The show is credited by some as invoking a change in American attitudes to slavery -- a turning point in the post-civil rights struggle. Kinte is said to have been captured in Juffureh, a village across from Kunta Kinte Island, and transported to America on a boat called the Lord Ligonier.
Visitors to the Juffureh slavery museum can see the history of slavery in the area, and read some of the ads posted for the sale of slaves. For hundreds of years, the Gambian river was one of the major arteries for the capture and transport of slaves. At the height of the slave trade, a sixth of West African slaves came from this region. Because the Gambian river runs like an artery from the Atlantic into Africa, it was a crucial passageway for the slave trade.
At its height, an estimated one in six West Africans slaves came from this area. The island is also famous for its namesake: Kunta Kinte.
Kinte was a character in Alex Haley's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Roots, and later of a miniseries by the same name. Haley claimed his book was based on a real-life man who was captured into slavery in the nearby village of Juffureh, and that he himself was Kinte's great, great, great, great grandson. In Haley's story, Kinte, who was sold to an American slave owner, resisted both his enslavement and the name "Toby" that his owner imposed on him.
After his fourth attempt at escape, the slave catchers gave him a choice: Be castrated, or lose half a foot. He was directed to the griot Kebba Kanji Fofana who was supposed to possess a deep oral history of the Kinte family lineage going back generations. Fofana recited the family's lineage which seemed to match Haley's own family's stories and he emerged from his trip to Juffureh greatly moved.
So began his work which lasted over a decade on the Roots saga. The title of the book was going to be called Before This Anger however, it was later changed to Roots and was first published in an abbreviated style by the Reader's Digest in The finished manuscript went on sale in bookshops in At the time it was the highest rated TV mini-series according to the Nielsen Ratings.
At the time ABC were reluctant to show it as they thought it could be a flop so they decided to show it in the unusual format of 8 consecutive nights so it would be off-air as soon as possible.
Other actors included Louis Gossett Jr. The series had a large impact on race relations in America and gave African Americans a sense of pride and belonging and to look at Africa not with shame but in a more positive light.
Alex Haley went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in as well as many honorary degrees. Controversy: After the publication of his work and release of the min-series controversy surrounded the authenticity of Roots and the true location of Juffureh. Accusations of plagiarism , factual inaccuracies and fictionalised historical accounts abounded. Slavery Fact: Whatever the truth of the book's accounts the fact remains that millions of West Africans were taken against their will as slaves and shipped to the Americas.
The film made the horrors of the slave trade better known to millions of Americans who were never taught about this horrific aspect of their country's involvement in the chronicling of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade.
Much has been done to preserve the site and the environment to make it look as it must have in the s. Growing up Kunta Kinte would have, just like any other young boy, been adept at farming, cattle rearing, hunting and wrestling.
In those days, these were common daily activities among many communities in rural Gambia, and ones that are still practised to this day.
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