Roots: The Saga of an American Family

Everyone in the hold can feel that the ship is setting out to sea. Kunta realizes he needs to eat so he can fight the toubobs when he gets a chance. One of the captives on the shelf below Kunta speaks to the toubobs in the toubob language, and Kunta and the other captives realize he must be a slatee. Those tied to the slatee call him a traitor and kill him. The toubobs discover the body, remove him, then return to beat the men. After the toubobs leave, an elder in the hold yells that they need to act as one village.

Toubobs scrape off the filth that crusts the planks in the hold, and other toubobs unshackle Kunta and the men, forcing them onto the deck. Kunta sees the man next to him is Wolof, a different ethnic group. There are many armed toubobs, and the toubobs wash the men with buckets of seawater and large brushes. A group of naked African women and children come onto the deck, and the toubobs begin playing music. The women tell the men to jump and dance with them, chanting “toubob fa,” meaning “kill toubob,” and they explain that the toubobs sexually assault them and violently kidnap people. In the hold, Kunta can hear that other men are trying to find common words between their languages.

The women on the deck sing to relay news whenever the men are brought up to be cleaned, and men in the hold relay messages in different languages. They discuss how to kill the toubobs. The women reveal that there is a slatee among them. When the elder praises Allah, many of the men join him, but the Wolof man next to Kunta reveals that he is a pagan, and Kunta decides that he cannot be friends with him anymore.

The men in the hold divide into followers of a Wolof man, who advocates immediate attack, and followers of the Foulah who killed the slatee, advocating caution. The group chooses the Foulah’s plan, but the Wolof attacks a toubob, killing him and four others before he is stopped and mutilated as a warning. The Foulah announces that they will attack at the next cleaning. A heavy rain jostles the ship, and the toubob cover the deck, trapping the putrid air in the hold and suffocating the men. Kunta wakes up on deck, and the white-haired man is inspecting men being brought out from the hold, many of whom are thrown overboard, dead.

Many men in the hold and toubobs become sick with dysentery. The plan to attack the toubobs is quickly forgotten, and only 12 women survive. The men’s bones become exposed through their wounds, to which the white-haired man applies grease and powders. As the disease ravages the crew and the men in the hold, the women report that many toubobs have died. The men are brought up on the deck, and Kunta sees that they have arrived at toubabo doo, the land of the toubob.

Kunta and the other men are brought to the deck and scrubbed, painted with a black substance, and covered in oil. Crowds of toubobs gather, and Kunta notes that the crowd smells terrible. The men are brought to a small building and chained. Kunta resolves to be like an animal in a trap, waiting for the moment that he can escape. He tries not to think of Africa and his family.

Toubobs arrive and take the men out to be auctioned. One toubob sells the men, emphasizing Kunta’s youth and strength. John Waller purchases Kunta for $850, and he and his Black driver take Kunta to a carriage, chaining him to the seat. As the carriage travels, Kunta sees many Black men and women working, noting the scars from whips on their backs.

The carriage stops, and three Black men laugh at Kunta while the slatee driver unchains Kunta. The men grab him, and the driver chains Kunta to a pole, leaving tins of food and water, but Kunta cannot eat or sleep. In the morning, the driver retrieves Kunta, unchaining him at another white house. Kunta pretends to be too weak to move, forcing the driver to pick him up, and Kunta lunges for the driver’s throat, choking him until he loses consciousness. Kunta runs into the forest nearby.

Kunta emerges on another toubob farm and darts back into the woods. It is almost dawn, and Kunta finds a covered location to sleep but wakes to the sounds of dogs and men. The dogs catch him, and the driver binds Kunta, bringing him back to the toubob’s farm. Kunta wakes up tied to the floor in a hut. The driver puts food by Kunta’s head, but it is pork, which violates his Muslim beliefs. In the morning, Kunta hears a strange horn, and he can smell that many Black people are passing by his hut. The driver comes in again, noting the vomit and uneaten food, and rubs the food in Kunta’s face.

Kunta spends four days and three nights tied to the floor. The driver attaches shackles to Kunta’s ankles and beats him down when Kunta tries to get up. When he lets Kunta leave the hut, he takes Kunta on a tour of the huts, including one for using the bathroom and one where food is made. A line of other Black people moves toward the fields, and the driver and Kunta follow them. The driver says he is Samson and that Kunta is “Toby.” A toubob comes over on a horse, and Kunta realizes that the toubob will whip Black people whom he thinks are not working enough.

