Marie LaVeau Enters the Picture (1830s)
Around the time Madame LaLaurie recieved her comeuppance, Voodoo religious rites emerged among the New Orleans enslaved. Marie LaVeau brought it to the forefront. She was born to a Creole woman and a white father. She practiced voodoo from an early age, selling ritual items such as gris gris, selling charms and cures, and telling fortunes. A practicing Catholic, Marie moved to the French Quarter when she married Jacques Paris, a free man of color from Haiti, in 1819.
Voodoo established itself in French Quarter Haitian culture well before LaVeau arrived to work as a hairdresser and healer. She gained the confidence of her white and Creole clients, hearing – and keeping – their secrets. While she was working her jobs and raising her children, she was learning Voodoo practices from her mentor, Doctor John (sometimes referred to as John Bayou), and rose in the ranks as a Voodoo Queen.
