![]() ![]() Kinte chose the latter (a fortunate choice for the descendants who would later immortalize him). After his fourth attempt at escape, the slave catchers gave him a choice: Be castrated, or lose half a foot. 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. 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. Kinte was a character in Alex Haley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Roots, and later of a miniseries by the same name. The island is also famous for its namesake: Kunta Kinte. At its height, an estimated one in six West Africans slaves came from this area. ![]() Though tiny – it is barely big enough to house some ruins of its past and a baobab grove – the role it has played in world history has been large indeed.īecause the Gambian river runs like an artery from the Atlantic into Africa, it was a crucial passageway for the slave trade. Kunta Kinte Island sits at the mouth of the Gambia River. ![]()
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