Joseph Barboza - Background

Background

Barboza, also known as "The Animal", "The Wild Thing", "The Nigger", "Joseph Donati", "Joseph Bentley" and "The Joe Valachi of New England", was born to Portuguese-American emigrants from Lisbon, Portugal who settled in the old whaling city of New Bedford, Massachusetts. He was born on September 30, 1932 the son of a middle-weight boxer and a mother who was a seamstress. Joseph's father was a constant womanizer who eventually abandoned his wife and four children when Joe was only twelve. He had one older brother who became a minor criminal in New England and a younger sister and younger brother. He was extremely good-looking and adored by women with a growling voice and dominating appearance. He was bull-necked and weighed between 168 to 175 pounds by the time he reached adulthood. Joe was fluent in Portuguese, Italian and Spanish and self-educated because of a lack of formal schooling. He was a skilled chef who cooked for his family and members of his crew authentic Portuguese cuisine dishes and later after graduating from cooking class as a sauce, vegetable and roast chef, learned how to cook French cuisine, mostly with wines. Barboza had rugged good looks and thick, dark brown naturally wavy hair, and dark eyes. He was married to a Jewish woman and fathered a daughter in 1965 and also a son and lived in Chelsea, Massachusetts while employed by the Patriarca crime family.He was a close friend of Joseph Amico and Arthur Bratsos who would later both be murdered for trying to avenge his incarceration.