I mentioned that I read Alex Haley's magnum opus work "Roots" back in 2018.
The Hollywood crowd had recently done a remake that year of the 'made for tv' miniseries which aired back in 1977 that was hella popular back then and won a slew of tv industry awards.
A popular bit of history and entertainment if not quite accurate in all aspects. After the book was published in 1976, claims of plagiarism and lawsuits by other authors and claims by genealogists of bad research would follow Mr. Haley to his grave.
First a little about the man, Alex Haley.
Alexander Haley was born in Ithaca, New York in 1921.
His family lived in Henning Tennessee, where his mother was from, for a time before returning to Ithaca NY. Haley's father was Simon Haley, a professor at Alabama A & M University and Simon's mother, Bertha George Palmer Haley was a well read woman who encouraged her children to learn.
Alex Haley and I share a cousin connection through his maternal side. It is a horrible way to be connected as a cousin(and nothing I am proud of)but you have to understand American history(particularly in the South in this case)and the flawed people who inhabited this part of the country and the times, and whom we come from.
At age 15 Alex was enrolled in Alcorn State in MS and the next year went on to matriculate at Elizabeth City State College in NC. Then he told his parents he was dropping out of college so his father convinced Alex to join the military once he turned 18. So in 1939 Alex joined the US Coast Guard and had a successful 20 year career there.
He served during WWII in the Pacific theater and eventually attained the rank of Chief Petty Officer 1st Class by his retirement in 1959. During the war he found a love for writing and once the war was over he requested and gained a transfer to the field of journalism within the Coast Guard. Before Alex Haley came along the U.S. Coast Guard did not have the rank of Chief Petty Officer. Because of his writing skills and accolades the rank was created for him.
Once out of military life Alex worked his way up to become a Senior Editor at Reader's Digest. He also wrote for Playboy. He ghostwrote the book, "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" with Malcolm X, which was published in 1965.
In 1973 Alex Haley wrote the screenplay for one of the "blaxploitation" films popular in that era called, "Super Fly T.N.T.", a sequel to the highly successful 1972 film, "Super Fly".
In 1976 Haley published a novel "Roots:An American Family". It was called a novel based on one of Alex Haley's maternal lines, that family going back to his first ancestor to step foot on America, a man called Kunte Kinte kidnapped from The Gambia in Africa in 1767 and brought to the New World to the Maryland colony.
"Roots" the miniseries was so popular that a sequel called, "Roots:The Next Generations" was aired on ABC, that continued to follow another of his maternal family's line, that Haley family's journey from the 1880's to the 1960's and Alex Haley's recounting of his journey back to Kunte Kinte's village in Africa after the Malcolm X autobiography was published.
"Roots", both the novel and the tv series were also responsible for a surge of interest in Americana for regular people to take to researching their genealogy. It wasn't until the internet came along in the 1990's though that amateur genealogy really took off.
I remember watching "Roots" on tv when it came out in 1977 on my family's small color tv in our den. It fascinated me(I've since watched it as an adult and oh boy, the production values were so bad!lol)just like 130 million other American viewers.
Little did I know, that as a just turned 18 year old high school Senior, that I was watching a show about people related to me(albeit distantly)and that Alex Haley was my 9th cousin 1x removed.
As everyone who has read the book or seen the show knows Kunte Kinte was kidnapped near his village in Africa and brought to Maryland aboard the British slave ship the Lord Ligonier and was sold to John Waller, a wealthy planter from Spotsylvania County, Virginia(outside of Fredericksburg VA). In the tv series they changed the name of the slaveholding family to Reynolds from Waller. Maybe because the then living in 1970's Wallers in Spotsylvania Virginia had enough clout to make them change the family name in the show(one was a District Court Judge by the way)? I don't know but this
newspaper article appeared around the time the tv show aired in the Washington Post with an interview with then Judge Absalom Waller. (Judge Waller is my 7th cousin 3x removed as well.)
My first hint I had Waller ancestors was finding the first wife of my 11th Great Grandfather, Sir William Waad(Wade). Her name was Anne Waller and she lived her life in London and died in childbirth at the age of 19. Her father was a "citizen and stockfishmonger" in London named Owen Waller.
But come to find out after a few years of research that this line of Wallers probably has nothing to do with the Wallers that came to Virginia Colony.
Then I found another direct ancestor Waller on my Weatherford line. Susannah Waller, my 7th Great Grandmother, born 1680 in New Kent, Virginia married William Weatherford around 1700 and died about 1758 in Lunenberg County, Virginia..
Susannah's father was John Thomas Waller and had a brother Dr Robert John Waller, Robert had a son, Colonel John Waller who is the Waller 1st Immigrant to Virginia. Col. John is my Susannah's 1st cousin(and I am 9 x removed). John Waller, being the fifth child and not the first son inherited nothing from his father as primo geniture was the rule of the land at that time so he took his chances on this New World and arrived in Virginia some time before 1696. We know this because in May of that year he purchased 1039 acres of land in King and Queen County along the Mattaponi River along the Pamunkey Neck in VA. This land became his first plantation he named "Endfield".
Eventually he moved his growing family northward to Spotsylvania County Virginia(about a 60 mile journey)to land he purchased around 1724 and named "Newport Plantation" after the town in England where he was born.
Col. John Waller had 5 sons and 1 daughter with his wife, Dorothy King Waller: Mary, John, Thomas, William, Benjamin and Edmund.
Their first son, John Waller III is the person who originally bought Alex Haley's ancestor Kunte Kinte from that slave market in Annapolis Maryland. He is my 2nd cousin 8 x removed.
John Waller III's brother, Dr.William Waller is the second owner of Kunte Kinte. Kunte kept trying to run away from John Waller's plantation so he had his overseer chop off part of Kunte's right foot to keep him from trying to escape.
Being brothers this makers Dr. Waller my 2nd cousin 8 x removed as well.
Photo of William Waller's headstone in the Waller cemetery in Partlow, Spotsylvania County, Virginia where the old Newport Plantation was located. He was a Revolutionary Army Colonel as well as a Doctor.
Dr. William, so the oral tradition goes, was so incensed at his brother treating a slave thusly, that he bought Kunte and the slave Kunte Kinte lived out his days under Dr. William Waller's control as a gardener for the family.
I'll continue this story in Part 2 of this post on Me & Alex Haley.
Sluggy
