Plus ça change – March 28, 2026
I got to a point where I have a couple of chapters downstream I can work on, but one of those changes drastically. After those two, I was pretty much clueless. I have the history, but I don’t have the fiction.
I’m sufficiently uncomfortable with this direction that I decided to fill in the blanks. I want a bit of an outline, chapter title at least, and some idea of the major historical events and personal challenges that will happen. In that process, long expected, I run into Jean Montanée, the famous/infamous Doctor John. How does he fit into the narrative?
Oh, and he is known variably as… Jean Montanée or Montanet or Montagne, John Montaine or Montane, Jean La Ficelle, or Jean Latanié, or Jean Racine, or Jean Grisgris, or Jean Macaque, or Jean Bayou, or “Voudoo John,” or “Bayou John,” or “Doctor John.”
There is legend, history, and story.
His legend is based mostly in fantasy. He is reputed to be a great healer with magical power, the gris-gris man. He taught Marie what she knows. Thousands came to him for cures, for their fortunes. He had fifteen wives, all kinds of children, and was the King of Voudou. At its utmost, in his legend there would be no Marie Laveaux without him. Legend says he was perhaps a prince in Senegambia, captured, sold into slavery in Cuba, where he earned his freedom as a chef, went to sea as a ship’s cook, and got off the boat and stayed in New Orleans. He worked the docks, he was a “cotton roller,” a man of physical stature, black as coal, with facial scarifications. He moved into the back of the city and became a healer. He is reputed to be quite wealthy for part of his life, with a carriage and team, dressing elegantly, owning property. Legend also says he was defrauded, his property stolen by those pretending to be friends. The man who taught him how to write had him practice his signature on a blank piece of paper, and took it all.
Then there is history. There are consistent physical descriptions, so I know what he looks like. There’s even a purported portrait of the man, perhaps from the 1870s.
He is in the 1842 city directory as Montagne, Doctor. He lives near the docks. He is not in the 1840 Census. He is in 1850, 1860, 1870. He’s easy to find. So to me that says, he’s not in New Orleans in 1840. In the US census he is listed as physician or doctor. In 1860 the census taker has “Physician (quack)”. Remember, that’s a white man assessing the medical skills. Such a person would easily see traditional/herbal healing as quackery.
There are multiple lawsuits and sheriff auctions to pay off settlements over the years. The lawsuits detail amounts involved. He was charging $50/60 for cures and fortunes. At a time when house rent was less than $10/month. He had some wealth. As noted in the census he was worth five figures. He definitely owned several properties and businesses over time, a coffee house, a shoe shop. Lots were sold by the sheriff at auction to settle lawsuits.
The earliest lawsuit in 1847 says that he induced his concubine to sell him her house. She won, he lost. Three lawsuits were well-off white people unhappy with his services claiming fraud. But they went to him in the first place. There is a newspaper report that details his fortune telling via seashells, which is very like Cuban Santeria divination based on dropping cowry shells. Which is consistent with the “slave in Cuba” legend.
What I do with all this is part of my story. Silly me, I want the fiction to be plausible and consistent with what we know in history.
He’s an “off the boat” immigrant circa 1840, a free man who was a saltwater slave from Africa via Cuba. He is from the same region as Marie’s Gran Catherine, the woman who raised her (and taught her about gris-gris in my telling). I have said her Gran is a Wolof, he is Bambara. Marie is ~10 years older than him. When he shows up, she is 40, he 30. Give or take.
It is 100% safe to assume they knew each other, although there is no historical record of such. Both were leaders in the community, well known. BUT, and this is where I read between the lines…
In the Louisiana Writers Project interviews in the 1930s, those old folks talk extensively about Marie, and barely mention Doctor John, and usually dismissively (he was a good for nothing). In 1853 at the height of the worst yellow fever epidemic, the white bigwigs came to her, not him. Perhaps he was going to charge them big bucks? Or perhaps they went to the person they knew could do something.
In the bullshit legends, he is often the archetype of evil. Bullshit. At worst he figured out how to make a good living hyping his powers. He may have had genuine healing skills – not like hers, but not zero.
Was he Marie’s mentor? Legend says yes. I say no. She was a mature woman when he shows up. Nothing about her says she was a follower. I think the opposite. He didn’t teach her. I suspect she taught him. The events of 1853 prove her skill and fame, not his. As a newcomer to Louisiana, he would not have known the local herbs, although there would be significant botanical overlap with Cuba, and he was a cook.
And when we get down to that point, Marie is going to define how that all works in detail. The author, sitting over here, suspects that she’s going to see many of the characteristics of her first husband Santiago, a narcissist, a self-important man who focuses on getting, rather than giving. He may very well see these skills as a business opportunity, people will pay big bucks for healing. He may even think her “less than” for being so Christian and kind. For her part, she has been there, done that, sees him for what he is, and eventually says, “see you later by” to the huckster part of his personality.
But I don’t know. We’ll see. It’s a mystery. I don’t have a choice here. He is part of the canvas, he was a significant figure, and they HAD to have known each other. So…
I need to work into my outline when/how they meet, and an event or two along the decades that follow that explore their relationship. Which is complete fiction. Hope it makes more sense than what already exists, but it’s going to be quite different. I’d love for there to be Reddit battles over how wrong I am.
