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The lack of documentary evidence for this part of Angelo's Ufe possibly relates
to the low literacy rates among Italians of the 1850s and the inabUity of many to write
to their famiUes back home. Speaking only the dialect of their village or region, at the
time of Italian unification, almost 98 per cent of the population experienced Italian as a
foreign language and only one in 1,000 were literate." In 1859, it had proven
imposssible ~ due to a lack of teachers ~ to extend a law which would have specified
two years of compulsory education for everyone.*"* This inability to communicate with
their families back home may have forced some Italians to an increasing dependency
upon the Ticinesi (many of whom were marginally more educated) and hence to a
position of real or perceived inferiority: despite their apparent cohesiveness, transfer
to AustraUa and the need for a wide range of skills previously irrelevant to the peasant,
may have created new social divisions within the Italian-speaking population. For
some Italians, immigration thus meant a loss of status both vis-a-vis the broader
Anglo-Celtic community and wdth their own ethnic grouping.
Angelo may have mined wdth some success at Yandoit for he soon decided to
settle in the area. Citing his reason for requesting British citizenship as the desire for
permanent settlement, he was naturalised on 21 November 1863 at the age of 34."
This change of attitude to his permanent residence in Australia coincided with his
increasing family responsibUities. That same year his youngest brother Giovanni
Battista, who was then seventeen, also emigrated to AustraUa, political events in Italy
having faUed to ease the concems of many people. Though Lombardy had gained its
independenCw from the Austrians in 1859, the establishment of the kingdom of Italy
had brought with it social upheaval and a burden of heavy debt. While a few relished
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