Wonder Woman of the Week: Marie Laveau

Historians and folklorists have long fantasized the biography of this week's spotlight- but under the surface of fantasy, this voodoo queen was an intelligent woman with the streetwise to launch an industry. This week's Wonder Woman is Marie Laveau- the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. Little is known about Laveau's background as texts from the early years of colonial New Orleans can be unreliable, but what is known is that she was born as a free woman of color (Native American, African, and European ancestry) and married young at the age of eighteen to a French-born refugee fleeing from the slave-led Haitian Revolution.

Marie Laveau's success in the history books as a voodoo practitioner comes in large part to her daughter (possibly daughters) who carried on her work after Laveau's death- making tracking down the original voodoo queen's career successes difficult to separate from her daughter[s]'s. What is known for sure about Laveau senior is that she was a hairdresser for wealthy women in New Orleans and used her position as the ear to city-wide gossip to masquerade at night as a fortune teller- often passing off her ear for gossip as psychic powers.

After Marie Laveau's death, the woman continued to make a lasting impression on the city's future. Laveau's daughter continued her mom's legacy by assuming the title of voodoo queen and using her mother's name under her new title. With the addition of a pet snake and seemingly magical power, rumors of a queen of black magic in New Orleans turned to fantasy and the image of an old woman with a snake and voodoo powers continues to thrive in American folklore- especially in and around New Orleans.