Kunta Kinte

Kunta Kinte is the main character of the novel Racines of Alex Halley, and of the televised mini-series Racines inspired. Racines is recognized like a mixture of actual facts and fiction.

Kunta Kinte was Mandingue. Kunta was captured and transported to Annapolis then sold to a grower with in Virginia.

It has there a memorial dedicated to Kunta Kinte with Annapolis. It is one of some monuments of the world to bear the name of African esclave.
The plate of Kunta Kinte was stolen 48 hours after its installation in 1981, probably by the Ku Klux Klan. It never was not found but was replaced 2 months later.

Summary

The novel of Halley starts with the birth of Kunta, with Juffure in Gambia of the African West in 1750. Kunta is the first of four children of the warrior Mandingue Omoro and of his wife Binta Kebba. Halley describes the strict education of Kunta and the rigors of the drive by which it passes.

One day in 1767, whereas the young warrior had left the village in order to find wood to make a drum, it is attacked by four Blacks which encircle it and capture it. Kunta is found muzzled, bound and prisoner of the white men. Halley describes as they humiliate the young warrior by stripping it, excavating it by all the openings and marking it with red iron. He is embarked with others in a slave trader for a voyage three months towards America.

Of 140 Africans, Kunta is one of the 98 who survived the crossing. On its arrival with Maryland it is sold to a grower who re-elects it " Toby".

During the remainder of its life Kunta never forsakes its dreams of freedom and tries to escape.

It Marie with Beautiful Waller - another slave - and has a named girl Kizzy.

Unfortunately Kizzy is sold a few years to have written a false authorization later to circulate for a young slave with which it was in love.

The remainder of the book tells the history of the generations between Kizzy and Alex Halley, describing their sufferings in America.

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