One morning she heard that a slave ship had docked and went to look over its cargo. She spotted two men whom she found interesting. One looked to be strong and friendly, and seemed to her to be trainable. The other was tall and lean, and looked down disinterestingly on the colonist staring at him. She didn't think he would be a good farm hand, but she didn't want to leave him. Since no one seemed too interested in him she was able to get both of them with the amount of money she had been able to save.

The first man did most of the work as she had predicted. The other one laid around reclining most of the time. She later learned the he was the eldest son of a Dogon king and was not familiar with manual labor. He called himself Banneka and was destined to succeed his father until he was captured by slave traders. From what I understand, his given name was Banne and that his family name was Ka. Big Mama referred to him as "The Prince."