Roots: The Saga of an American Family

  “Jes’ gon’ say eighty boats don’ make me no difference,” said Kunta, “long’s white folks messin’ wid one ’nother ’stead o’ us. Seem like dey ain’t happy less’n dey’s messin’ wid somebody.”

  “’Pend who dey messin’ wid, way I sees it,” said Hattie. “Las’ year was a mulatto led a re-volt ’gainst dat Toussaint, an’ he mighta won if’n de Pres’dent hadn’t of sent his boats down dere to he’p Toussaint.”

  “Heared Massa Waller say Toussaint ain’t got sense ’nough to be no gen’l, let alone run no country on his own,” said Kunta. “He say jes’ watch, all dem slaves dat done got free in dat Haiti gwine wind up whole lot wuss off dan dey was under dey ol’ massas. ’Cose, dat’s what white folks hopin’. But I specks dey’s awready better off workin’ de plantations deyselves.”

  One of the serving women, who had returned to the kitchen and was listening to the conversation, spoke up: “Dat what dey’s talkin’’bout in dere right now—free niggers. Say it’s way too many, thirteen thousan’ jes’ here in Virginia. De jedge say he all fo’ freein’ niggers dat do sump’n outstandin’, like dem what fit in dat Revolution’longside dey massas, or dem what tol’ white folks ’bout any nigger uprisin’ plan, or dat nigger dat come up wid dat herb medicine dat even white folks claim cure near ’bout everythin’. De jedge say he feel massas got de right in de wills to free ol’ faithful niggers. But him an’ ev’ybody in dere say dey’s dead set ’gainst dem Quakers and some other white folks settin’ dey niggers free fo’ nothin.” The serving woman headed for the door, adding, “Jedge say mark his words, some new laws gwine be made to put a crimp in dat right soon.”

  Hattie asked Kunta, “What yo’ think o’ dat Massa Alexander Hamilton up Nawth sayin’ all free niggers oughta be sent to Africa’cause niggers an’ white folks too different an’ ain’t gwine never git’long?”

  “He right, dat’s what I thinks,” said Kunta. “But white folks talks dat an’ keeps bringin’ mo’ from Africa!”

  “You know why well’s I do,” said Hattie. “Puts ’em down in Georgia an’ de Carolinas to keep up wid de cotton crop every since dat cotton gin come in few years back. Same reason plenty massas’roun’ here sellin’ dey niggers off down South for much as two, three times what dey paid fo’ dem.”

  “Fiddler say de big massas down South got mean po’ cracker oberseers drivin’ niggers like mules clearin’ lan’ for new cottonfiel’s,” said Kunta.

  “Yeah, it’s how come de papers lately so full o’ notices ’bout runaways,” said Hattie.

  Just then the serving women began returning to the kitchen with dirty plates and platters. Hattie beamed proudly. “Look like dey’s done et all dey can hol’. ’Bout now, massa pourin’ de champagne whilst de table git cleared fo’ dessert,” she told Kunta. “See how you like dese plum puddin’ tarts.” She set one on a saucer in front of him. “’Sides dat dey’s gittin’ brandied peaches in dere, but I recollecks you don’t touch no liquor.”

  Enjoying the succulent tart, Kunta found himself recalling a runaway slave advertisement that Bell had read to him recently from the Gazette. “Tall mulatto wench,” it said, “very large breasts of which the right one has a deep scar. A sly liar and thief, who may be showing a large forged pass, since previous owner let her learn to write some, or who may be claiming herself a free nigger.”

  Hattie sat down heavily, fingered a brandied peach from a jar and popped it into her mouth. Glancing across the kitchen at two high tubs filled with glasses, dishes, cutlery, and utensils yet to be washed and put away, she let out a loud sigh and said wearily, “Know one thing, sho’ be glad to see my bed dis night, ’cause Lawd, I jes’ plum wo’ out.”

  CHAPTER 76

  For many years now, Kunta had gotten up every morning before dawn, earlier than anyone else on slave row—so early that some of the others were convinced that “dat African” could see in the dark like a cat. Whatever they wanted to think was fine with him as long as he was left alone to slip away to the barn, where he would face the first faint streaking of the day prostrated between two large bundles of hay, offering up his daily suba prayer to Allah. Afterward, by the time he had pitched some hay into the horses’ feed trough, he knew that Bell and Kizzy would be washed, dressed, and ready to get things under way in the big house, and the boss field hand Cato would be up and out with Ada’s son Noah, who would soon be ringing the bell to wake the other slaves.

