a lineage document · maternal line · manley ray bell, 1927–2003
F.A.A.F.O the bloodline
i know who my people are.
i know what they were capable of.
this is the record.
scroll to find out
“somebody who doesn’t know who their own daddy is wants to tell me how to practice spirituality. my people were chiefs. medicine women. shamans. mystics. warriors. they were reading the land, the sky, and the future long before anyone told them what to call it. i know who my people are.”
it was never just a phrase.
it was a family tradition.
the doctrine of natural consequence. the operating philosophy of people who don’t ask for permission, don’t wait for validation, and understand that the universe has a way of answering those who move wrong. not a threat. a principle. practiced by chiefs, catalysts, psychics, madames, athletes, and warriors for a thousand years before it had a name.
every single ancestor in this document lived by this principle. they just used different words for it in cherokee, chickasaw, yoruba, and choctaw.
faafo moments in my family’s history:
- chief oconostota, 1762 — visited king george III in london. greeted the king with a traditional cherokee hug. the entire british court was shocked and shunned him. he did not apologize. he went home. my 7th great-grandfather.
- james logan colbert, 1782 — captured the wife and children of spain’s lieutenant governor of illinois to leverage prisoner exchanges. virtually closed the mississippi river to spanish shipping. my family’s line.
- george colbert, 1815 — andrew jackson’s army needed to cross the tennessee river. colbert operated the only ferry. jackson had just won the battle of new orleans. colbert charged him $75,000 anyway.
- the chickasaw nation, 1832 — when every other tribe was pushed off their land at gunpoint, the colbert-led chickasaw negotiated payment before removal. they arrived in oklahoma the most financially secure tribe on the trail of tears. my people did that.
- dora franklin, ca. 1920s–50s — a black woman in the jim crow south who owned property, ran boarding homes, and leveraged the needs of powerful white men — lawyers, judges — to protect her business and her freedom. my great-grandmother.
- courtney bell, present — packed up and moved to salvador, bahia, brazil. the yoruba capital of the western hemisphere. the exact city where my ancestors’ cousins were taken on a different slave ship. i landed on ancestral ground before i even understood why.
i am not one thing.
i am everything they survived.
the following lines flow through my grandfather, manley ray “bubba” bell (1927–2003), through beeler farris (1897–1983) and her side. documented. dna-confirmed. this is not mythology.
the first peoples
- Powhatan Confederacy — Virginia, 1545–
- Cherokee Nation — Overhill towns, Tennessee
- Chickasaw Nation — Mississippi / Alabama
- Shawnee — Ohio Valley
- Algonkian — Eastern seaboard
- Choctaw Nation — Alabama / Mississippi
the diaspora
- Yoruba — Cameroon / West Africa, ca. 1790
- Chickasaw Freedmen — Mississippi / Oklahoma
- Choctaw Freedmen — Indian Territory
- Louisiana Creole — St. Martin Parish
- French Acadian — Nova Scotia to Louisiana
- Scottish (Colbert) — via Chickasaw Nation
six hundred years.
one unbroken thread.
murmuring ripple — earliest ancestor
powhatan lineage. virginia coast. six hundred years before me. someone in my line was already on the land this country would later fight wars over.
chief wahunsenacawh powhatan is born
my 11th great-grandfather. the man the colonists had to deal with when they arrived in virginia.
pocahontas — matoaka
my 10th great-grandaunt. taken captive at 17. sailed to england. died in gravesend at 22 on her way home. not a love story. a political instrument who navigated an empire with more grace than it deserved.
chief moytoy born — 9th great-grandfather
cherokee nation, tennessee. his dynasty will produce chiefs for the next hundred years.
attakullakulla sails to london — my ancestor’s connection
one of seven cherokee delegates. 20 years old. meets king george II. while in court, asks: “since white men and red men were born of women — why are women not admitted to the council?” in 1730. in london. at the palace.
chief oconostota hugs king george III
my 7th great-grandfather in london. greets the british king with a traditional cherokee embrace. the court is horrified. he is shunned. he does not change his protocol for anyone. ever.
