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Marie Laveau (1794? - June 16, 1881?) was an American practitioner of voodoo and the most famous Voodoo Queen of New Orleans.

For such an important figure in American folklore, very little can be known certainly about her life. She is supposed to have been born in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana in 1794, the daughter of a white planter and a black woman. She married Jacques Paris, a free Black, on August 4, 1819; her marriage certificate is preserved in Saint Louis Cathedral in New Orleans.M. Paris died in 1820 under unexplained circumstances; after his death, Marie Laveau became a hairdresser who catered to wealthy white families. She took a lover, Luis Christopher Duminy de Glapion, with whom she lived until his death in 1835.Of her magical career, little definite can be said. She is said to have had a snake called Zombi. Oral traditions suggest that the occult part of her magic mixed Roman Catholic beliefs and saints with African spirits and religious concepts. It is also alleged that her feared magical powers came in fact from a network of informants in the households of the prominent that she developed while a hairdresser and that she owned her own brothel. She excelled at obtaining inside information on her wealthy patrons by apparently instilling fear in their servants whom she "cured" of mysterious ailments (Which she may have caused or suggested, a form of professional munchausen's disorder).

On June 16, 1881, the New Orleans newspapers announced that Marie Laveau had died. This is noteworthy if only because she continued to be seen in the town after her supposed demise. It is claimed that one of her daughters by M. Glapion assumed her name and carried on her magical practice after her death.

She is buried in Saint Louis Cemetery #1 in New Orleans, in the Glapion family crypt. The tomb continues to attract visitors who draw three crosses (XXX) on its side, hoping that her spirit will grant them a wish.

Saint Louis Cemetery is the name of three Roman Catholic cemeteries in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The burials are in above ground vaults; most were constructed in the 18th century and 19th century. The above-ground tombs, required here because the ground water levels make burial impractical in New Orleans, are strongly reminiscent of the tombs of Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris. The three cemeteries are relatively intact following Hurricane Katrina.

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From the Mystica http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/l/laveau_marie.html

This article concerns two women who extended one life. The most famous voodoo queen in North America who were actually two persons—mother and daughter. They epitomized the sensational appeal of Vodounism New Orleans during the 19th and 20th centuries. They taught and used the religion’s magical powers to control one’s lovers, acquaintances, enemies, and sex. Marie Laveau I, the mother, supposedly was born in New Orleans in 1794 and was considered a free woman of color. Being a mulatto, she was of mixed black, white and Indian blood. Sometimes she was described as a descendant of French aristocracy or a daughter of a wealthy white planter. Her marriage to Jacques Paris, a free man of color from Saint Dominque (Haiti), is recorded as occurring on August 4, 1819; the records also indicates the Marie Laveau was an illegitimate daughter of Charles Laveau and Marguerite Darcantrel. Marie was described as tall and statuesque, with curly black hair, reddish skin and "good" features (then meaning more white than Negroid). She and Paris lived in a house, supposedly part of her dowry from Charles Laveau, in the 1900 block on North Rampart Street.

Paris, being a quadroon—three fourths white, disappeared soon after the marriage. Perhaps he returned to Saint Dominique, but his death certificate was filed five years later without any certificate of interment. Then Marie began addressing herself as the Widow Paris and took up employment as a hairdresser catering to the wealthy white and Creole women of New Orleans. This was the beginning of her later powers as Voodooienne. For the women confessed to Marie their most intimate secrets and fears about their husbands, their lovers, their estates, their husbands’ mistresses, their business affairs, and their fears of insanity and of anyone discovering a trace of Negro blood in their ancestry.

In about 1826, Marie took up with Louis Christopher Duminy de Clapion, another quadroon from Saint Dominique. They lived in the North Rampart Street house until his death in 1855 (some claim 1835). Although they never married, he and Marie had 15 children in rapid succession. She stopped her hairdressing career to devote all her energies to becoming the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans.

Voodoo had been secretly practiced by blacks around New Orleans since the first boat load of slaves. New Orleans was more French-Spanish than English-American, and the slaves had came from the same parts of Africa that had sent blacks to work the French and Spanish plantations in the Caribbean. After the blacks had won their independence in Haiti in 1803-1804, the Creole planters brought their slaves with them to friendlier shores of southern Louisiana, from Saint Dominique and other West Indian islands. The slaves were avid practitioners of the ancient religion, and it grew rapidly.

Quickly tales circulated of hidden and secret rituals being held deep in the bayous, complete with the worship of a snake called Zombi, and orgiastic dancing, drinking, and lovemaking. Almost a third of the worshippers were white, desirous of obtaining the "power" to regain a lost lover, to take a new lover, to eliminate a business partner, or to destroy an enemy. These frequent meetings frightened the white masters into fear the blacks were planning an uprising against them. In 1817 the New Orleans Municipal Council passed a resolution forbidding blacks to gather for dancing or any other purpose except on Sundays, and only in places designated by the mayor. The accepted spot was Congo Square on North Rampart Street, now called Beauregard Square. Blacks, most of them voodooists, met danced and sang overtly worshipping their gods while seemingly entertaining the whites with their African "gibberish".

By the 1830s there were many voodoo queens in New Orleans, fighting over control of the Sunday Congo dances and the secret ceremonies out at Lake Pontchartrain. But when "Mamzelle" Marie Laveau decided to become queen, contemporaries reported the other queens faded before her, some by crumbling to her powerful gris-gris, and some being driven away by brute force. Marie was always a devote Catholic and added influences of Catholicism--holy water, incense, statues of the saints, and Christian prayers--to the already sensational ceremonies of voodooism.

Marie knew the sensation that the rituals at the lake were causing and used it to further the purposes of the voodoo movement in New Orleans. She invited the public, press, police, the New Orleans roués, and others thrill-seekers of the forbidden fun to attend. Charging admission made voodoo profitable for the first time. Her entrepreneurial efforts went even further by organizing secret orgies for wealthy white men seeking beautiful black, mulatto and quadroon women for mistresses. Marie presided over these meetings herself. These alleged secret meetings enviably became public. Marie also gained control of the Congo Square Dances by entering before the other dancers and entertaining the fascinated onlookers with her snake.

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