  Almost every morning, Noah would nod and say “Mornin’” with such solemn reserve that he reminded Kunta of the Jaloff people in Africa, of whom it was said that if one greeted you in the morning, he had uttered his last good word for the day. But although they had said little to each other, he liked Noah, perhaps because he reminded Kunta of himself at about the same age—the serious manner, the way he went about his work and minded his own business, the way he spoke little but watched everything. He had often noticed Noah doing a thing that he also did—standing somewhere with his eyes quietly following the rompings of Kizzy and Missy Anne around the plantation. Once when Kunta had been watching from the barn door as they rolled a hoop across the backyard, giggling and screaming, he had been about to go back inside when he saw Noah standing over by Cato’s cabin, also watching. Their eyes met, and they looked at each other for a long moment before both turned away. Kunta wondered what had Noah been thinking—and had the feeling that, likewise, Noah was wondering what he was thinking. Kunta knew somehow that they were both thinking the same things.

  At ten, Noah was two years older than Kizzy, but that difference wasn’t great enough to explain why the two hadn’t even become friends, let alone playmates, since they were the only slave children on the plantation. Kunta had noticed that whenever they passed near each other, each of them always acted as if they had not even seen the other, and he couldn’t figure out why—unless it was because even at their age they had begun to sense the custom that house slaves and field slaves didn’t mix with one another.

  Whatever the reason, Noah spent his days out with others in the fields while Kizzy swept, dusted, polished the brass, and tidied up the massa’s bedroom every day—for Bell to inspect later with a hickory switch in her hand. On Saturdays, when Missy Anne usually came to call, Kizzy would somehow miraculously manage to finish her chores in half the time it took her every other day, and the two of them would spend the rest of the day playing—excepting at midday if the massa happened to be home for lunch. Then he and Missy Anne would eat in the dining room with Kizzy standing behind them gently fanning a leafy branch to keep away flies, as Bell shuttled in and out serving the food and keeping a sharp eye on both girls, having warned them beforehand, “Y’all lemme catch you even thinkin’ ’bout gigglin’ in dere wid massa, I’ll tan both yo’ hides!”

  Kunta by now was pretty much resigned to sharing his Kizzy with Massa Waller, Bell, and Missy Anne. He tried not to think about what they must have her doing up there in the big house, and he spent as much time as possible in the barn when Missy Anne was around. But it was all he could do to wait until each Sunday afternoon, when church would be over and Missy Anne would go back home with her parents. Later on these afternoons, usually Massa Waller would be either resting or passing the time with company in the parlor, Bell would be off with Aunt Sukey and Sister Mandy at their weekly “Jesus meetin’s”—and Kunta would be free to spend another couple of treasured hours alone with his daughter.

  When the weather was good, they’d go walking—usually along the vine-covered fencerow where he had gone almost nine years before to think of the name “Kizzy” for his new girlchild. Out beyond where anyone would be likely to see them, Kunta would clasp Kizzy’s soft little hand in his own as, feeling no need to speak, they would stroll down to a little stream, and sitting closer together beneath a shade tree they would eat whatever Kizzy had brought along from the kitchen—usually cold buttered biscuits filled with his favorite blackberry preserves. Then they would begin talking.

  Mostly he’d talk and s
he’d interrupt him constantly with questions, most of which would begin, “How come...” But one day Kunta didn’t get to open his mouth before she piped up eagerly, “You wanna hear what Missy Anne learned me yestiddy?”

  He didn’t care to hear of anything having to do with that giggling white creature, but not wishing to hurt his Kizzy’s feelings, he said, “I’m listenin’.”

  “Peter, Peter, punkin eater,” she recited, “had a wife an’ couldn’ keep ’er, put ’er in a punkin shell, dere he kep’ ’er very well....”

  “Dat it?” he asked.

  She nodded. “You like it?”

  He thought it was just what he would have expected from Missy Anne: completely asinine. “You says it real good,” he hedged.

  “Bet you can’t say it good as me,” she said with a twinkle.

  “Ain’t tryin’ to!”

  “Come on, Pappy, say it fo’ me jes’ once.”

