Slave Narrative of “Aunt” Nina Scott

Interviewer: F. S. DuPre
Person Interviewed: Nina Scott
Date of Interview: May 17, 1937
Location: Spartanburg, South Carolina

“Aunt” Nina Scot sat on her front porch. She was drinking some liquid from a bottle which she said would help her trouble. Being short of breath, she was not able to talk very much. She said that she was very small at the time she was set free. “My Marster and his folks did not treat me like a nigger,” she said, “they treated me like they did other white folks.” She said that she and her mother had belonged to Dr. Shipp, who taught at Wofford College, that they had come here from Chapel Hill, N.C. and that she was a tarheel negro. She said that white people in slavery days had two nurses, one for the small children and one for the older ones. “Yes sir, those were certainly fine people that lived on the Campus during those days. (Wofford Col. Campus) When the ‘raid’ came on, people were hiding things all about their places.” She referred to the Yankee soldiers who came to Spartanburg after the close of the Civil War. “My mother hid the turkeys and told me where she had hidden them.” Dr. Shipp came up to Nina one day and asked her where the turkeys were hidden. She told him they were hidden behind a clump of small trees, and pointed them out to him. “Well,” he said, “tell your mother to go and hide them somewhere else and not to tell you about it. You would tell the Yankees just where those turkeys were hidden.” Aunt Nina recalls that Mr. and Mrs. Dr. Duncan (formerly of Wofford College) had a habit of getting a slice of bread and butter for all the neighboring children (black or white) whenever their nurses brought them to their home.


Surnames:
Scott, Shipp,

Collection:
Federal Writers' Project. WPA Slave Narratives. Web. 2007-2024. The WPA Slave Narratives must be used with care. There is, of course, the problem of confusion in memory resulting from (73+ years) of the participants. In addition, inexperienced interviewers sometimes pursued question lines related to their own interests and perspectives and attempted to capture the colloquialism of the informant's speech. The interviews provide fascinating insight and surprisingly candid information, however.

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