Kunta Kinte ( – ; ) is a character in the 1976 novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family by American author Alex Haley. Kunta Kinte was based on one of Haley's ancestors, a Gambian man who was born around 1750, enslaved, and taken to America where he died around 1822. Haley said that his account of Kunta's life in Roots is a mixture of fact and fiction. Kunta Kinte's life story figured in two US television series based on the book: the original 1977 TV miniseries Roots, and a 2016 remake of the same name. In the original miniseries, the character was portrayed as a teenager by LeVar Burton and as an adult by John Amos. In the 2016 miniseries, he is portrayed by Malachi Kirby. Burton reprised his role in the 1988 TV movie Roots: The Gift. Biography in Roots novel According to the book Roots, Kunta Kinte was born circa 1750 in the Mandinka village of Jufureh, in the Gambia. He was raised in a Muslim family. In 1767, while Kunta was searching for wood to make a drum for his younger brother, four men chased him, surrounded him, and took him captive. Kunta awoke to find himself blindfolded, gagged, bound, and a prisoner. He and others were put on the slave ship the Lord Ligonier for a four-month Middle Passage voyage to North America. Kunta survived the trip to Maryland and was sold to a John Waller (1741-1775), son of William Waller (1714-1760) and grandson of John Waller (1673-1754) (Reynolds in the 1977 miniseries), a Virginia plantation owner in Spotsylvania County, who renamed him Toby (named by John's wife Elizabeth in the 2016 remake). He rejected the name imposed upon him by his owners and refused to speak to others. After being recaptured during the last of his four escape attempts, the slave catchers gave him a choice: he would be castrated or have his right foot cut off. He chose to have his foot cut off, and the men cut off the front half of his right foot. As the years passed, Kunta, now owned by John's brother Dr. William Waller, resigned himself to his fate and became more open and sociable with his fellow slaves, while never forgetting his identity and origin. Kunta married an enslaved woman named Belle Waller and they had a daughter named Kizzy (Keisa, in Mandinka), which in Kunta's