  “Git ’way from me wid dat mess!” He sounded more exasperated than he really was. But she kept insisting and finally, feeling a bit foolish that his Kizzy was able to twine him around her finger so easily, he made a stumbling effort to repeat the ridiculous lines—just to make her leave him alone, he told himself.

  Before she could urge him to try the rhyme again, the thought flashed to Kunta of reciting something else to her—perhaps a few verses from the Koran, so that she might know how beautiful they could sound—then he realized such verses would make no more sense to her than “Peter, Peter” had to him. So he decided to tell her a story. She had already heard about the crocodile and the little boy, so he tried the one about the lazy turtle who talked the stupid leopard into giving him a ride by pleading that he was too sick to walk.

  “Where you hears all dem stories you tells?” Kizzy asked when he was through.

  “Heared ’em when I was yo’ age—from a wise ol’ gran’mammy name Nyo Boto.” Suddenly Kunta laughed with delight, remembering. “She was bald-headed as a egg! Didn’t have no teeth, neither, but dat sharp tongue o’ her’n sho’ made up fer it! Loved us young’uns like her own, though.”

  “She ain’t had none of ’er own?”

  “Had two when she was real young, long time fo’ she come to Juffure. But they got took away in a fight ’tween her village an’’nother tribe. Reckon she never got over it.”

  Kunta fell silent, stunned with a thought that had never occurred to him before: The same thing had happened to Bell when she was young. He wished he could tell Kizzy about her two half sisters, but he knew it would only upset her—not to mention Bell, who hadn’t spoken of it since she told him of her lost daughters on the night of Kizzy’s birth. But hadn’t he—hadn’t all of those who had been chained beside him on the slave ship been torn away from their own mothers? Hadn’t all the countless other thousands who had come before—and since?

  “Dey brung us here naked!” he heard himself blurting. Kizzy jerked up her head, staring; but he couldn’t stop. “Even took our names away. Dem like you gits borned here don’t even know who dey is! But you jes’ much Kinte as I is! Don’t never fo’git dat! Us’ns fo’fathers was traders, travelers, holy men—all de way back hunnuds o’ rains into dat lan’ call Ol’ Mali! You unnerstan’ what I’m talkin’ ’bout, chile?”

  “Yes, Pappy,” she said obediently, but he knew she didn’t. He had an idea. Picking up a stick, smoothing a place in the dirt between them, he scratched some characters in Arabic.

  “Dat my name—Kun-ta Kin-te,” he said, tracing the characters slowly with his finger.

  She stared, fascinated. “Pappy, now do my name.” He did. She laughed. “Dat say Kizzy?” He nodded. “Would you learn me to write like you does?” Kizzy asked.

  “Wouldn’t be fittin’,” said Kunta sternly.

  “Why not?” She sounded hurt.

  “In Africa, only boys learns how to read an’ write. Girls ain’t got no use fer it—over here, neither.”

  “How come mammy can read an’ write, den?”

  Sternly, he said, “Don’t you be talkin’ dat! You hear me? Ain’t nobody’s business! White folks don’ like none us doin’ no readin’ or writin’!”

  “How come?”

  “’Cause dey figgers less we knows, less trouble we makes.”

  “I wouldn’t make no trouble,” she said, pouting.

  “If’n we don’ hurry up an’ git back to de cabin, yo’ mammy gon’ make trouble fo’ us both.”

  Kunta got up and started walking, then stopped and turned, realizing that Kizzy was not behind him. She was still by the bank of the stream, gazing at a pebble she had seen.

  “Come on now, it’s time to go.” She looked up at him, and he walked over and reached out his hand. “Tell you what,” he said. “You pick up dat pebble an’ bring it ’long an’ hide it somewheres safe, an’ if’n you keeps yo’ mouth shet ’bout it, nex’ new moon mornin’ I let you drop it in my gourd.”

  “Oh, Pappy!” She was beaming.

  CHAPTER 77

  It was almost time for Kizzy to drop another pebble into Kunta’s gourd—about a year later, in the summer of 1800—when the massa told Bell he was going to Fredericksburg for about a week on business, and it was arranged that his brother would be coming over “to look after things” while he was away. When Kunta heard the news, he was even more upset than the rest of slave row, for he hated leaving Bell and Kizzy exposed to his former owner even more than he disliked having to be away from them for so long. Of course, he said nothing about these concerns, but on the morning of departure, as he left the cabin to hitch up the horses, he was taken aback that it seemed almost as if Bell had read his mind. She said, “Massa John sho’ ain’t like his brother, but I knows how to deal wid his kin’. An’ it ain’t but a week. So don’t you worry none. We be fine.”

