Apparently Louis Watkins’s experiences were told by his daughter, Hettie Watkins, who at the time of the interview was living at 813 South Pershing Drive in Muncie, for in the fieldworker’s account of Sidney Graham (q.v.) he writes that “Miss Watkins, while giving the sketch of her father to this writer, related a story of one of her uncles [Sidney Graham]” Louis Watkins was born in 1853 on Peeler Parker’s plantation, which was located about fifteen miles from Chattanooga, Tennessee, near White Oak Mountain. Louis claimed that his owner was good to him and that his overseer never whipped him. He was permitted to go to church with his parents on Sunday, a day of rest for the slaves. He had a white tutor who came on Sunday afternoons and taught the slaves in a room in the big house. Louis said they were taught to read, write, and figure, and they could “go as far as they were capable.” They were encouraged to read books and to look at pictures at certain times outside of work hours. He said all the slaves were well-read, well-clothed, and well-housed.
The slaveholder kept four grown slaves to work in the fields, and his wife kept two slaves to work in the big house. After the whites had eaten, the slaves were taken to a big kitchen, where they ate substantial meals together. An unmarried black woman was in charge, and she saw that all the slaves got all the food they wanted. No one had to leave the table hungry. Louis’s family remained together, because none of the slaves was ever sold off the plantation.
His owner had a powder mill on the plantation, and he operated the mill as a separate business mainly with white help. Louis, a boy at the time, ran errands in and out of the mill under the watchful eye of the whites in charge. One time he failed to clean the powder off the soles of his bare feet, and at his parents’ cottage, he sat down in front of the stove and stuck his feet too near the grate. A spark flew out of the stove and ignited the powder. Fire encircled his bare feet, and the calluses on his soles were so badly burned that he had to remain in bed until new flesh covered his feet. Powder around his ankles also ignited, leaving a generous patch of blisters. Louis recalled this experience as the outstanding event of his slave days.
When the slaveholder told the slaves that they were free, they were given a choice of leaving or remaining on the plantation to work for wages. None of the slaves left right away; all took time to relocate in adjoining villages, where they found work for wages. Louis was about twelve years old when his parents left the plantation to live in Coltewah, a small village. A number of years after the war, Louis found work and married. He, his wife, and their three children moved to Muncie in 1907. His wife was deceased at the time of the interview.