Roots: The Saga of an American Family

The Kinte family moves to Murray’s plantation. The family works hard, hoping to prevent the inexperienced Murrays from hiring an overseer, and Tom takes contracts for additional work. Virgil unsuccessfully tries to convince Murray to buy his wife, Lilly Sue, while Tom and Matilda save money to try to buy Kizzy, Sarah, and Malizy. Matilda works in the house, while the remainder of the family works in the fields. Mary and L’il Kizzy talk with men at the blacksmith shop Tom sets up, and Tom expresses interest in a woman named Irene at Holt’s plantation.

Tom begins visiting Irene each Sunday while out looking for scrap iron. Tom’s only frustration with Irene is that she speaks highly of her enslavers, while Tom does not truly like or trust any white people. Eventually, Tom mentions that they could not be married and live on different plantations, and Irene casually asserts that she can be sold at any time. Tom plans to make Irene an iron rose to show his love.

Irene gets the Holts to sell her to Murray by claiming that their white family members are trying to court her. After Irene moves to Murray’s and marries Tom, he becomes more sociable, drawing an even larger crowd for blacksmith repairs. Irene works in the fields, but quickly moves to sewing, weaving, and carving, even as she becomes pregnant with her first child. L’il Kizzy begins dating Amos, who works at a hotel by a railroad station. At Matilda and Irene’s urging, L’il Kizzy invites Amos to spend time with the family, and everyone is impressed with his stories about the successes of the hotel, the railroad, and the telegraph.

George returns to Lea’s plantation in 1860 after five years in England. Malizy is dazed and reports that Kizzy and Sarah are dead, while George’s wife and children were sold. George finds Lea in the house looking unwell. They drink, and Lea seems to think they are going to continue fighting chickens. As Lea reminisces, George contains his anger, drinking less than Lea each time they refill their glasses. Once Lea is drunk, George searches for the strongbox with his freedom paper in it. Finding the box, he splits it with an ax, takes the money and papers inside, and leaves.

George arrives at Murray’s plantation, and his family is excited to see him. Matilda chastises him for being gone so long, and they wonder what George will do as a free Black man in North Carolina. George hangs around the field, the blacksmith shop, and the family cabins, but he makes visitors and white people uncomfortable. When Tom and George run into the former sheriff J. Cates in town, Cates reports to Murray that any free Black person must leave North Carolina in 60 days or become re-enslaved. George tells Matilda that he will need to stay and become enslaved on Murray’s plantation, but Matilda insists that George leave, as it is most important to have a free person in their family.

By the end of 1860, Tom has a daughter, Maria, and begins hearing developments of discontent in the South as President Lincoln is elected. Shortly after, they receive word that states are beginning to secede from the Union. The Confederacy forms, and Jefferson Davis is elected as its president. Politicians and military officers are quitting the Union, as well, to join the Confederacy, and the sentiment among enslaved and free Black people alike is that the war is being fought over them. Tom and his family hope the war results in their freedom.

Tom and Irene have a second daughter, Ellen, when Cates, now a major in the Confederate army, recruits Tom to shoe horses. Tom works one week at the training camp, then one week at home, reporting that the Confederates seem to be winning. The second week, Tom finds a young white man scavenging in the garbage, but when soldiers hear a noise, the young man runs, leaving Tom to be whipped on suspicion of stealing. Tom goes home and tells Murray, who tells Tom to stay home, saying he will send Cates away. The young white man shows up at Murray’s plantation looking for food, and Tom reports that he is the one who got him whipped. Matilda reports the man to Murray, but Murray hires the youth, George Johnson, to be the new overseer. George is only 16 and does not know how to be an overseer. He works in the field with everyone else, and the family concludes that he is the first white person they’ve met who seems honest.

One day, George Johnson says he needs to handle some business and returns with his pregnant wife, Martha. The Murrays allow Martha to stay, as well, and Matilda and Irene take care of Martha. Martha, like George, is thin and malnourished. When Martha gives birth, her child is stillborn.