  “I ain’t worryin’,” said Kunta, hoping she couldn’t tell he was lying.

  Kneeling to kiss Kizzy, he whispered in her ear, “Don’t forgit dat new moon pebble, now,” and she winked conspiratorially as Bell pretended not to have heard, although she had known what they were doing for almost nine months now.

  For the next two days of the massa’s absence, everything went on pretty much as usual, although Bell was mildly annoyed at nearly everything Massa John said or did. She particularly disliked how he sat up late in the study at night, drinking his brother’s best whiskey from the bottle, smoking his own big black, smelly cigars and flicking the ashes on the carpet. Still, Massa John didn’t interfere too much with Bell’s normal routine, and he stayed mostly to himself.

  But the midmorning of the third day, Bell was out sweeping off the front porch when a white man on a lathered horse came galloping up and leaped off, demanding to see the massa.

  Ten minutes later, the man left as hurriedly as he had come. Massa John barked down the hallway for Bell to come into the study. He looked deeply shaken, and it flashed in Bell’s mind that something terrible had happened to Kunta and the massa. She was sure of it when he brusquely ordered her to assemble all the slaves in the backyard. They all gathered, standing in a line, tense with fear, as he flung open the back screen door and stalked out toward them; he had a revolver conspicuous in his belt.

  Coldly scanning their faces, he said, “I just got word of some Richmond niggers’ plot to kidnap the governor, massacre the Richmond white people, and burn the city.” The slaves gawked at one another in astonishment as he went on. “Thanks to God—an’ a few smart niggers who found out and told their massas just in time—the plot’s been crushed, and most of the niggers that started it already caught. Armed patrols are on the roads lookin’ for the rest, an’ I’m gonna make sure none of ’em decides to stop off here for the night. ’Case any o’ you got uprising notions, I’m gonna be patrollin’ day and night. None of you’re to set foot off this property! I don’t want no gatherin’ of any kind; an’ nobody outside their own cabin after dark!” Patting his revolver, he said, “I’m not as patient an’ soft with niggers as my brother! Any of you even
looks like you’re thinkin’ about steppin’ outa line, his doctorin’ won’t patch up a bullet ’tween your eyes. Now git!”

  Massa John was as good as his word. For the next two days, he enraged Bell by insisting upon watching Kizzy taste his food before he’d eat it. He roamed the fields on horseback during the day and sat on the porch at night with a shotgun across his lap—his vigilance so absolute that the slave-row people dared not try even discussing the uprising, let alone plan one of their own. After receiving and reading the next issue of the Gazette, Massa John burned it in the fireplace, and when a neighboring massa visited one afternoon, he ordered Bell to leave the house and they huddled talking in the study with the windows shut. So it was impossible for anyone even to find out more about the plot, or especially about its aftermath, which was what had Bell and the others worried sick—not about Kunta, since he’d be safe with the massa, but about the fiddler, who had left on the day before they had to play at a big society ball in Richmond. The slave-row people could only imagine what might be happening to black strangers in Richmond at the hands of enraged, panic-stricken whites.

  The fiddler still hadn’t returned when Kunta and the massa did—three days early—their trip cut short by the uprising. Upon Massa John’s departure later that day, the restrictions he’d imposed were relaxed somewhat, although not completely, and the massa was very cold toward everyone. It wasn’t until Kunta and Bell were alone in their cabin that he could tell her of what he’d overheard in Fredericksburg: that the black revolters already captured had been tortured into helping the authorities round up others involved, and some had confessed that the revolt had been planned by a free blacksmith named Gabriel Prosser, who had recruited around two hundred hand-picked black men—butlers, gardeners, janitors, waiters, ironworkers, rope makers, coal miners, boatmen, even preachers—and trained them for more than a year. Prosser was still at large, and the militia was combing the countryside for suspects, said Kunta, poor-white “paterollers” were terrorizing the roads; and there were rumors about some massas beating slaves, some to death, for little or no provocation.