Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau

by Martha Ward

Each year, thousands of pilgrims visit the celebrated New Orleans tomb where Marie Laveau is said to lie. They seek her favors or fear her lingering influence. Voodoo The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau is the first study of the Laveaus, mother and daughter of the same name. Both were legendary leaders of religious and spiritual traditions many still label as evil.

The Laveaus were free women of color and prominent French-speaking Catholic Creoles. From the 1820s until the 1880s when one died and the other disappeared, gossip, fear, and fierce affection swirled about them. From the heart of the French Quarter, in dance, drumming, song, and spirit possession, they ruled the imagination of New Orleans.

How did the two Maries apply their “magical” powers and uncommon business sense to shift the course of love, luck, and the law? The women understood the real crime―they had pitted their spiritual forces against the slave system of the United States. Moses-like, they led their people out of bondage and offered protection and freedom to the community of color, rich white women, enslaved families, and men condemned to hang.

The curse of the Laveau family, however, followed them. Both loved men they could never marry. Both faced down the press and police who stalked them. Both countered the relentless gossip of curses, evil spirits, murders, and infant sacrifice with acts of benevolence.

The book is also a detective story―who is really buried in the famous tomb in the oldest “city of the dead” in New Orleans? What scandals did the Laveau family intend to keep buried there forever? By what sleight of hand did free people of color lose their cultural identity when Americans purchased Louisiana and imposed racial apartheid upon Creole creativity? Voodoo Queen brings the improbable testimonies of saints, spirits, and never-before-printed eyewitness accounts of ceremonies and magical crafts together to illuminate the lives of the two Marie Laveaus, leaders of a major, indigenous American religion.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, Religion, Witches, American History, Halloween

264 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2003

Reviews

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love New Orleans, and I've always been interested in Voodoo, so I thought Voodoo Queen would be a great combination of these topics. However, my disappointment began as early as the book's introduction when Ward admits that very little, if any, primary source material exists about the two Marie Laveaus. Ward uses the term "gumbo ya ya" to describe the sources used throughout the book...stories and other oral tradition that have become as mixed up over the years as a good bowl of gumbo. It's fairly entertaining at times, but it's difficult to enjoy when you don't really trust any of the information.

[✨Bean's Books✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great biography on a historical Legend.
Marie Laveau is the well-renowned voodoo queen of New Orleans. Her gifts and magic were legendary. Her good deeds for the colored community led her into the books of history. But could there have been more than one Marie Laveau? This book examines the historical records of Marie Laveau and tries to decipher between Marie Laveau senior and her daughter Marie Laveau the second.
In this book Martha Ward takes us on a grand adventure through Voodoo country New Orleans. She paints a picture so vivid with color that you feel that you are they're watching Marie Laveau in Congo Square dancing with a snake wrapped around her body to the beat of slowly resounding drums. She examines all aspects of the life and even death of the 2 Marie Laveaus. She also paints a great setting of the early to mid-1800s and gives us a chance to peek into the world in which they lived and the tribulations they fought and overcame in their own time.
Expertly written! Very clean and precise in her research, Martha Ward takes the reader on a fantastic journey through this book. Though the two story lines are a bit confusing, Ward writes it in a way to make it easier for the reader to follow along and try for themselves to distinguish between the two lines. The cover art is absolutely beautiful and Vivid with color and sets the stage for the Voodoo Queen herself.
I. LOVE. THIS. BOOK. Amazing storytelling especially for a biography. I love all the history that Ward has included in this book not just about the Marie Laveau's but also about the time era surrounding their lives. She obviously did a lot of very hard research in order to write this book. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys history, voodoo, the occult, or just a really good book in general.

[McCalla Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it was irritating to set out to read a book about the facts about a figure shroad in much history and receive only the "might have been". But, if there really isn't much definitive information out there I might have to settle for what I can get.

Ward doesn't present this book as fact, she let's you know right off the back that it's more her own personal conjecture based off of folklore and the official documents she could find. At that point, you have three options: 1) Take her for her word 2) Understand that some of it might be true, maybe all, maybe none, and leave it at that 3) Do your own independent research. I will be probably be taking option three and at the very least reading Carolyn Marrow Long's book next.

I did like the book, for what it's worth. I've lived in New Orleans for almost a decade now and have worked in the Quarter for the past three. I know a lot of the places described in the book and I thought Ward did a fabulous job of descriptivly transporting me to those places but as they were in a different time. I feel, at least, I definitively learned something about the racial history and story of the city I live in and have grown to love so deeply. Even if I only know more folk lore about Marie Laveau, I have a deeper understanding and appreciation of the Creole history of this place, and potentially have a sudden new found and appreciation in that enough to further research that subject as well.