In 1863, Tom reports that Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, ending slavery. However, it takes another two years before news about the Confederacy’s loss reaches the plantation. Murray tells the family that they are free, but offers for them to sharecrop on his land, keeping half of what they grow. Tom urges the family to accept, but when Chicken George arrives, the family decides to move to Tennessee, where George heard about opportunities for building a town. Soon, other Black families in the area join in, and the group brings George and Martha Johnson, as well. Twenty-nine wagons head to Tennessee with Chicken George at the lead.

The family arrives in Henning, in western Tennessee, where they each get 30 acres of land to farm. There are white people in the town already, and they tell Tom that he cannot set up a blacksmith shop, as he needs to work under a white man. Tom builds a portable shop on a wagon to circumvent the law and quickly becomes invaluable to the town. By 1874, each family that came with Chicken George has a home, and their business has improved the town and the community. Matilda enlists everyone’s help in building the New Hope Colored Methodist Episcopal Church. The church draws families from as far as 20 miles away, and the first service is a success.

Carrie White, a Black woman who graduated from Lane College, starts a school out of the church. After graduating, Tom’s daughter Elizabeth becomes his bookkeeper for his now-stationary blacksmith shop. Elizabeth begins dating John Toland, but Tom disapproves. Tom says John is too light to marry a Black woman, but too dark to marry a white woman. Elizabeth is crushed, and when Irene tells Matilda what Tom said, Matilda dies. After Matilda’s death, George loses his pleasant, boisterous demeanor and dies in 1890 after falling in a fireplace. All the Black families gather for his funeral, including his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Tom’s daughter Cynthia expresses an interest in Will Palmer, a Black man who runs the local lumber company under a white man. Tom pretends to disapprove but secretly likes Will and his strong work ethic. They quickly get married, and Will builds a home. Will takes care of the lumber company’s finances, earning a good reputation with the bankers. In 1863, the white man Will works for declares bankruptcy, and the bankers decides to cosign a note for Will to take over the lumber company. In 1864, Will and Cynthia have their first child, a son who dies a few days after his birth.

In 1895, Cynthia and Will have a daughter, Bertha George, whom Will spoils with endless credit as his wealth and reputation in town continue to increase. In 1909, Bertha goes to the Lane Institute, making her the first in their family to go to college. Bertha meets Simon Alexander Haley, and the two begin dating, despite his light skin. Simon fights in World War I, returning home in 1919 and promptly getting engaged to Bertha. They marry in 1920, after which they move to Ithaca, New York, where Simon studies for a master’s degree in agriculture and Bertha studies at the Ithaca Conservatory of Music. In 1921, Bertha and Simon return home with a baby, Alex Haley, the author of this novel.

As Haley grew up in Henning, he spent a lot of time on the porch listening to his grandmother Cynthia talking with her sisters about Kunta Kinte and the family’s history. When Will dies, Haley’s father, Simon, takes over the mill, then sells it for Cynthia. The Haley family moves to Normal, Alabama, where Simon teaches agricultural science. In 1931, Bertha dies. Haley and his brothers, George and Julius, spend summers in Henning. In the military, Haley starts writing, then becomes a military journalist. After World War II, Haley starts getting stories published and writes The Autobiography of Malcolm X. After encountering the Rosetta Stone, a tablet with three ancient languages written on it, Haley decides to track down the language Kunta Kinte spoke.

Haley starts in Kansas, the home of the last remaining old woman from his porch-listening days, Cousin Georgia. As Haley’s brother George is elected to the Kansas senate, Haley asks Georgia about Kunta Kinte, and she excitedly tells him the story over again.

Haley describes his search for information on his family history. He meets with professors in the United States who inform him that the language Kunta spoke was likely Mandinka, leading Haley to the Mandingo people in The Gambia. In Juffure, Haley hears a griot who repeats the history of the Kinte clan, including Kunta’s disappearance. In England, The Gambia, and the United States, Haley finds corresponding records that name the ship, the Ligonier, that took Kunta to Annapolis, Maryland, as well as records of John and William Waller owning an enslaved man named Toby. Using this documentation, Haley pieces together the history of his family that forms Roots, filling in the narrative with dialogue and discussions that align with Haley’s perception of his family. After his father’s death, Haley reflects on the events that led to the seventh generation of Kunta Kinte’s American family.