colbert closes the mississippi to spain
james colbert captures spain’s lieutenant governor’s family as leverage. virtually closes the mississippi river to spanish shipping. one man.
yoruba ancestors born — cameroon, africa
the african father and mother of ned gaines. the same year, their yoruba cousins are being shipped to salvador, bahia. one branch goes to mississippi. one goes to brazil. 230 years later, i move to bahia.
george colbert charges andrew jackson $75,000
jackson needs to cross the tennessee. colbert owns the ferry. jackson just won the battle of new orleans. colbert charges him $75,000 anyway. jackson paid.
treaty of pontotoc — chickasaw removal on chickasaw terms
every other nation was pushed off their land with nothing. the chickasaw, led by the colbert family, negotiated payment first. they arrived in oklahoma as the most financially secure tribe on the trail.
the trail of tears — my family walks
mobile colbert stevenson (1805–1898), my 2nd great-grandfather, enslaved, walks the trail. lena “laney” colbert walks it free. they survive. they build. they make it to oklahoma. i come from that survival.
dora franklin — the original power player
my great-grandmother. runs boarding homes. owns property. services powerful white men — lawyers, judges — using their appetites as leverage for her businesses in the jim crow south. a black woman. owning land. making them need her.
dora franklin, choc beer & independence
my great-grandmother divorces beeler farris — “he wasn’t a money man.” she and her brother run a choc beer operation. traditional chickasaw/choctaw fermented corn beer. illegal under prohibition. she brews it anyway. she also owns the properties.
manley “bubba” bell — the juke joint
my grandfather. 1927–2003. runs a juke joint — like the movie sinners. music, community, culture, survival. all of it in one room. the bridge between the ancestors and me.
the bell brothers go pro
carlos bell (basketball). melvin “buck” bell (basketball, university of houston, nba draft 1970). roy bell (university of oklahoma running back, edmonton eskimos cfl, two-time cfl all-star, 1975 grey cup champion). warrior blood. different field. same excellence. my uncles.
courtney bell — salvador, bahia, brazil
psychic. catalyst. expat. in my 50s. building faafo.app in the yoruba capital of the western hemisphere — where my yoruba ancestors’ cousins were taken, 230 years earlier, on a different ship. i didn’t plan it. the blood came home.
they called it removal.
my family called it negotiated survival.
in 1830, andrew jackson signed the indian removal act. every native nation east of the mississippi was to be pushed west. the cherokee lost 4,000 on the trail. the choctaw, the creek, the seminole — thousands dead from cold, disease, and starvation on forced marches.
my ancestors were on that trail. mobile colbert stevenson walked it enslaved. lena “laney” colbert walked it free — documented “free woman, not a slave” — daughter of major james holmes colbert. she walked with her name and her status intact while others walked without either. they would marry. they would build. they would survive.
the chickasaw nation was the only tribe to negotiate payment for their land before removal. levi colbert — my family’s uncle — told jackson’s negotiators what the chickasaw required before they would sign anything. the us government paid. the chickasaw arrived in oklahoma with a tribal fund, their livestock, their structure intact. historians call this “the most orderly removal of the five nations.” the colbert family made that possible. my family made that possible.
i spent time in oklahoma making things on ancestral land. not as a tourist. as a descendant. every inch of that ground was purchased with generations of survival.
“transplanting an old tree will cause it to wither and die away.”levi colbert, chickasaw chief — to andrew jackson’s agents, 1826
my ancestor. they removed the tree anyway. it didn’t die.
every woman in this line
played the game on her own terms.
Pocahontas — Matoaka Amonute “Rebecca”
my 10th great-grandaunt. born at werowocomoco village on the pamunkey river. daughter of the most powerful indigenous leader in virginia. taken captive at 17. baptized and renamed “rebecca.” sailed to england. presented to the court of king james I. died in gravesend at 22. never made it home.
she was not a love story. she was a political hostage who navigated an entire colonial empire with more skill than the empire deserved. she is my blood.
