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1834
A torture chamber is uncovered by arson
On this day in 1834, a fire at the LaLaurie mansion in New Orleans, Louisiana, leads to the discovery of a torture chamber where slaves are routinely brutalized by Delphine LaLaurie. Rescuers found a 70-year-old black woman trapped in the kitchen during the fire because she was chained up while LaLaurie was busy saving her furniture. The woman later revealed that she had set the fire in an attempt to escape LaLaurie’s torture. She led authorities up to the attic, where seven slaves were tied with spiked iron collars.
After Delphine LaLaurie married her third husband, Louis LaLaurie, and moved into his estate on Royal Street, she immediately took control of the large number of slaves used as servants. LaLaurie was a well-known sadist, but the mistreatment of slaves by the wealthy and socially connected was not a matter for the police at the time.
However, in 1833, Delphine chased a small slave girl with a whip until the girl fell off the roof of the house and died. LaLaurie tried to cover up the incident, but police found the body hidden in a well. Authorities decided to fine LaLaurie and force the sale of the other slaves on the estate.
LaLaurie foiled this plan by secretly arranging for her relatives and friends to buy the slaves. She then sneaked them back into the mansion, where she continued to torture them until the night of the fire in April 1834.
Apparently her Southern neighbors had some standards when it came to the treatment of slaves, because a mob gathered in protest after learning about LaLaurie’s torture chamber. She and her husband fled by boat, leaving the butler (who had also participated in the torture) to face the wrath of the crowd.
Although charges were never filed against LaLaurie, her reputation in upper-class society was destroyed. It is believed that she died in Paris in December 1842.
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Torture Chamber Revealed
On April 10, 1834, a fire broke out in the kitchen of the mansion. Some authorities hold that the cook was actually chained to the stove where the fire started, and a few say that the neighbors were aware of this. The cook later supposedly claimed she started the fire, intending to commit suicide rather than submit to Delphine’s punishments that took place in the attic, a place no slave up to this point returned from.
Regardless, seeing the fire, neighbors entered the mansion. Knowing that slaves were locked in the uppermost room, the neighbors implored the LaLaurie’s to let them remove them, but they were rebuffed with LaLaurie refusing to give them the key.
One of the neighbors, Judge Canonge, disregarded the LaLaurie’s and the group broke down the locked doors to the attic rooms, revealing the horror within. Emaciated slaves with obvious signs of beatings were covered with scars and chained up. At least seven of them were: “More or less horribly mutilated . . . suspended by the neck, with their limbs apparently stretched and torn from one extremity to the other.” The Judge also stated he saw a “negress … wearing an iron collar” and an “old negro woman who had received a very deep wound on her head… too weak to be able to walk.”
From here, it’s difficult to separate fact from fiction. In some accounts, some of the slaves wore spikes that prevented them from moving their heads. It was also reported the slaves had been flayed with a whip. In at least one account, the slaves were nude and some were held in cages while others were tethered to operating tables. Many had signs of having “undergone various elaborate forms of torture and mutilation.”
One authority relies on this last account to posit the possibility that the room was actually controlled by Dr. LaLaurie ,who was conducting experiments on the slaves in order to develop better medical procedures. Although this version is not well accepted, it is recorded that when the Judge questioned him about the condition of the slaves, Dr. LaLaurie replied: “Some people had better stay at home rather than come to others’ houses to dictate laws and meddle with other people’s business.”
Driven Out
Those slaves who had been tortured were put on display at a local jail, and the New Orleans Bee reported that within two days, 4,000 people went to witness the suffering for themselves. The condition of the slaves must have been as bad as advertised because a mob subsequently ransacked the Royal Street Mansion, driving out Dr. and Mme. LaLaurie. After they had fled, the Pittsfield Sun wrote a story noting that exhumations on the mansion’s grounds revealed many corpses, including that of child.
Little is known of the rest of her life, but Delphine is believed to have fled to Paris, where she lived the remainder of her days. Many accounts set the year of her death at 1842, but she may have lived as late as 1849.
