The African Roots of Colonial America

Abstract Just before dawn on a spring morning in 1806, thirteen-year-old Anta Majigeen Njaay was asleep when men on horseback, their long, braided hair flying out behind them, charged into her prosperous West African village in Senegambia, just south of the Sahara Desert. Anta awoke to the terrifying sounds of battle, and by the end of the morning, these frightening men had killed her father, several of her uncles, and many of the village’s other men. The invaders were warrior slaves, the special armed force of Amari Ngoone Ndella Kumba, king of Kajor, a coastal kingdom that had risen to power in Senegambia during the eighteenth century, carved out of the old Wolof empire of Jolof. Their job protecting Kajor and its ruler extended to raiding enemy villages and delivering valuable goods to the king. They also took prisoners to be traded to European slave dealers in return for fine fabrics, wines, and weapons. Occasionally, when too few enemies were available for slaves, they raided villages like Anta’s, villages supposedly under the king’s protection. By noon on the day of the raid, the soldiers had packed up looted goods and rounded up captives, including Anta, her mother, many of her other relatives, and the family servants. Slave traders cared little whether the captives were slaves, free artisans, or nobility like Anta, who was descended from the founder of the Jolof Empire and whose large Njaay family had provided generations of rulers.