Madame LaLaurie is known throughout history as an evil woman who loved torturing slaves, even more so since Kathy Bates’s excellent portrayal of her in American Horror Story (which you can watch here) and is often placed alongside other infamous women such as Elizabeth Bathory. But was it all true? Was it all a vicious lie, or were the rumours steeped in truth?
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Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on the 19th of March 1787, Marie Delphine McCarty, known as Delphine, was one of 5 children. Her mother was Maria-Jeanne L’Erable, and her father was Louis Barthelemy de McCarty. Delphine’s parents were considered prominent members of society within the town. Delphine was just four years old when the Revolution started in 1791. The Haitian Revolution was started by enslaved people fighting against the French colonial rule in Haiti. Led mainly by ex-slave Toussaint Louverture, the uprising was successful and led to the abolishment of slavery within Haiti. The results of this reverberated throughout America; enslavers started to panic that their slaves would begin to rebel and revolt. This led to the harsher treatment of enslaved people; the owners believed that if they disciplined them more severely, they would be too scared to try anything. Slavery was perfectly legal in Louisiana then, but it didn’t permit enslavers to treat their ‘property’ as they wished. Enslaved people could be disciplined, but the law had limited the cruelty that could legally be used (how very gracious of them).
Delphine married a Spanish Royal officer, Don Ramon de Lopez y Angulo, on June 11th, 1800, at the age of 13. In 1804, Don was the consul general for Spain in The Territory of New Orleans and was summoned to appear at the Court of Spain. Whilst travelling to Madrid to attend the court, Don died suddenly on the boat. His cause of death doesn’t seem to be explained anywhere. A few days later, Delphine gave birth to their first child, Marie Delphine Francisca Borja, nicknamed Borquita. Delphine travelled back to New Orleans, widowed, holding her newborn baby.
In 1808, at 21, Delphine married her second husband, a banker, lawyer, and legislator called Jean Blanque. Jean had an agenda; he was a shrewd businessman with ties to the slave trade. The $33,007 that Delphine inherited when her mother died was very interesting to him, as was the plantation with 52 enslaved people also left to her. Then, as a wedding gift, Delphine’s father gifted them yet another plantation with 26 enslaved people. They had four children together: Marie Louise Pauline, Louise Marie Laure, Marie Louise Jeanne, and Jean Pierre Paulin. Delphine was widowed once more after Blanque died eight years after they married.
In February of 1825, a young man named Leonard Louis Nicolas LaLaurie, known as Louis, arrived in New Orleans from France. He was 22 and had just finished medical school. Louis placed an advertisement in the Louisiana Courier newspaper, claiming he could ‘straighten crooked backs and correct various other physical deformities. It’s believed this is when he became acquainted with Delphine, as one of her daughters, reckoned to be Marie Louise Pauline, had a disability. Letters from LaLaurie's family referred to his treatment of ‘the hunchbacked young lady’.
Louis received many letters from his father encouraging him to establish himself as a doctor, marry someone with a bit of money in the bank and return to France. There were a few mentions of Delphine, but apparently, Louis’s father saw her as someone who could influence his career with her status and not as a potential daughter-in-law. Legend described Louis as a ‘meek, mousy little man' who was rather bland. However, he must have had something going for him because soon, he and Delphine were having a rather intense relationship. Delphine soon became pregnant and gave birth to Jean Louis LaLaurie on August 13th, 1827. This was quite the scandal back in the day; Louis was a lot younger than Delphine; she was 40, and they weren’t married. They did, however, marry five months later.
Delphine was a pretty clever woman and specified that she, and not her new husband, would be in control of her wealth. Delphine’s estate was worth around $67,000. Louis’s was worth $2,000, which was still attached to his deceased mother’s estate. In 1832, she had a 2-storey mansion built at 1140 Royal Street with slave quarters attached, where she lived with Louis and 2 of her daughters. There appeared to be a few issues in the marriage, with Delphine petitioning the First Judicial District Court for a separation, claiming Louis had ‘treated her in such a manner as to render their living together unsupportable’. However, this did not seem to be a permanent separation.
It was when she was with Louis that Delphine’s cruelty seemed to start.
Many rumours have occurred throughout the years of Delphine’s treatment of slaves. There are differing accounts, though; some claimed Delphine’s slaves were ‘singularly haggard and wretched’, but there are also accounts of her caring about her slaves and showing no prejudices towards other races. It was also reported that her daughters would try to feed the enslaved people but were punished if they were caught. Between 1830 and 1834, there were 12 slave deaths recorded, although no cause of death was mentioned in any of the entries.