A torture chamber is uncovered by arson
On this day in 1834, a fire at the LaLaurie mansion in New Orleans, Louisiana, leads to the discovery of a torture chamber where slaves are routinely brutalized by Delphine LaLaurie. Rescuers found a 70-year-old black woman trapped in the kitchen during the fire because she was chained up while LaLaurie was busy saving her furniture. The woman later revealed that she had set the fire in an attempt to escape LaLaurie’s torture. She led authorities up to the attic, where seven slaves were tied with spiked iron collars.
After Delphine LaLaurie married her third husband, Louis LaLaurie, and moved into his estate on Royal Street, she immediately took control of the large number of slaves used as servants. LaLaurie was a well-known sadist, but the mistreatment of slaves by the wealthy and socially connected was not a matter for the police at the time.
However, in 1833, Delphine chased a small slave girl with a whip until the girl fell off the roof of the house and died. LaLaurie tried to cover up the incident, but police found the body hidden in a well. Authorities decided to fine LaLaurie and force the sale of the other slaves on the estate.
LaLaurie foiled this plan by secretly arranging for her relatives and friends to buy the slaves. She then sneaked them back into the mansion, where she continued to torture them until the night of the fire in April 1834.
Apparently her Southern neighbors had some standards when it came to the treatment of slaves, because a mob gathered in protest after learning about LaLaurie’s torture chamber. She and her husband fled by boat, leaving the butler (who had also participated in the torture) to face the wrath of the crowd.
Although charges were never filed against LaLaurie, her reputation in upper-class society was destroyed. It is believed that she died in Paris in December 1842.
-------
Torture Chamber Revealed
On April 10, 1834, a fire broke out in the kitchen of the mansion. Some authorities hold that the cook was actually chained to the stove where the fire started, and a few say that the neighbors were aware of this. The cook later supposedly claimed she started the fire, intending to commit suicide rather than submit to Delphine’s punishments that took place in the attic, a place no slave up to this point returned from.
Regardless, seeing the fire, neighbors entered the mansion. Knowing that slaves were locked in the uppermost room, the neighbors implored the LaLaurie’s to let them remove them, but they were rebuffed with LaLaurie refusing to give them the key.
One of the neighbors, Judge Canonge, disregarded the LaLaurie’s and the group broke down the locked doors to the attic rooms, revealing the horror within. Emaciated slaves with obvious signs of beatings were covered with scars and chained up. At least seven of them were: “More or less horribly mutilated . . . suspended by the neck, with their limbs apparently stretched and torn from one extremity to the other.” The Judge also stated he saw a “negress … wearing an iron collar” and an “old negro woman who had received a very deep wound on her head… too weak to be able to walk.”
From here, it’s difficult to separate fact from fiction. In some accounts, some of the slaves wore spikes that prevented them from moving their heads. It was also reported the slaves had been flayed with a whip. In at least one account, the slaves were nude and some were held in cages while others were tethered to operating tables. Many had signs of having “undergone various elaborate forms of torture and mutilation.”
One authority relies on this last account to posit the possibility that the room was actually controlled by Dr. LaLaurie ,who was conducting experiments on the slaves in order to develop better medical procedures. Although this version is not well accepted, it is recorded that when the Judge questioned him about the condition of the slaves, Dr. LaLaurie replied: “Some people had better stay at home rather than come to others’ houses to dictate laws and meddle with other people’s business.”
Driven Out
Those slaves who had been tortured were put on display at a local jail, and the New Orleans Bee reported that within two days, 4,000 people went to witness the suffering for themselves. The condition of the slaves must have been as bad as advertised because a mob subsequently ransacked the Royal Street Mansion, driving out Dr. and Mme. LaLaurie. After they had fled, the Pittsfield Sun wrote a story noting that exhumations on the mansion’s grounds revealed many corpses, including that of child.
Little is known of the rest of her life, but Delphine is believed to have fled to Paris, where she lived the remainder of her days. Many accounts set the year of her death at 1842, but she may have lived as late as 1849.
