From 'Roots' to reality: What a trip to former slave fort in The Gambia reveals about history

I am a very forgetful person. Though I have read hundreds of books during my childhood, I hardly remember their names, let alone the characters in them. But I can never forget Kunta Kinte. He is the protagonist of Alex Haley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning historical fiction, Roots: The Saga of an American Family. The book exposed me to the stark realities of slave trade, and I wept for days, thinking of the misfortune that befell Kunta Kinte.

Kunta, a young man captured from The Gambia, was sold at the American slave market. His captors wanted to erase his past, name and culture. They whipped him mercilessly, forcing him to adopt the name ‘Toby’. But he refused to surrender his identity. The novel had a profound impact on me. By delivering a deeply emotional narrative told strictly from the perspective of slavery’s victims, it challenged a world that had long viewed the era through the eyes of the masters. I was shattered to learn that humanity could hunt, torture and commodify its own kind without conscience.

A few months ago, while planning a trip to west Africa to understand the transatlantic slave trade, I was shocked to discover an island named Kunta Kinteh in The Gambia. I trembled with excitement, knowing I had to visit the island no matter how difficult it was to reach.

I flew from Dakar, the capital of Senegal, to Banjul, the capital of The Gambia. The Gambia is not your usual tourist destination. It is one of the poorest nations in the world, but it is often referred to as the ‘Smiling Coast of Africa’ because its people are very friendly. I was lucky to have met Alieu through a couchsurfing platform. I stayed with Alieu’s large family in a village, and Alieu offered to accompany me to the island.

We took a shared taxi from his village to the Banjul ferry. From there, we went on a weathered double-decker ferry to Barra. We then hired a taxi to take us to the village of Albreda. As we rode, Alieu leaned over and remarked, “It was along this very route that they used to march the slaves in heavy chains.” Those words made even the gentle breeze through the taxi windows feel suffocating.

On reaching Albreda, we hired a local girl named Sissy as our guide. Sissy took us towards the boat that would take us to the island. A wave of fear washed over me as soon as I saw it. The vessel was dilapidated, looking as though it could fall apart any moment. The life jacket I was given was equally worn. Yet, my desire to set foot on Kunta Kinte’s soil pushed me to suppress that fear. I sighed in relief when we finally reached the island. We were greeted by the remnants of Fort James, the 17th-century nerve centre of British colonial rule on the island. Today, owing to severe, relentless coastal erosion, the physical island has tragically shrunk to just one-sixth of its original size from when the fort was operational.

Sissy led us through the quarters where colonial officers once resided. The contrast was apparent: while the officers enjoyed luxury on the upper levels, captives below them languished in suffocating dungeons. The resilient among the captives were locked in dungeons without light for two weeks to break their spirit. We saw cells where underweight slaves were kept. They were fed beans and palm oil until they gained the requisite weight. We reached a grassy clearing on the island. “It was here that countless families were torn apart forever... where mothers, fathers and children were separated and sold to different traders,” said Sissy.

As I walked among the crumbling stone walls, I realised that for the British, this island was a lucrative trade hub; for souls like Kunta Kinte, it represented the place of their final, agonising breath on their native soil.

On returning to the mainland, we visited the local museum. The building itself was unimpressive. The first sight that greeted me inside was shocking: historical slave advertisements. These were actual notices printed in old newspapers and flyers auctioning human beings. One read: “Gambia Negroes to be sold—A cargo of 152 prime healthy young Negroes just arrived in a ship from the river Gambia, after a passage of 35 days.” I welled up.

There were pictures showing how many human beings could be crammed into a slave ship. Captains routinely packed people beyond the ship’s capacity, knowing that nearly half would perish during the voyage because of starvation and disease. To protect their profits, they tightly stacked individuals on the decks, stripping them of basic dignity. The diagrams illustrated the plight of those helpless souls, suffocating in the very spaces where they were forced to relieve themselves. Images depicting the methods used to punish slaves were also on display. As I gazed at the illustrations of floggings and heated iron brands, I could almost hear the anguished cries of Kunta Kinte from the pages of Roots.

Amid such sorrow, the only comfort in the museum came from photographs of Alex Haley. Displayed on the walls were images of his visit to the neighbouring village of Juffure in the 1970s as he sought to trace his roots. Observing the pictures of Haley meeting his relatives, I felt a sense of grand destiny being fulfilled. That reunion seemed like a form of atonement for all the suffering his ancestors had endured.

Kunta Kinte remains significant as he embodies the pain of the displaced and the marginalised. The Gambian government’s International Roots Homecoming Festival is a spiritual pilgrimage for thousands in the African diaspora seeking their lost roots.

Kunta Kinte stands as a universal symbol of pride for anyone whose identity is threatened by modern oppression or social stratification. Today, his courage serves as a vital beacon of resistance for future generations—a timeless reminder that our roots and our true names can never be erased, no matter how hard the world tries to overwrite our stories.

Satheesh is an ayurveda practitioner with a passion for travel.