It is the year of 1750 and a little boy is born to a family that lives in the small village Juffure at the African west coast.  The father Omoro Kinte gives him the name Kunta and takes care of him.  He wants to raise him strict but righteous.  Therefore, Kunta lives an unburdened life which is characterized by the old traditions of his ancestors.  He helps with the harvest and herds the sheep.   He joins his father at a big journey and grows up to a young man. Juffurre is the name of Kunta Kinte's village.

The Kinte family is Muslim.  Eight days pass before the father names the child in this Mandinka Tribe.  The Kintango is the man who instructs the boys on how to become men.  He is the teacher, the leader during this initiation process.  When he is 15 years old, Kunta must wrestle to become a man.   Also, he must  be circumcised.  The foreskin on his foto (penis) must be cut.  Wrestler calls him a warthog because he charges without thinking.  Another task he must fulfill is to catch a bird and return with it.  While doing this, he meets Fanta from a neighbouring tribe. Kadi Touray is the father of Fanta.  As the slavers try to catch blacks, the comment is made that whites smell like wet chickens.  

Below decks, First Mate, Slater, is given permission to be in control of all that takes place below decks.   He  tells Captain Davies that  women take up less space on the ship than the men. Captain Davies opts for the "loose pack" rather than the "tight pack" way of carrying slaves in the hold of the ship.

Kadi Touray is the father of Fanta.  Juffurre is the name of Kunta Kinte's village.

At the age of 15 years (15 rains),  Kunta is caught while looking for a log to make a drum.  He is carried off to the coast by four slave hunters.  After several days of torture and hunger, Kunta awakes on a big ship. He is cooped up in the cargo hold of the lower deck. Kunta who is put in chains starts an involuntary journey.  White slave traders carry him away from his African homeland in order to sell him and the members of his tribe in the southern states of the United States of America.   On board the ship "Lord Ligonier" he shows hatred for his white oppressors but at the same time his belief in Islam gives him the will and power to fight for his freedom and develop the inner strength to survive this terrible ordeal.

While on board, the slaves get sick.   They soil themselves, vomit, and   sweat a great deal in the heat of the windowless hold.  The stench is unbearable.  Some slaves did not want to eat, and choose  to starve themselves to death.  As a result, they were beaten and forced to eat.  Others threw themselves overboard.  Many women were raped.  Kunta had a dream that a large white bird swallowed him and Wrestler told him that it was symbolic of what whites were doing to Africans.

After a painful and very long crossing, the slave ship arrives in America. The  Africans are put in cages like cattle.    One way whites fought against the stench was to pour vinegar on a cloth and hold it over their nose.  They are brought to the slave market where African women are referred to as wenches, while African men are referred to as bucks.  Kunta Kinte must experience how his proud tribe is humiliated and bartered away to white farmers. He is branded and sold to land owner, Mr. Reynolds, who lives in Virginia. At the slave market we are told that a black wench 4 months pregnant sells for 20 pounds (£), and learn that tobacco costs 6 £ a hundred weight. Kunta has to have a carbuncle lanced on his back before he can be sold.  The market people talk and one says that blacks “fresh from the trees” work about as hard as a wench 8 months pregnant.   This is where Fiddler appears in the movie.  He helps to bring Kunta into the culture of slave life on the plantation at the Reynolds'  in Spotsylvania, Virginia.  It is Fiddler’s job to “break” (train) Kunta who has been given the English name, Toby .   He does not give up his African name because it is all that is left of his from Africa, and it reminds him of his origin and identity as a person. 

The Ship that carried Kunta to Annapolis, Virginia carried tobacco, hardware, spices, and slaves.  Kunta had a  sack put over his head when he was kidnapped while looking for a log to make a drum.  Before the kidnapping, he was going through  an initiation to prove himself a man. 

The white sailors considered owning blacks the “natural order of things.”  Mr. Slater, the first mate, said that the whites were saving the blacks with Christianity and saving them from cannibals.  He said they had no proper language, just grunts and groans.   One hundred and seventy slaves were on the ship with Kunta.  The ship's captain is Davies and Mr. Gardner is the man who catches the blacks on the coast for the captain to place aboard the Lord Ligonier. 

On the Reynolds' plantation there is an overseer named Mr. Ames.  He was an indentured servant, that is, has a contract that states that he must work for a certain number of years in order to pay off a debt. He is responsible for "breaking in" the slaves.  In the big house, (plantation owner’s house), the whites talk about how a thinking slave will become unhappy.  For this and to prevent them from organizing a revolt, slaves are forbidden to read or write. 

Master Reynolds patronizes Kunta by patting him on the head and telling him to be a “good nigger.”  Fiddler says, when referring to how hard the slaves work: “White folks live by it, and niggers die by it.”

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