Evaluating a New Orleans Icon

Ina Johanna Fandrich. The Mysterious Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveaux: A Study of Powerful Female Leadership in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans. New York and London: Routledge, 2005. xiv + 329 pp. $90.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-415-97250-5. Martha Ward. Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2004. xvii + 246 pp. $26.00, cloth, ISBN 978-1-57806-629-2. Reviewed by Janet L. Allured Published on H-SAWH (March, 2006) One of the major tourist attractions in New versity of New Orleans, and Ina Fandrich, an in‐ Orleans is the tomb of Marie Laveau in St. Louis dependent scholar with a Ph.D. in Religious Stud‐ Cemetery No. 1. When Laveau, a free woman of ies from Temple University, both seek to debunk color, died in 1881, her lengthy obituary was pub‐ the traditional negative, racist, and Eurocentric lished not only in the New Orleans papers but in views of Laveau and Voodoo.[1] Described by her the New York Times as well. She was a controver‐ critics as a prostitute, a snake-handler, a devil- sial fgure, surrounded by rumor and legend. Seen worshiper, a cannibal, a witch, or a sorcerer, she by some of her contemporaries as a sorcerer who was instead, both authors contend, the well-re‐ used her "magic powers" for evil, or perhaps for spected priestess of a legitimate, African-based, fe‐ personal gain, Laveau was believed by others to male-dominated religion. be a healer and priestess who worked for the Ward's book is methodologically fawed, re‐ good of her people, the Creoles of color. plete with errors, and at times misleading. De‐ The Laveau legend is now the subject of seri‐ signed as a crossover book for a commercial audi‐ ous academic research by women's studies schol‐ ence, it lacks standard academic footnotes and ars. Martha Ward, a professor of Anthropology, leaves whole sections of text undocumented. Urban Studies, and Women's Studies at the Uni‐ Ward combines gossip with archival evidence and H-Net Reviews blends fact with fantasy. She describes her highly unlikely assertion, but one that Ina Fan‐ methodology in the introduction: "I have relied on drich also makes in her 1994 dissertation on dreams, intuition, a hyperactive imagination, and Laveau). Ward correctly points out that Louisiana funky Voodoo luck. From time to time I have law prohibited the lovers from marrying, but she stood in front of the Laveau tomb in St. Louis then "fantasizes" that Marie and Christophe "ar‐ Cemetery One and talked with her" (p. xiii). She ranged a secret midnight wedding in St. Louis later adds, "Spirits of many kinds appear in this Cathedral," blessed by the kindly Pere Antoine (p. biography whenever they feel like it ... [because] 47). In fact, it was not at all unusual for white men New Orleans is a high-spirited place" (p. xvi). to live with their quadroon mistresses, as Glapion Ward recombines source material in ways did, nor was it unusual for them to acknowledge that are confusing. She quotes, for example, from their children as their own in official documents, a newspaper article about a "flaxen-haired white as Glapion also did. He is buried beside Laveau, girl" dancing with a black man as though this had but his death certificate lists him as white.[2] taken place at Congo Square, but this was actually Voodoo Queen contains many such mistakes. a report from the mid-1870s of a St. John's Eve cel‐ Ward wrongly identifies George Legendre as the ebration on Lake Pontchartrain (p. 8). Exactly domestic partner of Philomene Glapion, Marie which year Ward intends this quote to illustrate is and Christophe's younger daughter. In fact impossible to determine, since her narrative does Philomene's partner was Emile Alexandre Le‐ not differentiate between the 1810s and the 1870s. gendre, George's brother. (Because Legendre was Ward intersperses quotes from different decades white, they never married.)[3] Ward's book adds in ways that are misleading, especially to the ca‐ nothing new to the interpretation of Laveau that sual reader, and especially given the poor quality Fandrich had not already explored in her disser‐ of the citations. tation. Ward repeats rumors ("gumbo ya ya," as they Although it has difficulties as well, Fandrich's say in New Orleans) when it enlivens her narra‐ book is a solid academic work, grounded in post‐ tive, and she encourages readers to see these sto‐ modernist and feminist theory. An update of her ries as reliable sources of fact. (Fandrich also re‐ Temple University dissertation and published as peats rumors, although with a different theoreti‐ part of Routledge's dissertation series, it lacks any cal basis--to understand the legend of Laveau.) copyediting or peer-review; as a result, typo‐ For example, there is a legend that surrounds the graphical errors are rife. However, most of the disappearance of Marie Laveau's only legitimate factual mistakes that appeared in Fandrich's dis‐ husband, Jacques Paris. Ward speculates that, sertation have been corrected in the book. For ex‐ "Maybe he was unfaithful and Marie sent him ample, since the dissertation appeared, Fandrich packing or he abused his young wife and she unearthed what appears to be Laveau's baptismal fixed him.... [The documents] hint that she dis‐ certificate in the Archives of the Archdiocese of posed of a frst husband to make room for the New Orleans, which shows that Laveau was born next one" (p. 38). in 1801 and not, as Fandrich and most others had Another example of Ward's legitimation of ru‐ presumed, in 1783.[4] mors occurs when she discusses Marie's life-long In addition to Martha Ward and Ina Fandrich, partnership with a white man, Christophe Glapi‐ a third researcher, Carolyn Morrow Long, former‐ on, and argues that he "passed" for colored; that ly of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Amer‐ is, that he adopted a biracial identity, but one that ican History, has also done extensive archival re‐ took him from a higher caste to a lower one (a search on Laveau.[5] All three of the researchers 2 H-Net Reviews use the Notarial Archives (unique to New Orleans) Voodoo priestesses. Some of the interviews are and newspaper articles as well as earlier (and quite reliable and are supported by corroborating highly unreliable) histories of Voodoo. Fandrich evidence, but others are obviously fantastic. and Long have also searched the baptismal, mar‐ Neither Ward nor Fandrich are historians, riage, and funeral records at the Archdiocesan Ar‐ but both draw upon the work of historians Gwen‐ chives, as well as wills and court cases at the New dolyn Midlo Hall, Caryn Cossé Bell, Kimberly Orleans Public Library. Hangar, and Virginia Meacham Gould in dis‐ The three researchers agree on certain facts: cussing early New Orleans society, the society of that Laveau's father was a free man of color and free women of color, and Voodoo as it was prac‐ was not white, as was rumored; that Laveau did ticed in New Orleans. Contrary to earlier, racist, not own the cottage where she lived until her Eurocentric interpretations, the postmodernist death on St. Ann Street; that her only legitimate view, ascribed to by these authors, is that Voodoo marriage was to a free quadroon, Jacques Paris; is a legitimate, African-based religion that repro‐ that her domestic partner for the rest of her life, duces the strong and powerful role of women in Christophe Glapion, was white and not a free man Africa. In antebellum New Orleans, black women of color; and that neither Laveau nor her com‐ outnumbered black men two to one in the city, mon-law husband acquired any wealth to speak and two-thirds of the free people of color in New of. Many other facts about her life are still in dis‐ Orleans were female. Marie Laveau lived in an pute, including the number of children she bore-- area of New Orleans where women who had her obituary says ffteen; Ward and Fandrich say made plaçage arrangements with white men set five; Long says seven.[6] up female-headed households. These women, like It is easy for researchers to be confused about Marie, who could not legally marry their mates Marie Laveau. Not only was her name spelled in because of Louisiana's anti-miscegenation laws, different ways, but "Marie Laveau" was also a therefore dominated the Voodoo houses. common name in nineteenth-century New Or‐ Whether that numerical preponderance leans. Fandrich says there were at least ten wom‐ translated into power for these women is ques‐ en by that name who lived near the famous tionable. Marie Laveau, both Ward and Fandrich Marie, and two of them were related to her. Wit‐ argue, was seen as "dangerous" by authorities be‐ nesses often confused these women with each cause she was so powerful. There is little evi‐ other or with the many Voodoo "queens" (the dence, however, that the New Orleans elite re‐ term commonly used to refer to the female lead‐ garded Marie Laveau as any real threat. She was ers in this religion) operating in nineteenth-centu‐ never arrested or otherwise molested by authori‐ ry New Orleans. Given this, scrupulous attention ties that we know of, and she had something of a to corroboration and scholarly methods are criti‐ cult following among white women in the city. In‐ cal to unraveling the details of her life. creasing police harassment of Voodoo priests and The interviews collected by the Louisiana priestesses in the 1850s did not target Marie Writers' Project (LWP) in the 1930s provide valu‐ Laveau.

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