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2. Voodoo Rising Some claim Marie Laveau was born in the Vieux Carre in 1796, while others insist she was from Saint Domingue or Hispanola in the Caribbean and born in 1794. Saint Domingue, a former French colony, is today called Haiti. Santo Domingo, a former Spanish possession, was to the east on the same large island named Hispanola by Christopher Columbus. Some say Marie died in her sixties; others say she lived to be 87. These accounts may be confusing her with her daughter, also named Marie, who became a Voodoo priestess as well. There is a good deal of mystery about Marie Laveau. What is known is that Marie was a "freewoman of color," possibly the daughter of a wealthy plantation owner and a slave. She may have been part Native American as well. One source claims she arrived in New Orleans after the slave revolt in Saint Domingue in the Caribbean in 1809. The confusion is not surprising, as there were very strong ties between the development of Voodoo in Haiti and in New Orleans. Marie was raised as a Roman Catholic, the religion of most French and Spanish at the time. New Orleans had been owned by the French from 1718 to 1762, then by the Spanish until 1803 when it became French again. It was then brought under the American flag through the Louisiana Purchase. Voodoo had been present in the city before Laveau came upon the scene, but attempts had been made by the authorities to suppress it. In 1782, for example, the Spanish governor Bernardo Galvez forbade the importation of slaves from Martinique because of its people's belief in Voodoo. Additionally, Baron de Carondelet, Spanish governor in New Orleans from 1792 to 1797, fearing the continued spread of Voodoo and also the possibility of slave revolt, disallowed the import of slaves from Santo Domingo. Eventually, a slave revolt would expel European control in Haiti. However, when the Americans came to control New Orleans in 1803, the restriction on slave importation was canceled. Additionally, an influx of free immigrants from Saint Domingue brought 5,000 people, free and slave, to New Orleans from the start of American rule until 1810. Soon, Voodoo began to flourish in American New Orleans. Next: Congo Square
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