Court records also showed that Delphine freed some of her slaves at the request of her husband, Jean Blanque, to be carried out after his death. Delphine set free Helene, her children’s nurse, for her faithful service. She also freed a shoemaker called Devince, quote ‘to reward his fidelity and to stimulate other slaves to observe the like good condition’. However, the rumours of her chronic mistreatment of her slaves were still rife and a lawyer was sent to her mansion to remind Delphine of the laws regarding the upkeep of enslaved people. The lawyer found no evidence of mistreatment by Delphine. Did he not, or was there bribery involved? She was a rich woman, and there was also talk that he found Delphine attractive and couldn’t believe she could be capable of cruelty.
A neighbour reported one of the most famous stories of Delphine’s treatment of enslaved people; it involved a young enslaved person who fell from a roof whilst running away from Delphine and her whip. The enslaved person died. She was eight years old. The child was buried on the mansion grounds. This story has been elaborated throughout the years. Some said the child was twelve, and she was given the name of Lia. Some said she had been brushing Delphine’s hair when she accidentally pulled it, enraging Delphine. However, we do have to note that the name Lia was never mentioned until the 1945 book ‘Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans’ by Jeanne Delavigne. This incident resulted in an investigation of the LaLaurie mansion. They were found guilty of cruelty towards the enslaved people and had to give up 9 of them (I’m unsure how many they had at the time). Why only 9? Eventually, though, these enslaved people were brought back and continued to work at the mansion. I'm not sure what the real point of that was.
On April 10th, 1834, a fire broke out in the LaLauries mansion, having been started deliberately in the kitchen. When the fire marshals and police arrived at the residence, they discovered a starving, emaciated 70-year-old woman chained to the stove by the ankle. This poor person was the cook and had started the fire as a suicide attempt. This woman must have been terrified and depressed to want to die by fire. The police spoke to her, and she mentioned that she was scared of being punished; slaves were taken to the very top floor and were never seen again.
Neighbours and bystanders had run to the burning house to offer their assistance. They were attempting to enter the slave quarters to make sure all the people in the mansion had been evacuated, but the LaLauries refused to give anyone the keys. The group of people broke their way in any way. Once inside, some vomited from the smell inside. Judge Jean-Francois Cononge entered the premises, finding one woman wearing an iron collar. Another one had a head wound and was too weak to walk. The others found, quote, “seven slaves, more or less horribly mutilated…suspended by the neck, with their limbs apparently stretched and torn from one extremity to the other’. These people told their rescuers they had been there for months. They were beaten and covered in bruises and blood. Some had their eyes gouged out. Others had their mouths filled with excrement and sewn shut. There was a woman whose bones had been broken and reset to resemble a crab. Another woman had repeatedly had her bones broken so she could fit into a tiny metal cage. Others had holes drilled into their skulls; wooden spoons were beside them so Delphine could stir their brains. Some had flayed skin and infected wounds. There were people with their organs removed, with rumours that Delphine would cut open enslaved women and drape their intestines around her. It was reported that many of these victims were still alive. There was also a heap of bodies and organs in various stages of decay. Kalila Katherina Smith's book Journey Into Darkness: Ghosts and Vampires of New Orleans said: ‘[A] victim [of the 1834 fire who] obviously had her arms amputated and her skin peeled off in a circular pattern, making her look like a human caterpillar.’ Harsher punishments were inflicted on enslaved men, with bodies being found with eyes, fingernails and genitalia removed; those that were found still alive begged for death as the pain was unbearable.
Many of these descriptions were not from original accounts, so they may have been exaggerated over the years, as stories tend to be. Jeanne Delavigne embellished the stories in her book, writing that the enslaved people were ‘stark naked, chained to the wall, their eyes gouged out their fingernails pulled off by the roots; others had their joints skinned and festering, great holes in their buttocks where the flesh had been sliced away, their ears hanging by shreds, their lips sewn together; intestines were pulled out and knotted around naked waists’. There had been no mention of this in the original accounts, but some of the original versions describe enslaved people wearing iron collars with spikes on the inside, chained up, starving, and with horrific wounds. This was quite common; after what happened in Haiti, enslavers panicked that their slaves would kill them in their sleep, so they would keep them restrained.
Judge Canonge confronted Delphine’s husband about the enslaved people, and Louis replied, ‘Some people had better stay at home rather than come to others’ houses to dictate laws and meddle with other people’s businesses.’ The surviving enslaved people were taken to the mayor’s office to receive medical attention, food, and drink. Reporters from The Courier and the Bee commented on the sight of the enslaved people, which even ‘the most savage heart could not have witnessed the spectacle unmoved.’ Not surprisingly, the town residents were outraged, starting a vigilante group to attack the LaLauries. They arrived at the mansion and started destroying anything and everything.
Driven by her slave, Bastien, Delphine and Louis, with their youngest child, escaped to the docks. They travelled until finally arriving in Paris. One of the passengers on the same boat was the American poet William Cullen Bryant. He noted in his diary that Delphine was the woman who had, quote, ‘committed such horrible cruelties upon her slaves’ and that she ‘seemed much affected by the reserve with which the other travellers treated her and was frequently seen in tears.’
