Roots: The Saga of an American Family Chapters 76-80 Summary

Kunta has been noticing ten-year-old Noah lately—the kid is so serious he reminds him of himself.
But what really makes him curious is that Noah and Kizzy never seem to acknowledge each other, despite being the only kids around.
Kunta and Kizzy are still spending a ton of time together. He's even started letting her drop pebbles into the gourd to mark his age.

Massa Waller's out of town on a business trip, so his brother Massa John is watching over the plantation. Massa John is Kunta's first owner and he's a real piece of work.
That would be bad enough, but a few days in, Massa John learns of an attempted slave revolt in Richmond. He becomes so paranoid that he makes Kizzy sample his food before eating it.
And that too would be bad enough, but we've got another doozy—the fiddler was out playing at an event when all of this went down, and hasn't been back since. That's scary.
In fact, Massa Waller comes back before the fiddler does. He sends Kunta off to bring the fiddler's description to the local sheriff, who hasn't heard anything.
In an amazing stroke of luck, however, Kunta comes across the fiddler on his way home. That's amazing.
We hear his story. He had been taking a break from the show when news of the uprising broke, and ended up hiding until the coast was clear.
After it was, he snuck through the woods and played his fiddle to get in the good graces of a gaggle of "'po' crackers'" before making it back to the road (77.26). That's a book by itself.

The leaders of the "Richmond uprising" are either captured or killed over the following months, easing some of the intense restrictions that rose up in its wake (78.1).
The trend of slaves being sold to brutal cotton plantations in the Deep South is only intensifying, however, which makes even Belle a little nervous.
One day, Kunta and the Massa are passing by a slave auction. The sight's so horrifying that Kunta can't shake it the entire way back.
He returns to even worse news—a slave trader had dropped by while they were gone and left his card for Massa Waller.

Along with this increase in slave trading, prices are rising "twice to three times" what they were a few years back (79.2).
Massa Waller thinks that people who sell their slaves are fools, but is slightly concerned about the growing number of free blacks in the South, many of whom save up to free their families too.
Later that night, Kunta learns that the fiddler has been saving up money to buy his freedom. The fiddler claims that he still has a ways to go, however.
A month later, the fiddler returns with news that Napoleon has overthrown Toussaint and retaken Haiti.
He has even bigger scoop, however, which he reveals to Kunta secretly: he's saved up enough for his freedom. He and Massa Waller had already agreed on the price.
Kunta expects the fiddler to be gone the next morning, but Belle says that she saw him talking to the Massa and walking away looking "'like he seen a ghost'" (79.51).
Kunta finds the fiddler sitting under an oak tree, looking like a broken man. Massa Waller had doubled their agreed-upon price at the last minute.
The fiddler is so depressed that he throws his fiddle into a stream, breaking it.

A month later, Kunta falls so ill that he's "unable to rise from his bed" (80.23). The fiddler is so concerned for his friend that he's lifted from his depression.
A lot of people are getting sick all over the place, and Kunta's only getting worse. He falls into a coma for three days.
On the third day, Missy Anne comes by and starts reading prayers. After a few days of this, he slowly starts getting better.