Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Marie Laveau (1794–1881) was a Louisiana Creole: descended from the colonial white settlers, black slaves and free people of color of southern Louisiana. For several decades this 'Voodoo Queen' held New Orleans spellbound. She staged ceremonies in which participants became possessed by loas (Voodoo spirits); she dispensed charms and potions, even saving several condemned men from the gallows; told fortunes and healed the sick.
The first white settlers of Louisiana were French, usually the second born sons of aristocrats who left France to seek adventure in the New World. These Frenchmen came to be called Creole, and made up the upper crust of New Orleans. The word was later used to refer to white Frenchmen as well as people of color in New Orleans. The Creole living in Louisiana at that time inter-mixed with Black slaves, free people of color, Indian and Acadian people. Many Creole today can trace there ancestors back to that time.
Although there is plenty of information about Marie Laveau in the legends and lore of New Orleans, separating the fact from the myth has always been a challenge. Nearly everything that is known about her originates in the secretive oral tradition of the practitioners of Voodoo which has been embellished with hearsay and drama, making an already larger than life persona absolutely formidable in the tales that survive.
Childhood and Early Years
Marie Laveau is believed to have been born in the French Quarter of New Orleans on September 10, 1794, the illegitimate daughter of wealthy Creole plantation owner Charles Laveau and his mistress Marguerite (who was reportedly black and Choctaw Indian). Marie grew up on her father's plantation where she was educated and studied to be a hairdresser. She was a devout Catholic who went to mass every day of her life.
On August 4, 1819, Marie Laveau married carpenter Jacques Paris, a free person of color from Haiti, and went to live in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Their marriage certificate is preserved in St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. This record also contains the names of Marie's parents: Charles Laveau and Marguerite Darcantrel. Marie was described as tall, beautiful and statuesque, with curly black hair, golden skin and 'good' features (then meaning more white than Negro).
Jacques Paris was part of a large Haitian immigration to New Orleans in 1809 after the Haitian Revolution of 1804. These new immigrants consisted of French-speaking white planters and thousands of slaves, as well as free people of color. Those with African ancestry helped revive Voodoo and other African-based cultural practices in the New Orleans community, and the Creole of color community increased markedly.
Paris went missing and was presumed dead in 1824. (Marie insisted that he had died and that she was a widow although there is evidence that he had deserted her). For whatever reason, Paris was out of her life and she was left with two children to raise. Following the custom of the time, Laveau began calling herself the Widow Paris.
After Paris' death, Marie Laveau began working as a hairdresser catering to the wealthy white and Creole women of New Orleans and this is considered the root of her enduring legend. Many of these women looked upon Marie as a confidante, confessing to her their most intimate secrets and desires about their husbands and lovers, their estates and families, their husbands' mistresses and business affairs.
