Marie Laveau

Believed to be born in New Orleans in 1794 and died in New Orleans on June 15th, 1881. A free woman of color as well as a Quadroon (African, Indian, French and Spanish), she became the most famous and powerful Voodoo Queen in the world, so powerful that she acclaimed herself the Pope of Voodoo in the 1830s. She was respected and feared by thousands including the Catholic Church. A devout catholic, going to mass each day, she got permission to hold rituals behind St. Louis Cathedral. Starting out as a hairdresser and later as a selfless nurse, Marie Laveau became the first commercial Voodoo Queen. She had fifteen children by her second husband, one of which (Marie Philomene Laveau Glapion) walked in her footsteps and became almost as powerful as her mother.

thanx to the New Orleans Voodoo museum

***Marie Laveau was a powerful political figure in New Orleans. She began her career as a hairdresser to the most powerful men in the area's wives and mistresses. She was able to collect blackmail on them this way, and used the bits of gossip she heard to propel her into her standing in the community as the most powerful woman in New Orleans. The current Mayor of the city is one of her great-great-grandchildren. --Sancho