Marie Laveau I: Rise to Power
She Was the Powerful Charismatic Supreme Voodoo Queen of New Orleans
Marie I was an illegitimate daughter of Marguerite Darcantrel and Charles Laveau. A free woman of color, she was a tall striking mulatto of white, black and AmerIndian heritage. She married Jacques Paris, a quadroon (¾ white, ¼ black) and free man of color, who disappeared soon after the wedding. Calling herself the Widow Paris, she worked as a hairdresser. Her clients were the wealthy Creole and white women of New Orleans and Marie learned their most intimate secrets and fears.
Louis Christopher Duminy de Glapion became her lover. Although they never married, they lived together and had 15 children. Marie left the vocation of hairdressing to become the Voodoo Queen of the Crescent City.
Voodoo in Marie’s Time
There were secret rituals being held deep in the bayous including worshipping a snake, dancing, drinking and sex. Almost a third of the participants were white. These meetings frightened the slave’s white masters because they feared blacks were planning an uprising. In 1817, the New Orleans Municipal Council enacted an ordinance forbidding blacks to gather for any purpose except on Sundays, and only in Congo Square.
By the 1830s there were many voodoo queens in New Orleans who fought to control the Sunday Congo dances and secret ceremonies at Lake Pontchartrain. Marie Laveau decided to become the supreme queen.
On Her Way to Victory
For those contenders who wouldn’t fade away, Marie had her powerful gris-gris bags to defeat them. When this failed, she used brute force.
She was also a devoted Catholic and added saint’s icons, holy water, incense and Christian prayers to the ceremonies.
Marie knew the attraction that the Lake Pontchartrain rituals held, so she invited the public, press, police and thrill-seekers of taboo pleasure to attend. She charged an admission fee. Her money-making endeavors went even further by her organizing secret gatherings for rich white men seeking clandestine relationships with beautiful black, mulatto and quadroon women. She presided over these meetings.
She gained control of the Congo Square Dances by arriving before other dancers and entertaining the fascinated observers by dancing with her snake, Zombi.
Marie used secrets she learned as a hairdresser, her considerable knowledge of spells and her charisma until she became the most powerful woman in New Orleans. She also rewarded slaves and others who told her secrets of the rich that they wanted to be kept quiet.
Sweet Victory
To the blacks, she was leader. She helped them without a fee.
Whites of all classes sought her help in their various affairs, such as love and business. Judges paid her as much as $1000 to help them win an election. Marie charged $10 for love powders. She gave readings, which became the “in thing” in New Orleans. Among her visitors were the Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette, Aaron Burr, Governor Claiborne, French General Humbert and the gentleman pirate, Jean Lafitte.
In 1869, Marie gave her last public performance as the supreme voodoo queen. She continued working with prisoners until 1875, retired to her Saint Ann Street home and died in 1881. At some point in time, her daughter, Marie Laveau Glapion, Marie II took over the role of Voodoo Queen.
According to legend, Marie I’s ghost has been seen as an old woman, a crow, a Newfoundland dog and a snake on St. Ann Street. On St. John’s Eve, people have reported hearing otherworldly singing and seeing the shadowy form of a woman holding on to a floating log.
Related articles:
Gris-gris, Resquardo & Gurunfinda
St. John's Day & the Marie Laveaus
Sources:
The Encyclopedia of Witches & Witchcraft, Rosemary Ellen Guiley, (Facts on File, Inc., 1999)
Voodoo & Hoodoo, Jim Haskins, (Scarborough House, 1990)
Voodoo in New Orleans, Robert Tallant, (Pelican Publishing Company, 1994)