Kunta placates the toubob and Samson to get the shackles off his ankles. Kunta spends his time in the cooking hut, looking for objects he might use as a weapon. He does not understand how the Black people around him have lost their pride and culture as Africans and vows to never become like them. He learns English words, slowly, such as the words for watermelon, black-eyed peas, and okra, as well as the common responses to the toubob, like “yassuh,” “massa,” and “missus.”

Kunta notices that Black people on the plantation speak in code to each other and sometimes break tools or work slowly to frustrate the toubob. Kunta still doesn’t trust them. At night, the Black people gather in front of the cooking hut, and Kunta can tell that the discussions among them turn sad or angry. An older man leads them in prayer, although Kunta cannot understand the words. Kunta sees how the enslaved people retain many familiar African traits and mannerisms.

Kunta’s ankle becomes infected from the shackles, and Samson removes them. Kunta tries to escape, running into the forest and making a spear. Samson catches Kunta, beats him, and drags him back. Kunta finds and hides an iron wedge, but his goal is to get a large knife. While repairing a fence with another enslaved man, Kunta knocks the man unconscious, takes a knife, and flees into the forest. Dogs and men on horses chase after him, and Kunta kills the two dogs. The men shoot Kunta in the leg and tie him to a tree before whipping his back. Kunta wakes up chained to the floor of his hut again and is disgusted to find that he is wrapped in a blanket soaked in pig’s grease.

Kunta focuses on acting like the other Black people, working to match the two-bag daily average while picking cotton. Kunta sees tobacco being harvested, carried away by wagon every four days. Kunta speculates that he could flee using one of these wagons and plots his escape at night. He acts extra friendly and picks cotton extra swiftly over the next few days to remove suspicion.

Kunta waits for everyone to go to bed before gathering food, a knife made from the iron wedge, and a charm, then jumps into a passing carriage of tobacco. He jumps from the wagon at dawn and travels through the day, building a small shelter to sleep. The next day, Kunta continues to move through the woods and wonders how he will get back to Africa. He sleeps and is awoken by dogs howling, and he grabs a rock instead of his knife. Kunta uses the rock to fend off the dogs, and two toubobs arrive with guns and tie Kunta to a tree. Given a choice between losing his foot or his genitals, Kunta protects his genitals, and the man cuts off the front half of Kunta’s right foot.

Kunta wakes up strapped to the floor of an unfamiliar hut. A tall toubob and a Black woman visit him, and the toubob changes the bandage on his foot and gives him medicine. The toubob calls the Black woman “Bell,” and she returns three times a day to bring Kunta food and water. Bell comes in the night with a poultice of boiled leaves and paste, which Kunta knows is an African remedy. Bell explains that the toubob—William Waller, brother of John Waller and Kunta’s new enslaver—is a doctor. Kunta speaks for the first time to Bell, yelling at her in Mandinka. After three weeks, the doctor removes the bandages and provides Kunta with crutches, to which Kunta quickly acclimates.

A new man with light brown skin arrives, and the Black people listen to his stories at night. The white people call him Fiddler because he plays a fiddle. Kunta says his name is Kunta Kinte, and Fiddler explains that white people hate all things African and explains the laws regarding Black and white people. The other Black people welcome Kunta with nods, and Kunta starts visiting Fiddler each afternoon. Fiddler teaches Kunta English, and Kunta starts to make himself understood with Fiddler. One day, the gardener tells Kunta to start helping him garden by the main house.

Kunta places stones in a gourd to mark the passing of time, estimating that he is 19 years old and has been in America for a year and a half. The gardener weakens quickly and misses work regularly, and Kunta becomes accustomed to working alone. Bell starts bringing Kunta into the kitchen, giving him portions of whatever she is cooking. Fiddler acknowledges that Kunta is starting to look healthy, and Kunta notices that Fiddler’s hand is healing; he now plays music at night for everyone.

In summer, Kunta tends livestock and drives a cotton wagon. In the fall, Kunta attends a harvest festival, reminding him of dances in Juffure. Fiddler anticipates that Waller will start hiring Fiddler out to play music for other white people. Kunta avoids the Christian religious events of winter. In spring, Kunta sees how the activities of the Black Americans mirror Africans in Juffure, like weaving and dying cloth. In July, Black people from various plantations gather for a “camp meeting,” but Kunta suspects that the meeting involves Christianity. He realizes that he could try to escape again, but realizes that he would be caught, beaten, and returned.