So the train just made its way to Fiumicino, the closest station to where they needed to be.

Well before reaching Fiumicino the men could see and smell the change in the countryside as hills changed to a foreboding panorama of swamps and marshlands. The air was even foul smelling as these lands held death and decay all over. Even a midday low mist had begun to form hugging the land and giving an eerie look. At the train stop even the silence was deafening. Hardly a soul was in sight.

A short walk from the train stop brought them to the banks of the Tiber river. Giuseppe was there with his ferry to take them across the river to the other side. His only comment said it all - "the land there is so foul that the devil prefers to stay in hell."

It was a November day and while winter had arrived, Rome would typically be blessed by a sun that would still provide a very warm feeling as long as there was little cloud coverage. These swamps and marshes were quite a different world as the warmth only made it easier for the low lying fog to develop and remain throughout the day. Being in the midst of the fog brought no warmth, just a chill to the bones and generally sense of mugginess. But even that was nothing compared to the feeling of being devoured while alive as mosquitoes and insects alike would constantly be around. Last but not least, once the men started work and had to be in the swamps with their legs in the stagnant water, the blood sucking leeches woud come in hordes.

Achille alighted on the other side of the river and followed the rest of the men to their arrival quarters which turned out to be several large barns on the estate of the Prince Chigi. At least it provided some shelter. The following day they headed out to their camp for the next four years. Really nothing more than a group of huts and thatched housings. Probably just a step up from what was afforded to livestock in the area.

Discontent was quick to come to the fore. Achille too wondered - was this all worth it? Several started to openly voice their anger and disillusion - the conditions were just inhumane and the pay was no justice for the suffering and sickness that would be a daily constant, death aside. But these people from Ravenna were equally proud and the men did not want to be considered cowards in the eyes of their children and family. They would not renege on the promise and commitment they made, and so they settled in to endure what may come, and pay the price.

Four years was how long the work was to take. Over time Achille saw several of his companions struggle physically and in the end succumbing to the ravages of malaria. It is said that over 600 men perished in this endeavour and four years was not enough. In the end it took seven years or almost twice as much to complete the work as planned. Achille was fortunate enough to be among those who managed to bring their families, settling them in housing provided by the goveernment in the Roman and miedival hamlet of Ostia Antica. He remained there, accepting to work on the regular maintenance. Reclaiming the land with canals was not a one time job. Water from the high lands would take whatever path it could find by gravity, but it would equally find it easy to stay and stagnate anywhere. A network of canals was only part of the solution, water pumps were need to help push and deal with differences in level. Some pumps were steam powered, others were literally manual. Constant dredging and operations of the pumps was the only way to ensure the reclaimed land remained so. Only in early 1920's did the pumps get upgraded with electricity to provide a better service and a lower risk of disruption. Achille's descendants continue to work in the area, mostly in the newly reclaimed lands for agricultural uses. Inesorably their past became heritage as they integrated and assimilated with other migrants into the local community which became a growing extension of Rome and 20th century census.

Rome

Plenty can be said of Rome. Let's take one instance to provide context. The Roman walls, as a fortification, were erected to protect the people of Imperial Rome and therefore it's boundaries traces the extent of the city's population at the time. There were almost a million of inhabitants at the time. If one isn't familiar with subsequent history then one might not appreciate that the fall of the Roman empire and subsequent dark years of barbarian invasions, resulted in a dramatic decrease in Rome's population, generally estimated to have been only 10% of the best of times. Just imagine, when 90% of a city's population disappears, the city is essentially decimated in every physical way. Buildings fall in disrepair and very quickly uninhabited areas will be reclaimed by overgrown grass. And so it went for centuries. By the 18th century many parts of the Roman walls that were still standing were remnants in a seemingly isolated landscape of land, grass, and barren areas. Entering the boundaries of the wall one had to travel still a certain distance before reaching whatever remained of Rome of its remaining habitants. In essence the city had completely retreated. Vast portion of the land, both within and outside the wall became part of estates belonging to aristocrats and nobility during the papal reign. As the population grew again, the city expanded once more. The already rich estates only got richer by parceling out what they didn't have any immediate use or value for. What we today call property development.

By the 19th century came industrialization and people flocked to cities in search of a better future and the attraction of a better life. Rome grew in population, slowly reclaiming areas within the Roman walls. But this growth brought other needs particularly in agricultural goods in proximity. The surrounding areas around Rome wasn't particularly suited and held an insidious problem that the early Romans were quite familiar with - malaria. South west and southeast of Rome were immense swaths of lands that were marshy and swamps, ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes, the bearer of malaria. The Romans had managed to reclaim some of it through strategic waterworks to provide drenage but it required constant maintenance, something that was challenge with ongoing invasions and battles. With the dark ages nature took its natural course in retaking every thing back and even more. If the Romans had returned they would have seen a landscape similar to Planet of the Apes of what remained of the empire.

Unification

Before 1861 there was no such country known as Italy, only a number of countries or states of Italy. History is complex and complicated but the key to everything is that nothing happens in a vacuum or isolation, any and all events are consequence of preceding situations. War and territory have always been a constant factor in this regard. The Congress of Vienna 1814-1815 and you would rightly say - what? Only those who studied European and national history would this have meaning. For this tale, just keep in mind that there was no major participant known as "Italy" while there was Britain, France, and so on. Amongst the minor participants were Kingdom of Sardinia, Republic of Genoa, Grand Duchy of Tuscany, Kingdom of Sicily, and the Papal States. The Congress of Vienna defined and allocated territory in a so called new order for Europe after the Napoleonic period.