All in all, I give this book a 3.3. I would recommend it if you can hold an open mind on an enigmatic character in history, but I will absolutely recommend further research if you are truly interested in Marie Laveau and will update this review once I finish Long's book.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

While we were in New Orleans, a woman in one of the voodoo stores was telling us about Marie Laveau. I was already entranced by this city, the music and dancing in the streets, the voodoo shops and the well-preserved architecture of the French Quarter.

The author did such extensive research that this book was too detailed for my purposes. This is a book for Marie Laveau aficionados.

There was still plenty for me, though. I learned a lot about Marie Laveau and New Orleans.

[Lara Reading Wild · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciate the variety of resource used for this. The author explored the life of Mary Leveau against the backdrop of New Orleans culture and politics, contrasted with those of the United States. The context these comparisons provided portrayed what a singular place New Orleans was during that time.

[Mogg Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau

'The forty-four cemeteries of New Orleans lend themselves to mystery, ghost stories and occult tourism. Local citizens call them 'cities of the dead'. First time visitors receive a surreal shock - ancient ruins, marble monuments and tall crypts celebrate death and refuse to sterilize, deny or make it merely a medical fact Against the skyline, angels, crosses and statues of grieving mothers make the aura of decomposition exquisite. Mile after mile of tombs resemble houses, small mansions or places of worship - neighborhoods where another branch of the family lives . . . The Creole citizens of New Orleans came to be infatuated with tales of open graves, gruesome deaths and skeletons or ghosts who lead independent lives along the avenues of the cities of the dead. . . (p. 94)


This new biography by Martha Ward is published by University of Mississippi Press, at approx 20 UK pounds (ISBN 1-57806-629-8). Beneath the dull gray cover lurks a colorful hardback documenting the history of the New Orleans Voodoo clan of Marie Laveau and her eponymous daughter. Marie I, born in 1801 died 1881, is buried in the famous New Orleans Tomb which every year is visited by many thousands of pilgrims. She and her daughter lived extraordinary lives, spanning the purchase of Louisiana by the fledgling USA, the civil war, the decline and suppression of Voodoo and the rise of segregation.

Its unlikely that any earlier author had as much freedom to research the subject, using original documentary material, her own intuition and the extensive archive of oral history compiled during the years of the depression by the Federal Writer's Project. Marie Laveau's magick is clearly neither wholly black nor white - she was charismatic enticing her second racially white husband to declare himself black despite the vicious race laws of the time. Time and time again her actions emerge as not quite what they seem - the accusation that she owned slaves changes significance when the author's painstaking research exposes how she and her husband manipulated the law to resist slavery and secure a kind of freedom to anyone in their orbit.

Her daughter (also Marie Laveau) at first resisted but later embraced Voodoo. 'she liked parties, she loved the attention men paid to her striking good looks. She danced the Bamboula and the Calinda in Congo square on Sunday afternoon. There each time she ran into Jim Alexander (Dr Jim not Dr John??) a voodoo practitioner and respected two-headed doctor of Hoodoo, he confronted her; he told her that she radiated power. He offered to initiate her, to be her mentor, to take her through the door to the spirits. She turned him down time after time, because "she would rather dance than make love". One night however ' a great rattlesnake entered her bedroom and spoke to her.' p110.

Some say that in 1999 she returned to a St John's Eve Voodoo gathering on Bayou St John - hopefully she will return. Highly recommended book [Mogg]

[Teralyn Pilgrim]

This book is a fascinating portrayal of what life might have been like for Marie Laveau, and I loved reading it, but make no mistake; this "historical" book is a work of fiction.

The author provides intimate details of the Second Marie Laveau when scholars aren't even sure she existed. This book describes people being in places they never were, thinking thoughts they never had, having personalities we know nothing about. Martha Ward even admits that most of her book is imaginative. She said, "I have relied on dreams, intuition, a hyperactive imagination, and funky Voodoo luck." No kidding.

I thought it incredibly hypocritical when she accused Robert Tallant of making up facts for his own vendetta. While he wanted Marie Laveau to look like a devil, Ward wanted her to look like a saint, and neither of them told the truth to push their agendas.

Again, I did enjoy this book as much as if it were a historical fiction novel. In fact, I'm confused as to why she didn't write a novel since she obviously had a story to tell. I wouldn't steer anyone away from this book, but if you want to know the truth about Marie Laveau, I recommend Carolyn Morrow Long instead.

[Alexandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not good. Supposedly a historical biography, this book was more like reading a bad historical romance novel, complete with cheezy descriptions of what Marie Laveau might have been thinking (if Marie Lavaue had been white, 20th century privileged academic feminist, which she was not) during key life events reconstructed from scant evidence, unsubstantiated exaggerations of superstitious witnesses, and the "gumbo ya ya" of tales passed down through generation. I got halfway through and had to stop reading it due to absurdity.

[Amber · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book extremely frustrating because it is such an interesting tale and has such great stories. But the organization of the book and the writing style made it very difficult to follow. The timing jumped all over the place constantly and the uses of names was inconsistent. Even little things, such as the family tree not being placed at the beginning of the book, made reading it a long procedure.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 2004, I directed a theatre piece where actors were invited to choose their characters from someone in history. We then worked together as a cast to create pieces revealing the lives of these people. One person chose Marie Laveau, and just at this time this book was published. It was a great find. It's a fascinating read, and you learn about the persona Laveau created around herself, and what she was actually doing to help oppressed people in the south.

[Rebekah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sentimental tourist fluff-with a lot of extrapolation. However, flipping back to the bibliography will direct you to some useful resources.
As a research tool, this book is an okay summary of current material and opinions on the infamous Marie Laveau-about whom little more than her existence can be proven.

[Stella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it! Actually, I will read again since it's been so long.

[Derek Fenner · Rating 3 out of 5]

A topical sweeping introduction to two women who altered the current of NOLA. A fast read with lots of questions and historical dilemmas left unanswered. So be it, a kind offering.

[Doctor Moss · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book tells the story of Marie Laveau, both mother and daughter of the same name. It's the story of an independent, black Creole woman who exercised cultural and social power, magical or otherwise, in the racially and culturally complex worlds of nineteenth century New Orleans.

New Orleans in the nineteenth century was a complicated place. Slaves, free blacks, French whites, southern whites, Creoles, "quadroons", and Native Americans seem to have moved through worlds with unique intersections in Catholicism, commercialism, inter-marriage, and the practical concubinage of "placage". Add to the mix the passage from French rule to American and you get an amazing mass of shifting racial, political, legal, and religious power relationships. And Laveau seems to have been as much a master of navigation through that complicated world as anyone could have been.

Voodoo rituals and beliefs certainly played a role in her power, and Voodoo certainly was "real" in the New Orleans of her time, in its beliefs and practices. You don't have to buy into a religious acceptance of Voodoo to appreciate it as a sociological force, especially within a population striving for the power to define and maintain itself in an often hostile culture.

Martha Ward's book, judging from what other readers have said of it, is probably not the definitive biography of Marie Laveau. But it is a very engaging account of the "story" of Marie Laveau, both mother and daughter. The author seems as much taken by what people believed of Laveau as what may actually have been true about her. She does take some pain to separate truth from myth, but the myth seems to have been an essential part of the history of Marie Laveau. Ward's sources, which include oral histories recorded via the WPA's Federal Writers' Project, provide just that same mix of fact and myth-like interpretation.

All in all, an entertaining book that I found intriguing enough to want to read more, more about the factual Marie Laveau and more about that fascinating tangle of politics, race, religion, and informal sources of power that made up the New Orleans of her time.

[Matti Karjalainen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Martha Wardin "Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau" (University Press of Mississippi, 2004) tarttui mukaan matkalukemistoksi taannoiselle reissulleni, joka suuntautui voodoo-kuningattarien syntysijoille New Orleansiin.

Tietokirjassa käsitellään Marie Laveaun (n. 1801-1881) ja hänen samannimisen tyttärensä elämää 1800-luvun Louisianassa. Loppujen lopuksi kaksikon vaiheista tiedetään aika vähän, ja melkoinen osa siitä perustuu vuosien saatossa vääristyneihin ja tahallaan vääristeltyihin toisen käden tietoihin. Lähdemateriaalia ei ole hirvittävän paljon ja sekin saattaa olla (myös tarkoituksella) epäselvää ja sotkuista, kuten tekijä moneen otteiseen osoittaa. Esimerkiksi Marie Laveau nuoremman kuolinaika tai -paikka ei ole tiedossa. Kunniakkaasti Ward tutkimustyötään on tehnyt, olkoonkin että teksti saattaa hetkittäin tuntua vähän puuduttavalta ja raskaalta lukea, etenkin perhe- ja sukukuvioita selvitellessään.