Lena “Laney” Colbert
my 2nd great-grandmother. born free in pontotoc, mississippi. daughter of major james holmes colbert — the chickasaw chief — and dinah gunn. the record says it plainly: “free woman, not a slave.” she married mobile colbert stevenson, a man who had been enslaved by her own extended family. walked the trail of tears not in chains but with a name that carried power in every chickasaw council. she outlived almost everything. made it to 1896.
Dora Franklin — the original operator
my great-grandmother. born in indian territory. by the time jim crow was in full effect, she had found the only leverage a black woman could actually hold: she made powerful white men — lawyers, judges — need her. she ran a brother. she serviced only white men, using their appetites as collateral for her businesses and her properties.
she owned land. in the south. black. female. during segregation. she extracted what she needed from the system designed to destroy her. she divorced beeler farris because he wasn’t a money man. married a stranger. brewed choc beer with her brother — traditional chickasaw/choctaw fermented corn, brewed on sovereign cultural knowledge, sold in a country that tried to erase that knowledge.
from pocahontas to dora franklin, every woman in my line found a way to make the empire need her more than she needed it. that is not learned behavior. that is genetic.
“since white men, as well as red, were born of women —attakullakulla, “the little carpenter” — to the british court, 1730
is it not the custom of the white people
to also admit their women into the council?”
my family’s connection. in london. asking the hard question. 295 years ago.
what happens when warrior blood
finds a different field.
physical excellence has been in my line for over a thousand years. the chickasaw were called “the most formidable nation of savages in north america” by the french because they never lost a major battle in 200 years. that same intensity eventually made its way to basketball courts and football fields. my uncles carried it there.
my grandfather manley bell ran a juke joint — the blues, the dancing, the community, the danger and the joy — like the movie sinners. the music and the ancestors and the aliveness all in one room. this is what the blood does when it has space to breathe.
i didn’t move to brazil.
i came back.
around 1790, two people identified as yoruba from cameroon, west africa, were enslaved and brought to the chickasaw nation in mississippi. they are documented in my family tree as “african father of ned gaines” and “african mother of ned gaines.”
that same year, other yoruba people — same ethnic group, taken in the same collapse of the oyo empire — were loaded onto portuguese slave ships and taken to salvador, bahia, brazil.
salvador, bahia is the yoruba capital of the western hemisphere.
candomblé — practiced on the streets of my neighborhood — is yoruba. the festivals, the orishas, the drumming, the spiritual architecture of this city — all yoruba. all from the same people my ancestors came from. the ooni (king) of ife travels to salvador to recognize it as the yoruba homeland in the diaspora. i live here. i moved here without knowing the full depth of why. the blood navigated. i followed.
i am a psychic descended from a line of chiefs,
medicine people, shamans, mystics, and warriors.
i know who my people are.
i know what they were capable of.
the questions i get — mostly from people in the us — are about whether i have the right to call myself what i am. whether my intuition is real. whether my authority is earned. this document is the answer to that question. i come from people who read the land, the sky, and the future long before anyone assigned a label to what they were doing. that lineage does not require anyone’s permission to continue.
so the next time someone who doesn’t know who their own grandmother was wants to question whether i have the right to call myself a catalyst, a psychic, a spiritual authority —
i want them to sit with the fact that i am descended from chiefs who met presidents, warriors who closed rivers to empires, women who owned land in the jim crow south, athletes who played professional sports in two countries, and ancestors who survived the middle passage and the trail of tears — both — and still found their way to the yoruba capital of the western hemisphere.
this is not a claim. this is a document.
fuck around and find out what’s in my blood.
this is who i come from.
never let anyone tell you different.
to my son. to every bell and farris. to my niece and my nephews —
we carry cherokee chiefs in our spines. chickasaw war generals in our hands. yoruba ancestors in our spirit. a woman who owned land in the jim crow south in our business sense. professional athletes in our bodies. a psychic in our lineage.
our grandfather’s grandfather walked the trail of tears and lived. our great-grandmother ran a business that the whole town needed while the whole town pretended they didn’t know her. our uncles played professional sports on two continents. our family has been on this land for longer than the country has existed.
we don’t have to be small for anyone. ever. we come from people who weren’t.
documented · dna confirmed · irreversible