Who was Mariah Watkins? What was her identity, and how did appearance inform that identity? Watkins was an African American woman. Although likely born a slave, she lived most of her free years as a woman of property and of skill, working as a documented nurse and midwife in Neosho, Missouri. This paper relies on archival records, photographic analysis, and material culture to explore Watkins as a case study in the challenges of documenting African American appearance during and after the antebellum period in the United States.