How to get nginx to redirect to another path only if the root path is requested?

Here is part of my server configuration:

server {
listen 80; ## listen for ipv4; this line is default and implied
#listen [::]:80 default_server ipv6only=on; ## listen for ipv6

# Make site accessible from http://localhost/
server_name wiki wiki.leerdomain.lan;

# Note: There should never be more than one root in a
# virutal host
# Also there should never be a root in the location.
#root /var/www/nginx/;

rewrite ^/$ /rootWiki/ redirect;


location ^~ /rootWiki/ {
resolver 127.0.0.1 valid=300s;
access_log ./logs/RootWiki_access.log;
error_log ./logs/RootWiki_error.log;
proxy_buffers 16 4k;
proxy_buffer_size 2k;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real_IP $remote_addr;
rewrite /rootWiki/(.*) /$1 break;
proxy_pass http://192.168.1.200:8080;
}

location ^~ /usmle/ {
access_log ./logs/usmle_access.log;

...

When I configure it as above I am unable to access any of the sub-locations under root...but the root directory does forward to /rootWiki/ but I receive a 502 Bad Gateway instead of the application on port 8080.

When I remove the line:

rewrite ^/$ /rootWiki/ redirect;

I'm able to access the rootWiki application, and all the sub locations from root just fine.

It seems to me like it should work but it does not appear to.