There is a tomb in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 that people still visit every single day.

They leave flowers, rum, coins, beads, handwritten notes. They press three X's into the plaster with their fingers and whisper a wish. More than 140 years after her death, Marie Laveau remains one of the most visited, most venerated figures in all of New Orleans — a woman so singular, so powerful, so ahead of her time that the city has simply never been willing to let her go.

The Marie Laveau Gravestone Charm exists because some women deserve to be carried with you. This is her story.

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A Free Woman in an Unfree World

Marie Laveau was born a free woman of color in New Orleans around 1801 — a status that set her apart in a city where the lines between freedom and enslavement, between power and powerlessness, were drawn in brutal clarity. She was the daughter of a wealthy French Creole planter and a free woman of African and Native American descent, raised in a city that was already one of the most complex cultural crossroads in the world.

New Orleans in the early 19th century was a city shaped by its contradictions. French and Spanish colonial influence layered over West African and Caribbean traditions, Catholic ritual interwoven with spiritual practices that had survived the Middle Passage. It was a city where the past and the present, the sacred and the secular, the living and the dead, were never entirely separate. Marie Laveau was born into all of it — and she would come to embody it.

The Voodoo Queen of New Orleans

By day, Marie was a hairdresser — and one of the most sought-after in the city. She moved through the private parlors and bedrooms of New Orleans' wealthy white elite, styling hair, witnessing confidences, gathering the kind of intimate knowledge that flows freely when the powerful forget to guard themselves around the women who serve them.

That information became currency. It deepened her already formidable reputation as a clairvoyant and spiritual counselor — a woman who seemed to know things she could not possibly know. Her clients sought her for healing, for protection, for guidance, for intervention. They came from every corner of the city and every rung of its social ladder: enslaved people and free people of color, merchants and politicians, socialites and condemned men awaiting execution.

Marie practiced a form of Louisiana Voodoo — a tradition rooted in West African Vodou and shaped by the Haitian and Caribbean diaspora that had flowed into New Orleans after the Haitian Revolution. She blended those traditions with Roman Catholic ritual, weaving together prayers, saints, herbs, and ceremony into a spiritual practice that was distinctly, powerfully her own. She was not just a practitioner. She was a priestess. A leader. The undisputed Voodoo Queen of New Orleans.

Her influence was extraordinary by any measure. In a rigidly segregated society, she commanded genuine respect across racial and class lines — an achievement that was, in the antebellum South, nearly unimaginable for a woman, let alone a woman of color.

A Woman Who Gave Back — Relentlessly

What separates Marie Laveau from the mythology that has grown up around her is the depth of her humanity. She was not only powerful — she was profoundly generous.

During the yellow fever epidemics that devastated New Orleans throughout the 19th century, Marie nursed the sick — at enormous personal risk — when others fled. She provided herbal remedies and spiritual care to those who had nowhere else to turn. She opened her home as a shelter for the impoverished. She financed the education of orphaned children. She visited inmates on death row, offering them counsel and comfort in their final days.

Her charity was not performative. It was woven into the fabric of who she was — a woman who understood, from the very structure of the society she lived in, what it meant to be without power, without resources, without protection. And who chose, again and again, to use her own considerable power in service of those who had none.

Her Legacy: Still Present, Still Powerful

Marie Laveau died in 1881. By then, she had become a legend — not just in New Orleans, but across the country, written about in newspapers from coast to coast as a woman of extraordinary, almost impossible influence.

What she left behind was not just folklore. It was a blueprint. A demonstration that a woman — a Black woman, in 19th-century America — could build genuine authority on her own terms. Could lead a community across racial lines. Could be a businesswoman, a healer, a spiritual leader, and a humanitarian all at once. Could shape the culture of a city so thoroughly that the city would carry her name forward for centuries.

Her tomb in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 is one of the most visited sites in New Orleans — a pilgrimage destination for those seeking connection with her spirit, her strength, her intercession. The three X's visitors mark on her tomb are a tradition that predates anyone alive today, a living ritual that speaks to how deeply she is still felt in this city.