Näkemys voodoosta tuntuu usein pohjautuvan vanhoihin kauhuelokuviin zombeineen ja nukkeineen. Se ei tee aiheelle oikeutta, sillä välillä voodoo-kuningattarien antama apu tuntuu muodostuvan pohjimmiltaan käytännönläheisiltä vinkeiltä ja maallikkoterapialta kuin maagisilta poppakeinoilta. Eräässä kuvatussa tapauksessa nuoremman Laveaun juttusille saapuu nainen, joka pelkää tulleensa kirotuksi, sillä hänen perheensä ei enää vieraile hänen luonaan eivätkä ystävät suostu tervehtimään häntä. Nainen saa seuraavan neuvon:

The Good Mother told her [...] Rub Three Kings and a Jack Lotion on her clothes. Put Root of Attraction into her right pocket. Then burn nine green candles in front of a picture of St. Expedite every night for nine nights in a row. Smile at friends, sympathize with strangers, and seek good spirits to live in your home. (s. 117)

Luultavasti pelkkä lihavoitu osiokin olisi riittänyt melko pitkälle, mutta ehkäpä ihminen tarvitsee myös jotakin uskon vahvistusta ja käytännön toimia päästäkseen puusta pitkälle!

Suosittelisin kirjaa lukijoille jotka ovat kiinnostuneita voodoosta uskontona, mutta yleisemmin ottaen myös niin naisten kuin mustien ja värillisten elämästä ja asemasta edellä kuvattuna ajanjaksona. Jos jotakin jäin kaipaamaan, niin kuvia olisi kirjaan mahtunut enemmänkin.

[Michelle H · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really don’t like to give bad reviews because I think there’s someone out there for every book and I’d never want to be the person to discourage someone from reading something that might be just what they’re looking for.

And, I mean, there were definitely some positives about this book, not the least of which is the actual subject matter. I really enjoyed learning about Marie Laveau and the history of voodoo. And there were moments where the book sank into a story or anecdote and was very, very good.

I think the issue I had was more about the construction of the book. I don’t need a linear structure to follow something like this, but the book jumped around way too much. One page might be talking about someone’s death, and then a few pages later, we’re in a story where the person is alive again - without context. I found the names confusing to follow as well. Yes, Marie had a daughter named Marie who also became a priestess so that was always going to be tough. That wasn’t the only instance of repeat or similar names. But knowing that’s already an issue, the author decided to call the first Marie alternately by her first name, her married name, and one of her possible aliases. This happened to several people. Taken with the time jumps, I finally gave up on trying to actually follow the trail of information. There were several times when I considered just not finishing but I was too interested in the topic itself and kept reading despite the issues.

[Will Mayo]

Who were the women called Marie Laveau, mother and daughter, the fabled Voodoo queens of nineteenth century New Orleans? With a little bit of detective work, Martha Ward, an anthropologist, unravels the tale. She tells of the mother who danced naked in the Congo Square, a snake wrapped around her, conjuring up Zombi, the greatest of African gods, and who also nursed the sick and wounded of the War of 1812, various epidemics and the Civil War. And she tells of the daughter, also named Marie Laveau, who was said to transformed threatening policemen into barking animals at her doorstep and who, like her mother, had a passion for freeing the imprisoned and those on Death Row. She tells of the mother named Marie Laveau's dying days and she also tells of how the daughter, so like her father, disappeared under mysterious circumstances. And she relates how Voodoo has almost invariably been an agency for the oppressed, the Creole and those of color, to resist their bonds and strive for a color blind society. She then closes with remarks on how echoes of Voodoo continue into the present day in the forms of jazz, Mardi Gras costumes and some fundamentalist Christianity. Leaving the reader with what can only be a sigh of wonder. It is well worth the read to one and all.

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a new book, 2004, but was recommended as one to read for more understanding of Black Lives Matter. I learned a great deal that I did not know about the southern US, both before and after the brutal civil war, ie the origins of Jim Crow and fall of free blacks during 'reconstruction', and of course a few feisty, intelligent and independent black women before that period, the Marie Laveaux. Yes, there was more than one, all related.

I am very glad I ordered this book. It is an eye-opener.

More on my home front, I have recently learned (mostly from Canadian black activist Desmond Cole from Halifax) that Canada was not JUST the end of the underground railway but was also a turnaround point for some disillusioned who found slavery in Canada. Some slave holders here were Loyalists (British sympathizers) reluctant to give up what they perceived as their rights, but some were already in Canada for a generation or more (many French in NS and Montreal). Nova Scotia, where I was born is particularly backward in granting attitudes of equality. I recognized this when I was growing up in beautiful Halifax.