Back in New Orleans, Delphine’s agent was disposing of the remains of the house and the enslaved people. The agent sold 11 of the 30 enslaved people known to be owned by Delphine at the time of the fire (this included Bastien). Record-keeping was impeccable at the time, so what happened to the 19 enslaved people who were unaccounted for? It’s assumed that the majority were dead, unable to be saved from their wounds. In later years, there would be many rumours of hearing bloodcurdling screams from the mansion and ghost sightings were reported. When undergoing renovations, more recently, a mass grave was found.
While in Paris, Delphine and Louis were joined by her eldest unmarried children. Not long after, Louis departed for Cuba, never saw his wife and son again, and died in Havana in 1863. There were rumours about what Delphine’s fate was. Some believed she died in Paris; others thought she faked her death and moved back to Louisiana. There is little information about Delphine’s life after the house fire, thanks to correspondence between herself and her children. It tells of a woman living in Paris without bothering another soul, with no record of continued anger or torture—a woman who also couldn’t understand why she had been chased out of New Orleans.
So, why did Delphine do the things she did? Maybe she genuinely did not see her slaves as people and saw them as mere property to do with as she wished. Some have argued that it was pure and simple racism that caused Delphine’s mistreatment of her slaves. The slave rebellions had left plantation owners on edge and filled with paranoia. One of her uncles had died at the hands of his slaves, although this was before she was even born. If it was racism, why didn’t it start until later in her life? She had previously liberated some of her slaves. Many of her family enslaved people as mistresses, and they would have children with them. Rather than ignore the children, they would be supported and provided for, and Delphine would be involved, acting as godmother to many. She had a bi-racial sister due to her father’s affair, and after the father’s death, the sister was left $ 5,000 and 2 enslaved people in his will. Far from resenting this arrangement, Delphine gifted her sister an enslaved person as a ‘demonstration of their affection’.
We also have to consider the time this happened – was she actually any worse than any of the other enslavers at the time? Not that it excuses cruelty, but it was a different era. Historian Daniel Rasmussen claimed that many enslavers ‘would tie your hands to four stakes, then whip you with a cat-o-nine tail. And that would leave you bleeding and barely able to move. They also had iron masks to put around your head so you couldn’t eat. And they had collars with spikes facing inwards so the slaves couldn’t sleep without getting spikes stuck in their necks’. That’s going to be sore.
Could Delphine have developed a mental health issue that caused her to act cruelly? When Delphine applied for separation from Louis, it was claimed he had quote ‘beat and wound her in a most outrageous and cruel manner in front of witnesses.’ Did she snap as the result of an abusive marriage? Her husband was younger than her and didn’t give her a lot of attention, but at the same time, he was sleeping with some of the enslaved women; was she jealous of them and their youth?
Or was she more innocent than history has portrayed her to be? While researching this case, I noticed everything seems to refer back to Delphine. Now, yes, I’m sure she was involved in the mistreatment of her slaves, and that is unforgivable, but what about her husband? Where is Louis in all of this? He must have known after his comment to the judge to mind his own business that it was going on. Could he have been the instigator? Possibly medical experiments gone wrong, a desperately misguided way of enhancing his career; it was said that some enslaved people had their limbs removed or bones broken and reset; it reminds me of the Nazi medical experiments. There is no mention of cruelty before she was with him, but it has also been said that he moved out of the house months previously. Was Delphine just used to distract away from the all too real bad treatment of enslaved people? She was in a mansion in the town, whereas many enslavers and enslaved people were out of the way in rural locations. A lot could have been going on that we are still unaware of. Was she just a scapegoat? Stanley Arthur, president of The Board of Curators at Louisiana State Museum, said, ‘I have always thought that Madame LaLaurie was the first victim of yellow journalism. There is nothing in the record to indicate that she was the type of a woman pictured by them. One must remember that there was much social jealousy in those days and that Madame LaLaurie occupied an enviable position socially.’ Yellow journalism is presenting news that has little research or legitimacy and concentrates more on scandal and eye-catching headlines. Think like a certain British red-top tabloid that shall remain nameless.
Delphine LaLaurie is depicted as a vile, racist, cruel woman who doesn’t give a damn about anyone else, especially not enslaved people. And this may very well be true, and if it is, it’s disgusting. But I keep thinking that her last husband had more to do with this horrific treatment of other human beings than history has let on. I don’t believe that we will ever honestly know what happened, and I am sure that, as time goes by, the stories will continue to grow and change. The LaLaurie house is still standing today, although the current owner will not allow people inside - fun fact: at one point, Nicolas Cage owned the house. And that is the story of Madame Delphine LaLaurie. What do you think? A woman ruined by rumours and scapegoated by others? Or was she just a genuinely evil bitch? Please do let me know what you think in the comments. Thanks for reading; take care, and I will see you soon!
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