As a six-year-old boy named Quetto, Michele Amatorewitnessed his village of Commi in the Nuba Mountains of southern Sudandecimated by Egyptian soldiers and their leaders who profited from the slavetrade. The oldest of four children, hisfather was a village chief named Bolingia; his mother was named Siliando.
The survivors of the savage raid experienced a nightmarish journey to the slavemarket in Khartoum, then on to Cairo where the boy was very fortunate to landin the home of an Italian, Luigi Castagnone—primary physician to the Khedive ofEgypt and Sudan—who treated him well and gave him the rudiments of an education. At age nine, the boy traveled with Castagnone’sfriend Maurizio Bussa, also a physician, to live in his new residence in Piedmont,northern Italy. In 1838 the youngster converted to Catholicism and was baptized bythe Bishop of Asti. He shed hisMuslim name (Sulayman al-Nubi) andadopted the Christian name Michele Amatore.
As a young man, Amatore returned to Africa and participated in the commercethat flowed from Cairo to Khartoum. Whilethere he also hoped to exact revenge on the enslavers of his people and hesearched for family members scattered by the slave trade, a task that ultimatelyproved fruitless.
Back in Italy in 1848, as a patriotic citizen he enlisted in the military as asharpshooter (a.k.a. bersagliere, riflemendistinguished by their wide black-feathered hats) to fight in the First ItalianWar of Independence (1848-1849) that pitted the Kingdom of Sardinia(Piedmont-Sardinia) against the Austrian Empire. Between battles Amatore taught himselfmathematics and French, and improved his penmanship. For his courageous performance in the Battleof Solferino and San Martino during the Second Italian War of Independence(1859), he was bestowed the French Order of Merit. Despite being a rare immigrant of color andlacking the advantage of military school training, by the Third Italian War of Independence(1866) he had risen to the rank of captain. Amatore was made a Knight of the Crown ofItaly and
