Lila Nichols

Lila Nichols was interviewed by Mary A. Hicks at Cary, North Carolina, in May 1937. Her father was Yancey and her mother Sabra; she had two brothers, Yancey and Add, and five sisters, Alice, Sally, Martha, Betty and Helia. The family was given by Willis Whitaker to his son Nat when Nat married. She said the old man had been good to them, but Nat Whitaker was not: they never had half enough to eat, no shoes until they were 21, the worst clothes, shacks for cabins, and whippings nearly every day. Lila was whipped if the evening egg count came up short or if a chick died in her care. Her mother plowed with a two-horse team all year and was given two days off when each of her children was born.

When the mistress fell ill after an enslaved girl named Alice brought her food, she accused Alice of trying to poison her, got out of bed, and whipped her with a cowhide until blood ran to her heels. Alice was chained by her arms and legs until she healed, then taken to Richmond in chains and sold. Lila also remembered a woman who refused to let the mistress whip her.

Union soldiers arrived on a Thursday and acted, she said, like a pack of robbers, burning cotton, kicking in doors, smashing pictures and drinking the brandy. The family left that Sunday for Raleigh, and she said the first winter there wasn't so bad after all.