Voodoo seems like a strange and rare practice, but it was quite common in Louisiana in the early 1700s-1800s. The Voodoo Queens were important to the proceedings. The queens would lead the rituals, craft the potions and solve the problems of those who came to them. Their legends live long past their death, mainly because their spirits linger after they’ve passed on.
THE HAIRDRESSER
The most famous Voodoo Queen is Marie Laveau, a Catholic slave from Haiti who became the mistress to a wealthy Frenchman, Charles Laveau. She was married and given property in the French Quarter in 1819, where she worked as a hairdresser for the wealthy people in the city. Laveau mysteriously knew everything about the secret lives of these people, mainly because she spent so much time in their homes styling their hair. But being a Voodoo Queen, it’s possible she gained this knowledge by collecting their leftover hair to perform rituals that could uncover the information.
HELLO TO MY PET, ZOMBIE
Over the years, her voodoo powers started to grow and people from all over would ask for her special potions, services and even exorcisms. She made herself seem more mysterious, wearing things like her pet snake, Zombie, around town. The death of Marie is still a mystery, as no one is sure how old she lived to be or even how she died. After spending a lifetime collecting so much information about others, she learned to keep most things about her a secret.
THE PROTÉGÉE
The other famous Voodoo Queen is Mary Ellen Pleasant. Born in 1814, she also escaped her slave roots to New Orleans. She moved away with her husband, but after he died, she returned to New Orleans and became very fond of Marie Laveau. She quickly learned Laveau’s strategies of blackmailing the upper class and she fled to San Francisco.
TO SAN FRANCISCO
Mary Ellen became the wealthy, popular and mysterious Voodoo Queen of San Francisco. She lived in a mansion that was lined with six eucalyptus trees that she planted herself. After getting involved in a messy lawsuit with a senator though, people quickly started to turn her and her services away. While Laveau died a respected member of society, Mary Ellen lived her last few days wandering outside of her empty mansion, penniless and scorned by most of the city.
DEAD, BUT STILL AROUND
Residents claim to see the ghost of Marie Laveau wandering the streets of the French Quarter in New Orleans. Others say they hear drumming and see the vision of a woman dancing with a snake around her neck. It’s even said that her grave in the Saint Louis Cemetery is visited by more tourists than Elvis Priestley’s, with people arriving from all over the world to ask her spirit to grant their wishes. As for Mary Ellen, her ghost has been spotted standing below her eucalyptus trees, sometimes crying, other times screaming. Her voodoo powers are also said to live on, as some have been granted the wishes that they’ve made outside her old mansion.