[Christi · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I will fully agree with the statement that there is not a lot of written records about the Laveau and that like 5 people had the same name, the first few chapters were hard to get through. Around the 5th or 6th chapter, the book got a lot better. The story started actually focusing on the 2 Marie's and actual information, even if that information was from second-hand sources.
I found the book overall quite interesting and was so fascinated with the fact that no one knows when, where, or how Marie the 2nd died. And, at the end of this book, I had a new appreciation for voodoo and how it blended catholicism with African tradition to form something that wasn't understood and was "othered" to make people scared of it.

[Alex Dove · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this book often presents the information like someone telling you a story, but can't quite focus enough to go from A to B without multiple asides and backtracks, I thought it did a great job supplanting myths with facts. I learned a lot of information that I honestly wish would have been covered in school instead of the rote memorization of Reconstruction Era vocabulary. The parts which both Laveaus and Voodoo played in early America, and the complicated cultural differences between how people were treated before and after the civil war are important parts of history that are often forgotten in favor of the over simplfied textbook history.

[Billie · Rating 3 out of 5]

New Orleans is a wonderful City with some of the deepest histories of any state in the union. This book was good - I enjoyed learning what there is to know about Marie Laveau - which isn't much. While the book reads a bit like a text-book, I certainly learned a lot about both Marie and the City she called home. Three stars because some chapters were WAY more interesting than others and some I had to force myself through.

All-in-all a good book, one I'm glad I read, and one that made me even more interested in Marie.

[Hannah 🪔 · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I understand that the history of Marie Laveau (the First and Second) is often unclear, this book too seems to confuse them. A stronger chronological structure and more distinct language used when speculating would have improved the readability.

That being said, the picture this book paints of Creole lives in 19th century New Orleans, as well as samples from scholars and writers like Zora Neale Hurston, contemporary views of the French Quarter, and the exploration of Hoodoo and Voodoo, is remarkable and very entertaining.

3.5

[Samantha Thomas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I did not finish this book. I bought this, and another New Orleans biography, while on a trip there this fall. The first, by a different author, I consumed wholeheartedly. This one was a struggle I eventually gave up. Full of imagined "maybe she did this" stories and tangents that became hard for me to follow, I gave up this book before it even got into the second Marie. If you're looking for factual information, presented in a logical and easy to understand manner, I would recommend a different author.

[Katherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

After visiting Marie Laveau’s tomb, I was really interested in learning more about who she really was. Suffice it to say I wasn’t enthralled with this book. It wasn’t quite a biography nor a work of fiction. There were a lot of “well, it *might* have been this ways” and not a lot of fact. Granted, that time period is difficult for finding proven fact, but my knowledge about who Marie Laveau was wasn’t really augmented.

[Elena · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't normally read biographies or non fiction in general but I decided to read this one since I have always been interested voodoo and Make Laveau. Martha Reid did a good job piecing her life together too tell the story of her/their lives. I never realized how much she did for the colored community and how influential she was in society. I'm glad I picked this up and was able to learn so much about both Marie Laveaus.

[Matt Sautman · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a book published by a University Press, Marie Laveau, Voodoo Queen lacks the critical acumen necessary to write about a historical figure who is barely present in archival records to where I can foresee a person reading this book and accepting false information about Vodou and the historical Laveau. Not everything here is outright irredeemable but this should not be the only book related to Vodou and Laveau that a person reads.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Includes a lot of speculation and extrapolation based on minimal data, but very flavorful and interesting.
Sadly, the copy I got from the CPL system was an excellent illustration of the problems that many scholars have encountered when researching the Laveau women - someone has sliced out pages 52-56.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent, factual representation of their lives. This is a history book, so if you're into that you will enjoy it. I prefer a little more embellishment or a sprinkle of fiction. None of that here. Overall thankful I discovered this nugget. Happy to have checked it out from the library and will probably get my own copy. And hope to go to New Orleans one day.

[Alesha · Rating 2 out of 5]

that extra star was to be nice. it was my fault for picking this book at my school to read upon on of the most influential women of New Orleans. this Martha woman flipped flopped all around and even used some of her opinions as facts.

[Tiffanie Amirante · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reads like a thesis paper. Mostly what I got from this book is that Marie Laveau is an enigma and most of what we know is either gossip or conjecture. Author does a great job tho of presenting her life in terms of the history of New Orleans