t three miles from South Jacksonville proper down the old Saint
Augustine Road lives one Louis Napoleon an ex-slave, born in
Tallahassee, Florida about 1857, eight years prior to Emancipation.

His parents were Scipio and Edith Napoleon, being originally owned by
Colonel John S. Sammis of Arlington, Florida and the Floyd family of
Saint Marys, Georgia, respectively.

Scipio and Edith were sold to Arthur Randolph, a physician and large
plantation owner of Fort Louis, about five miles from the capital at
Tallahassee. On this large plantation that covered and area of about
eight miles and composed approximately of 90 slaves is where Louis
Napoleon first saw the light of day.

Louis' father was known as the wagoner. His duties were to haul the
commodities raised on the plantation and other things that required a
wagon. His mother Edith, was known as a "breeder" and was kept in the
palatial Randolph mansion to loom cloth for the Randolph family and
slaves. The cloth was made from the cotton raised on the plantation's
fertile fields. As Louis was so young, he had no particular duties, only
to look for hen nests, gather eggs and play with the master's three
young boys. There were seven children in the Randolph family, three
young boys, two "missy" girls and two grown sons. Louis would go fishing
and hunting with the three younger boys and otherwise engage with them
in their childish pranks.

He says that his master and mistress were very kind to the slaves and
would never whip them, nor would he allow the "driver" who was a white
man named Barton to do so. Barton lived in a home especially built for
him on the plantation. If the "driver" whipped any of them, all that was
necessary for the slave who had been whipped was to report it to the
master and the "driver" was dismissed, as he was a salaried man.

Plantation Life. The slaves lived in log cabins especially built for
them. They were ceiled and arranged in such a manner as to retain the
heat in winter from the large fireplaces constructed therein.

Just before the dawn of day, the slaves were aroused from their slumber
by a loud blast from a cow-horn that was blown by the "driver" as a
signal to prepare themselves for the fields. The plantation being so
expansive, those who had to go a long distance to the area where they
worked, were taken in wagons, those working nearby walked. They took
their meals along with them and had their breakfast and dinner on the
fields.