![]() An arrant fraud, no doubt, but money poured into her lap down to the last day of her evil life.” Writer John Kendall, once wrote, “After dark, you might see carriages roll up to Marie’s door, and veiled ladies, elegantly attired, descend and hurry in to buy what the old witch had for sale. It has been documented that enslaved West Africans first brought Voodoo to New Orleans and the religion evolved as Black people escaped to New Orleans in their numbers during the Haitian Revolution from 17.ĭespite being a devoted Catholic, who attended mass most of the time and advised others to do the same, Laveau became the most powerful among voodoo queens in New Orleans. Gaining so much information from these influential people, Laveau was able to convince others that she was a Voodoo priestess with supernatural abilities although other sources claimed that she learned her craft from a “voodoo doctor” known as Doctor John. Known around town as the Widow Paris while working as a hairdresser, Laveau’s clients were mostly wealthy white women who felt at ease revealing secrets and other confidential matters to her. What is known is that Laveau passed away some five decades after her husband Paris. Harrington went ahead last year to present her finding to the Louisiana Historical Association. There is no record of Paris divorcing Laveau. It is still not known why Paris moved to Baton Rouge. He was buried in an unmarked grave in St. ![]() Yago died leaving behind some woodworking tools and clothes valued at $13.87. I’d welcome arguments against, but that is my theory.” “The chances that there was another free man of color in West Baton Rouge Parish with that name, who was also a carpenter, living around that time, are unlikely,” Harrington said. The man was a carpenter, which can be used to describe a cabinet maker at the time. Yago Paris, a phonetic spelling of Santiago, according to. In 2019, she stumbled upon the record of an 1823 succession, a list of earthly possessions compiled after a death, for a free man of color named St. What’s more, Harrington did not only search for Jacques Paris, she searched for Santiago Paris, an alternative version of his name, she told. She knew that scholars before her had searched records in New Orleans for clues as to what happened to Paris, so she started her search in the neighboring city of Baton Rouge. She took a different approach in her search. Over the years, as she studied theater, anthropology and archaeology, she became fascinated by the voodoo queen’s story and even moved to New Orleans to learn more and find Laveau’s missing husband.Ībout six years ago, she started going through historic archives to find out what really happened to Laveau’s husband Paris. Harrington, from Chicago, was only 12 years old when she heard about the story of Laveau while playing a video game. “It seemed too easy for him to disappear.” “As a student of Marie Laveau, I’ve never been satisfied that he’d just disappeared,” Harrington told. Last year, Kenetha Harrington, an LSU archaeology doctoral candidate, said she had uncovered the fate of Laveau’s husband. Laveau could have also cast a spell on him to disappear after realizing he had cheated, some writers say. Others say that he was against his wife’s voodoo practice and left for good. Others think he went down in a shipwreck while hoping to go back to his native home, Saint-Domingue (Haiti). Some say that he probably had an affair with another woman and left Laveau. Over the years, some writers have come up with so many reasons for his disappearance. In 1822, he appeared in the New Orleans City Directory, which is a list of residents and businesses. Per records, Paris was a cabinet maker and another free person of color from Haiti,who married Marie in 1819 when she was 18. Scholars had until recently been wondering whatever happened to her husband, Paris. Her two children would also pass away while young under unknown circumstances. Various sources say that Laveau’s mother and grandmother were voodoo practitioners, however, Laveau started life as a hairdresser after losing her first husband, Jacques Paris, with whom she had two children. Rumors of her supernatural abilities are so widespread that to date, people from all over the world visit her gravesite to leave tokens like candles, flowers, Voodoo dolls, and offerings with hopes that she will bless them and grant them their requests.īorn in New Orleans on September 10, 1801, as a free woman of color, Laveau was the daughter of a free man of color and a Creole mother. Known as the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans for at least 40 years from the 1820s to the 1860s, Marie Laveau was well known for her special powers, her charity works and her ability to heal and charm with her potions called gris-gris. ![]() She wielded a lot of influence in the Deep South during the days of slavery, despite being a Black woman.
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