Kunta Kinte (abt. 1750 - abt. 1822)

Born about 1750 in Upper Niumi District, North Bank, Gambia [uncertain]

Descendants

Died about 1822 at about age 72 in Spotsylvania, Virginia, United States

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Biography

Kunta Kinte is Notable.

Kunta Kinte is a character in the 1976 novel Roots by American author Alex Haley. Kunta Kinte's life in the book is a mix of fact and fiction, based on one of Haley's ancestors, a Gambian man who was born in 1750.

Kunta Kinte, a Mandinka, and the first son to Omoro and Binta, is born around 1750 in Juffure along the Gambia River. After a mostly idyllic youth in which he is schooled in Islam and initiated into the Mandinka ways, Kunta Kinte is captured in 1767 where he and others were put on the slave ship the Lord Ligonier for a four-month Middle Passage voyage to North America. Arriving in Annapolis, he is sold to John Waller, a plantation owner in Spotsylvania, Virginia and renamed Toby. As punishment for three escapes, his foot is amputated. He was then sold to John's brother, William Waller, becoming Waller's gardener and driver.

Kunta Kinte marries Belle Waller, a domestic slave, with whom he has a daughter named Kizzy (Keisa, in Mandinka). Kunta Kinte teaches Kizzy African words and culture, a legacy handed down through the generations until Haley hears them as a child from relatives. When Kizzy was in her late teens, she was sold away to North Carolina when William Waller discovered that she had written a fake traveling pass for an enslaved young man, Noah, with whom she was in love.

Kunta died in 1822 aged ~72.

Slave Owners

John Waller

Dr. William Waller

Research Note

There is controversy over how much of the story of Kunta Kinte's life is fact or fiction. See the Wikipedia article for more about this.

Sources

• Wikipedia - Kunta Kinte

• Oxford Reference: https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100045890

• https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/KFRY-T7X

• http://www.ststlocations.com/Archives/Genealogy/Charts/AlexHaley/

• https://www.bustle.com/articles/163126-was-kunta-kinte-a-real-person-roots-traces-a-tragic-history

• Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/249585658/kunta-kinte: accessed April 1, 2024), memorial page for Kunta Kinte (1750–1822), Find a Grave Memorial ID 249585658, citing Black Meadow Road Burial Ground, Spotsylvania County, Virginia, USA; Maintained by Family Searcher#1 (contributor 46596952).