The Free Man's Line: Bell and Franklin Family

In 1622, Opechancanough coordinated a multinational military assault across fifty miles of the Virginia James River in a single morning — with no written orders, no telegraph, and no standing army. 347 English colonists died before noon. He had been watching them for fifteen years. Opechancanough is Courtney's (Sisi's) 11th great-grandfather — and his authority to lead came entirely through his mo...

bloodline.faafo.app -- Season 1: The Ancestors — individual deep dives on the people at the root of the line. One ancestor, one episode. Starting with Amopotuske "Scent Flower" in 1517 and moving forward through Opechancanough, Pocahontas (the real story), Attakullakulla in London, the Colbert dynasty, the unnamed enslaved woman in the Chickasaw Nation, Buck Franklin, and King Blue. Season 2: The...

Before someone else tells it — she's telling it herself. The Free Man's Line is a documentary-grade family history archive spanning 500 years, 185 documented ancestors, and the full sweep of North American history as lived by one Black American family rooted in Oklahoma. Season 1: The Ancestors — individual deep dives on the people at the root of the line, from 1517 through the colonial era. Seaso...

She was born in 1517. Ninety years before Jamestown. In a world the English had not yet reached. Her name was Amopotuske — Scent Flower and she is Courtney's (Sisi's) 12th great-grandmother. She was born at the confluence of the Dan and Staunton Rivers in the Powhatan homeland of Tsenacomoco, a civilization of 30 tribal nations, 160 villages, and a political system so sophisticated the English col...

born enslaved in 1790, chose that name deliberately when he walked free. we are the bell-franklin family.