New Orleans does not simply remember Marie Laveau. It communes with her.

The Charm: Carrying Her Forward

The Marie Laveau Gravestone Charm was created as a tribute to exactly that legacy — the woman, the history, the enduring presence she holds in this city and in the hearts of those who know her story.

[Shop the Marie Laveau Gravestone Couture Charm →]

[Shop the Marie Laveau Gravestone Clip Charm →]

Cast in sterling silver, it captures the symbolism of her tomb with etched inscription detail and an aged, oxidized finish that gives it the quiet weight of something genuinely old. It is delicate in scale. Intentional in its detail. The kind of piece that starts a conversation — or simply reminds you, every time you glance down at your wrist, of a woman who refused to be diminished.

Available as a Couture Charm for our Couture Charm Bracelets or on a simple chain, and as a Clip Charm for our Clip Charm Bracelets.

There Is More to Come

The Gravestone Charm is not our last word on Marie Laveau.

We are working on a second piece in her honor — one that brings her even closer, even more personal. We aren't ready to share it just yet, but we will be soon. When the time comes, you will be the first to know.

Some women deserve more than one tribute.

Marie Laveau lived her life on her own terms — building power through intelligence, generosity, and an unshakeable sense of purpose. She left this city richer than she found it. More connected. More itself.

We are honored to carry her forward — in silver, on your wrist, or close to your heart wherever you go.

She Has Arrived

Updated March 7, 2026

[Pre-order the Marie Laveau Portrait Couture Charm →] (Available March 23)

When we wrote the closing words of this post — some women deserve more than one tribute — we meant it. We just didn't know yet how that tribute would come to life.

A little over a year ago, we opened a rare opportunity to Cali Krewe members: the chance to sponsor a Couture Charm. To choose a design from our secret concept vault, help name it, shape its story, and leave a permanent mark on the Cristy Cali collection.

Ann Lancaster was one of the first to say yes. And she knew exactly which charm she was called to bring into the world.

A portrait of Marie Laveau.

Ann came to Marie the way many of us do — through a visit to her tomb in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. She left that cemetery with questions, and she did what serious students of history do: she went home and started learning. Marie's picture has hung in Ann's home ever since, in a prominent place, a daily reminder that one person can change history no matter what the odds.

But Ann didn't sponsor this charm just for herself. She dedicated it to her daughters, Alex and Maddy — two young women she has spent a lifetime raising to be resilient, confident, and ethically grounded. She wanted them to have a touchstone. A face to look to. Proof, cast in sterling silver, that power and purpose can coexist — that a woman can lead, heal, build, and give, all at once, even when the world is doing everything it can to stop her.

Getting Marie's portrait right took nearly a year. We recast this charm multiple times, refining the details of her face until the piece was worthy of the woman it honors. That kind of care takes time. We weren't willing to rush it.

The Marie Laveau Portrait Couture Charm is now available for pre-order. Orders placed now will ship by April 15th.

Thank you, Ann, for believing in this piece before it existed, and for the story you've given it.

[Pre-order the Marie Laveau Portrait Couture Charm →] (Available March 23)

 

Sources & Further Reading

The historical content in this post draws from the following sources. We encourage you to explore them — Marie Laveau's story rewards deeper study.

Ward, Martha. Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau. University Press of Mississippi, 2004.

The most rigorously researched scholarly biography of Marie Laveau. Considered the gold standard for historical accuracy.

64 Parishes — Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.

"Marie Laveau." 64parishes.org

A well-sourced, publicly accessible entry on Marie Laveau produced by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.

The Historic New Orleans Collection.

hnoc.org

One of the most respected archives of New Orleans history, culture, and photography. Holds primary documents and images related to 19th-century New Orleans life.

Save Our Cemeteries.

"St. Louis Cemetery No. 1." saveourcemeteries.org

The nonprofit dedicated to preserving New Orleans' historic cemeteries, including St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 where Marie Laveau is interred.

Further Reading:

Alvarado, Denise. The Magic of Marie Laveau. Weiser Books, 2020.

A culturally rich and accessible companion to Marie Laveau's life and spiritual legacy.