A New Orleans Voudou Priestess
A New Orleans Voudou Priestess

Author: Carolyn Morrow Long

Publisher: University Press of Florida

Published: 2007-10-07

Total Pages: 539

ISBN-13: 0813040809

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Against the backdrop of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century New Orleans, A New Orleans Voudou Priestess: The Legend and Reality of Marie Laveau disentangles the complex threads of the legend surrounding the famous Voudou priestess. According to mysterious, oft-told tales, Laveau was an extraordinary celebrity whose sorcery-fueled influence extended widely from slaves to upper-class whites. Some accounts claim that she led the "orgiastic" Voudou dances in Congo Square and on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain, kept a gigantic snake named Zombi, and was the proprietress of an infamous house of assignation. Though legendary for an unusual combination of spiritual power, beauty, charisma, showmanship, intimidation, and shrewd business sense, she also was known for her kindness and charity, nursing yellow fever victims and ministering to condemned prisoners, and her devotion to the Roman Catholic Church. The true story of Marie Laveau, though considerably less flamboyant than the legend, is equally compelling. In separating verifiable fact from semi-truths and complete fabrication, Long explores the unique social, political, and legal setting in which the lives of Marie Laveau's African and European ancestors became intertwined. Changes in New Orleans engendered by French and Spanish rule, the Louisiana Purchase, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow segregation affected seven generations of Laveau's family, from enslaved great-grandparents of pure African blood to great-grandchildren who were legally classified as white. Simultaneously, Long examines the evolution of New Orleans Voudou, which until recently has been ignored by scholars.

Interim Appointment
Interim Appointment

Author: Jared W. Bradley

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2002-06-01

Total Pages: 696

ISBN-13: 9780807126844

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

William C. C. Claiborne, the first governor of Orleans Territory, was at the hub of officials who grappled with the political, diplomatic, and administrative challenges that arose following the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Letters both to and from Claiborne during the critical months of 1804–1805, mysteriously excluded in 1917 from Dunbar Rowland’s Official Letter Books of W. C. C. Claiborne, 1801–1816, are now made widely accessible, over half of them published here for the first time. To enhance appreciation of the letters, Jared William Bradley has furnished biographical sketches of thirty-one heretofore little-known individuals crucial to Claiborne’s correspondence, delineating their personalities and their contributions to the development of law and the establishment of American government in the French Creole society. Bradley also treats in four essays the origins and growth of the “Municipal,” or the New Orleans city council; two organizations of businessmen that were ensnared in the so-called Burr Conspiracy in 1807; and the early history of Fort St. Philip, which guarded access to New Orleans from the Gulf of Mexico. Bradley’s essays joined with 218 of Claiborne’s letters makes Interim Appointment of incalculable value. It provides fresh insights into the political, constitutional, and social histories of Louisiana and the United States.