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.[4][5] One day 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.