The winds of revolution in 1848 gave birth to movments towards nationalism and this planted the seed the would eventually lead to idea of a unification of the differents states in the Italian peninsula. This would culminate in the 1871 defeat of the Papal States and the annexation of Rome which was to be the capital of the newly formed Kingdom of Italy.

The countryside close to Rome was sparsely populated, but the agrarian goal of the newly formed kingdom was to create agrarian wealth for the newly recognized capital of the kingdom. It made sense but how and where? By reclaiming land until then unusable or unlivable.

Agro Romano

In the annexed Lazio region, vast areas of swamp and marshy land were part of the extended Roman countryside. These lands were generally attributed to two areas, the first part of the Agro Romano in the southwest extending from Rome west to the Tyrrhenian sea at what is today Fiumicino and seaside of Ostia, while the second is known as Agro Pontino and extended Southeast towards Naples. What needed to be done was fairly simple in concept but there were no simple solutions - water had to be removed to dry the land and it had to be prevented from reflooding the land. The latter could be achieved with man. made canals. The former could be consequence of the latter. So basically the swamp lands had to be reformed with strategically placed canals.

In1865, 9% of the land of the Kingdom of Italy was infested by malaria as a result of being swamp and marsh lands. In the span of 60 years 300,000 hectares were reclaimed. For Rome, the first reclaimation covered vast areas on the southwest sector from the sea to many kilometers inland. The area covers the delta of the Tiber river. Over 500 braccianti, literally translated as "working with arms", from the Romagna area of Ravenna took up the call and offer by the government to be the manual laborers. Why?

The delta of the Po river had been equally swampy and infested with malaria for centuries. In the 19th century during a period of intense impoverishment, labourers in the region, joined as well by other impoverished labourers of other parts of the north and east, toiled away to reclaim land. The reward were the vast fertile grounds that gave birth to the agrarian successes the region is known for today. This was the knowledge and experience the braccianti of Ravenna had. But this is only part of the reason. They were also first known organized cooperative, known as the cooperativa lavoratori operai e braccianti. When the government of the Kingdom of Italy awarded the contract for reclaiming the land in the Tiber delta, the cooperative was successful in getting the subcontract to actually supply the labourers.

Ravennati

The year was 1884 and a special train was at Ravenna. 500 braccianti had responded to the call by the cooperative and they were organized in teams of 10. Each team had a woman known as "azdora" assigned. While the workers were illiterate the azdora was not. She would be responsible for taking care of the men, feeding them, and writing letters for them to home. 500 were the "scarriolanti", those who dug the land and carried it away with wheel barrows. Almost like chained prisoners who just toiled away at splitting boulders. The rest were the women who would feed and care for the workers. They rode the train all day and all night. The train didn't even stop in Rome, but this wasn't a matter of logistics or routing, simply political. The labourers of Ravenna weren't just individuals they were also a strong community of united socialists and anarchists in general, not the type Rome wanted to see with the risk of formenting disruptions. A group of subversives and anticlerical was how they were probably described at the time. The train simply arrived at destination at Fiumicino. What they saw was not the landscape of today. It was grey and desolate. It seemed to extend in every direction without end. There was also a low lying fog that wasn't just hugging the land, it seem a perennial blanket and cage trapping everything in its embrace. The air was no better. It had a maladorous odor of decay and lingering death. It could have easily been mistaken for an unforgiving place and prelude to hell.

What started in 1884 was completed in 1891, and additional areas by 1904. This was twenty year period. In perspective if you were a young man of 20 years, you were mid aged by completion. Or if you were mid aged in 1884 you were done at 60 and life expectancy was still low at the time. How many got sick and how many died was not recorded in detail.

They toiled away for years. Many died from the malaria. Perhaps it wasn't a complicated task, but it was no doubt the definition of brute force by hand. A modern intepretation of what had been the building of pyramids. When the task was completed in the early 20th century, the families had by then settled in housing the government provided in the area of Ostia Antica. While the people today speak the Roman dialect many have variations that are a testament to their heritage as migrants from another part of Italy.

Today the entire area is populated as a result of influx of people from different parts of the peninsula looking for a better future and that the reclaimed areas offered new opportunities. They have blended their cultural identities and created new local ones. There are remnants of their heritage. Those living in the areas, like Casal Palocco, know the names of differents canals in the area, but many probably mistaken them to be names of natural waterways while phyiscally it is clear they are all man made. In a final irony some people even believe that Mussolini was responsible for the reclaimation - true of the southeast swamps and marshes in the area known as Agro Pontino in the mid 20th century, and also true for the modernization of the pumps in the Agro Romano - but the real work in this area of the Agro Romano on the delta of the Tiber river was only by this dedicated team of "braccianti" from Ravenna who toiled away for seven years, fought the mosquitoes, lost to malaria, and many paid with the ultimate sacrifice. 140 years ago, but it should not be a footnote, it should not be taken for granted, it should be remembered and respected. It is a debt that can never be repaid.