Roots: The Saga of an American Family

by Alex Haley

James Derham nigger doctor in New Orleans. White doctor what teached ’im claim he know more’n he do, an’ he black as dey gits, too.”

Prince Hall what started dat nigger Masonic Order! I seen pictures some dem big preachers what started dem nigger churches, most of ’em so black you couldn’t hardly see ’em less’n dey eyes was open.

Phyllis Wheatley what writes dem pomes white folks say so fine,

Gustavus Vassa what writes books?” The fiddler glanced in Kunta’s direction. “Dey’s both straight-from-Africa niggers, not nary drop o’ white folks’ blood, a...

The French leader named Napoleon had sent across the big water a huge army which, after much fighting and bloodshed, had taken Haiti back from the blacks and their liberator, General Toussaint.

people were still talking about the last bits of news that had gotten through to them: how pleased the white massas were with the way President Jefferson was “runnin’ the gubmint,” despite the massas’ initial reservations toward his views regarding slaves. Since taking office, President Jefferson had reduced the size of the Army and Navy, lowered the public debt, even abolished the personal property tax—that last act, the fiddler said, particularly having impressed those of the massa class with his greatness.

white folks had seemed to him even more excited about President Jefferson’s purchase of the huge “Louisiana Territory”

Massa Napoleon had to sell it so cheap ’cause he in sich hot water in France over what it cost ’im in money, long wid fifty thousan’ Frenchmans got killed or died fo’ dey beat dat Toussaint in Haiti.”

In a damp dungeon on a remote French mountain where Napoleon had sent him, Haiti’s General Toussaint had died of cold and starvation.

A lot of this can be traced to nigger-loving white people like the Quakers and Methodists.

incredulously.

Later, when she had no more tears left to shed, she lay imploring God to destroy her, if He felt she deserved all this, just because she loved Noah.

“Honey, you jes’ well’s realize you’s a nigger woman. De kind of white man massa is, you either gives in, or he gwine make you wish you had, one way or ’nother.

Nigger names don’t make no difference nohow, jes’ sump’n to call’ em—”

“Fact, I wouldn’t o’ been surprised if massa stuck you in wid one dem stud niggers some rich massas keeps on dey places an’ hires out. But it look like to me he figgerin’ on breedin’ you hisself.”

But he did start coming to Kizzy’s cabin less often as her belly began to grow. Slaving out under the hot sun, Kizzy went through dizzy spells as well as morning sickness in the course of her painful initiation to fieldwork.

“She know he ain’t no good! I wisht I had a penny for every white woman knows dey husbands got chilluns by niggers. Main thing, I speck missis be jealous ’cause seem like she ain’t able to have none.”

“Call him George—that’s after the hardest-working nigger I ever saw.”

“George. Yeah. To-morrow I’ll write it in my Bible. Yeah, that’s a good name—George!” And he went on out.

But the worst thing they did, Kunta had said, was to keep them ignorant of who they are, to keep them from being fully human.

she kept her sworn pact with herself never to write again.

1812,

new war done started up wid dat England!

He say de gubmint would o’ took care dem Injuns long fo’ now if wasn’t for some interferin’ big white mans, ’specially two name of Massa Davy Crockett an’ Massa Daniel Webster.”

1818, George reported “sump’n dem guests was callin’ de ’Merican Colonize Society’ tryin’ to send shiploads o’ free niggers off to a ‘Liberia’ somewheres in dat Africa.

“I sho’ wouldn’t go to no Africa wid all dem niggers up in trees wid monkeys—”

“He’s just like you, Mingo,” said Massa Lea with a laugh. “Done all his fightin’ an’ breedin’ in his young days.

Fit for nothin’ but to eat and

crow ...

Grinning, Uncle Mingo said, “I ain’t hardly even crowin’ ...

With wonder, George beheld these majestically wild, vicious, and beautiful birds. They embodied everything that Uncle Mingo ever had told him about their ancient bloodlines of courage, about how both their physical design and their instincts made them ready to fight any other gamecock to the death anytime, anywhere.

“Work a thousan’ years for a white man you still any nigger!”

heard the dull plink of a coin on the tabletop, the sound of footfalls, the slam of the cabin door.

“But niggers ain’t gwine never do nothin’ together.”

“But dis here shootin’ an’ killin’ you talk ’bout gwine ease up like it always do, soon’s dey’s kilt an’ scairt niggers enough, an’ soon’s dey makes whole passel o’ new laws, an’ soon’s dey gits sick of payin’ whole bunch o’ peckerwood paterollers.”

1823

“I hear tell whole lots of white men go and find nigger women for their pleasure.

where he had heard that white men paid from fifty cents to a dollar to couple with women in their choice of colors from sooty black to high yaller.

Man git to thinkin’ ’bout jumpin’ de broom wid a good woman—”

His mammy Kizzy’s shout from just outside the window left no doubt that her rage was undiminished.

Another time he had heard that “de white folks threatenin’ de Indians ’bout takin’ in so many niggers on dey reservations. Plenty dem Creeks and Seminoles done married niggers. It’s even some nigger Indian chiefs! But I hears dem Chocktaws, Chickasaws, an’ Cherokees hates niggers even worse’n white folks does.”

Dey say de ol’style nigger traders on a hoss is gone, done become big companies wid offices in big hotels!

“Anybody ever sol’ ain’t gwine never forgit it! An’ won’t never be de same no mo’!”

“Place Congo”

to watch hundreds of slaves perform the dances of the African places and peoples they had come from.

“creoles,” “octoroons,” and “quadroons.”

A man had a right now and then to enjoy the company of the kind of women who wanted only to enjoy laughter, liquor, wit, and the body’s urgencies.

Osceola, chief of the Seminole Indians in the state called Florida.

de Army commence drivin’ jes’ thousan’s dem Indians toward somewheres called Oklahoma.

Frederick Douglass,”