Kunta Kinte is perhaps one of the most identifiable first generation slaves, due to his portrayal in Alex Haley’s novel Roots. Haley claims that he is descended from Kunta Kinte, a member of the Mandinka tribe in The Gambia, Africa, who was captured and enslaved as a young boy. When reaching the US, Kunta Kinte’s name was changed to Toby.

Though Roots is partly fictionalized, Haley’s contention that Kunta Kinte was his relative was supposed to be a true one. There has actually been a huge dispute regarding this matter. Research on a slave named Toby, and investigation of the griot, an African oral poet, who told Haley about Kunta, has lead to serious scrutiny of Haley’s claims. It appears that a slave named Toby was probably not the father of Kizzy, to whom Haley could prove relationship. He may have died long before Kizzy was conceived. It is also challenging to establish that Kunta Kinte became the slave named Toby.

Despite the possibility that Kunta Kinte never existed, as a symbol of the experience of the captured slave, Kunta Kinte settled into the minds of the American people. Especially when the miniseries adaptation of Roots aired in 1977, Kunta became symbolic of the plight of the slave, the dignity of man, and the cruelty of slavery. In particular, Kunta is tortured for refusing to give up his African name or respond to the name Toby. These scenes awoke many in the American public to what it might mean to be enslaved, and provoked dialogue regarding the nature of slavery and the damage done to generations of African Americans.

The story of Kunta Kinte as Haley tells it, begins with his birth in the mid-18th century, in Juffure, Gambia. Kunta is a member of the Mandinka tribe, a predominantly Islamic centered tribe. Kunta is captured at 16, and must make the terrible journey on a slave ship to the United States. Along the way, many of his companions die of illness and poor treatment. Upon arriving in the US, John Waller buys Kunta Kinte to use him on his plantation in Virginia.

Kunta’s repeated refusal to answer to the name Toby earns him punishment upon punishment, and he tries several times to run away. When he is caught for the fourth time, as punishment, his foot is chopped off so that he can no longer run. He’s then sold to Waller’s brother, and meets Belle, his future wife. Kunta has a child named Kizzy, with Belle.

The importance of Kunta Kinte, according to Haley is that he was educated, could read and write, and he impresses upon the slaves around him the glory of being free, the need to return to African origins, and the continual opposition to slavery. Though this opposition continues to earn Kunta Kinte torturous punishment, he maintains a sense of his African identity, which he passes on to his daughter Kizzy. To Haley, this fact is the most important. The sense of coming from some place, being enslaved despite once being free, and the tenacity in holding onto the dream of freedom remains a common theme in Roots.

Whether or not Kunta Kinte truly was Haley’s ancestor is relatively unimportant. Kunta’s tale is recognizable, and Haley’s story, being so widely read, and then watched by a huge cross-section of the American public made real the horrible conditions of slavery in ways that had not been managed before. Ultimately, Kunta Kinte is almost allegorical in nature. He is every captured slave waging a battle against an oppressor far stronger than himself.