Source Jacket — TCCL ScanEZ 2026-07-24 16:22 — Smith / Colbert / McKenney selections — 2-page delivery packet

Source identity and custody

• Exact received filename: TCCL_ScanEZ_2026-07-24_1622_People_of_Five_Civilized_Tribes_Smith_Colbert_McKenney_2pp.pdf
• Google Drive file ID: 1suGEzFGhEtjowfj3HMJbawhD5lMd1klG
• Current source folder: Archive Receiving — Inside / Tulsa Library research scans — source intake / Library originals — 2025-2026
• Current parent folder Drive ID: 1GvmbLD7kIeiyWR0rXPCvqD-EeI3s2q9r
• Modern form: two-page grayscale ScanEZ PDF; received size 1,753,257 bytes.
• Delivery provenance: Tulsa City-County Library / ScanEZ research-delivery stream, preserved in the existing First Light intake index. This is delivery provenance, not the historical source’s original archival provenance.
• Inherited filename is preserved as provenance. Its wording does not establish the exact title of the parent printed work.

Documentary boundary

• Modern PDF page 1 is printed page 127 and contains the end of a preceding entry, the full visible entry headed “SMITH, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (Chickasaw),” its footnotes, and the beginning of “SQUIRREL (Chickasaw).”
• Modern PDF page 2 is printed page 121 and is a Cherokee biographical continuation concerning the Ridge / Boudinot / Watie family and the 1839 killings.
• Printed page order 127 → 121 proves that the two ScanEZ captures are not a contiguous historical-page sequence. The packet is a modern research selection, not evidence of one continuous documentary unit.
• The captures do not establish the completeness, exact title page, author, edition, or full bibliographic identity of the parent reference work.

Direct source observation — printed page 127

Visible entry heading: “SMITH, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (Chickasaw).”

• The entry describes Benjamin Franklin Smith as Chickasaw agent, appointed September 17, 1823, and recounts disputes with missionaries, deputy agent Randle Malbone, Chickasaw leaders, and the Colbert family.
• It says Smith moved the agency house in 1825 from Houlka Creek in present Chickasaw County, Mississippi, to a site about ninety miles northeast near present Cherokee, Alabama.

Load-bearing language: “Colonel Thomas L. McKenney, Superintendent of Indian Affairs and a personal friend of chief Levi Colbert, conducted an extensive investigation into Smith’s deportment in October, 1827, but made no decision regarding Smith’s conduct.”

Load-bearing language: “He then appointed John Bell of Cotton Gin Port, Mississippi, to take depositions regarding the charges.”

Load-bearing language: “Bell’s report of July 3, 1828, based on testimony of the Colbert clique, was detrimental to Smith.”

The entry says Smith remained in conflict with the Colberts and missionaries and left the Chickasaws in late 1829; it quotes Levi Colbert reacting to Smith’s departure.

Footnote / source trail visible on printed page 127

• Footnote 1: Barr to Secretary of War, June 1824, OIA, microcopy M-234.
• Footnote 2: Malbone to Secretary of War; McKenney to Secretary of War, May 5, 1824; “Ibid.”
• Footnote 3: Smith to Secretary of War, June 10, 1825; Levi Colbert et al. to Secretary of War, September 8, 1826; “Ibid.”
• Footnote 4 includes Levi Colbert et al. to McKenney, March [unclear: day], 1828; Bell to Barbour, July 3, 1828; and “Talk of Thomas L. McKenney to Chickasaws, October 9, 1827”; “Ibid.”
• Footnote 5: “Bell to Barbour, July 3, 1828, Ibid.”
• Footnote 6: Colbert et al. to Jackson, November 14, 1829; “Ibid.”

In this footnote sequence, “Ibid.” points back to OIA microcopy M-234. The packet therefore gives an earned archival retrieval trail even though it is itself a printed account.

Direct source observation — printed page 121

This page is a Cherokee biographical continuation discussing the Ridge / Boudinot / Watie family, including the 1839 killings and later family members.

No source-facing reason was found in this pass to cross that printed page into the Bell–McKinney treaty-land lane. Its presence is preserved as part of the modern delivery packet and as evidence that the packet is noncontiguous.

Findings

• The source explicitly places a John Bell “of Cotton Gin Port, Mississippi” in a documentary role in the Chickasaw Agency controversy: Thomas L. McKenney appointed him to take depositions, and a July 3, 1828 Bell report is cited.
• Thomas L. McKenney appears here as Superintendent of Indian Affairs and investigator. This is a McKenney occurrence, not evidence about the separately studied McKinney surname occurrences.
• The source creates a concrete primary-source door: Bell to Barbour, July 3, 1828, in OIA microcopy M-234.

Archival re-find — external finding aids, kept separate from source observation

• The National Archives identifies M234 as “Letters Received by the Office of Indian Affairs, 1824–1880/1881” within Record Group 75 and states that the M234 correspondence series is digitized in the National Archives Catalog.
• An Oklahoma Historical Society National Archives microfilm guide places Chickasaw Agency letters for 1824–1829 on NARA M234 roll 135. Because the target letter is dated July 3, 1828, roll 135 is the present best bounded retrieval target.
• This roll placement is a finding-aid conclusion, not direct inspection of the Bell letter. Exact file number, image/frame number, handwriting, enclosures, deposition names, and physical sequence remain unresolved until the primary object is opened.

Inference — deliberately separate

• The printed account suggests that John Bell’s July 3, 1828 report may contain or summarize depositions bearing on the Smith–Colbert conflict and therefore may name additional Chickasaw participants, witnesses, places, or agency relationships. The report itself must be opened before any such content is claimed.
• The co-occurrence of the surnames Bell, Colbert, and McKenney in this source reflects an administrative episode. It does not by itself establish genealogy or identity with people in the Bell–McKinney Choctaw treaty-land corpus.

Explicit nonclaims

• John Bell of Cotton Gin Port is not identified here with Robert Bell, David Bell, James Bell, Levy/Levi Bell, Hugh Bell, or any other Bell occurrence in the workshop.
• Thomas L. McKenney is not identified here with Catherine/Catharine McKinney, Edmond/Edmund McKinney, Robert McKinney, Silas McKinney, or any other McKinney occurrence.
• The phrase “personal friend of chief Levi Colbert” describes Thomas L. McKenney’s relationship to Levi Colbert in this printed account; it does not establish any Bell–Colbert kinship.
• A printed citation to “Bell to Barbour, July 3, 1828” does not substitute for the underlying letter, report, or depositions.
• The inherited packet filename does not establish the exact title, author, edition, or bibliographic identity of the parent publication.
• Modern packet adjacency does not establish historical-document adjacency.

Unresolved questions

1. What is the exact bibliographic identity, author, and edition of the parent printed work containing pages 121 and 127?
2. Can Bell to Barbour, July 3, 1828 be opened directly in M234 roll 135, and what file/image/frame number identifies it?
3. Does the surviving Bell report include the depositions themselves, attachments, named witnesses, or a separate filing endorsement?
4. Does the original McKenney appointment or October 1827 investigation correspondence survive nearby in the same M234 run?
5. What does the primary record say about John Bell’s official or local capacity beyond the printed account’s phrase “of Cotton Gin Port, Mississippi”?

Earned next retrieval target

Primary target: Bell to Barbour, July 3, 1828 — Office of Indian Affairs, Letters Received, M234; Chickasaw Agency 1824–1829; finding-aid target NARA M234 roll 135. Open the actual letter/report and any immediately associated depositions or enclosures before making further historical claims.

Fieldglass deepening — 2026-09-04 — Rooney 2021 / Bell ferry crossing

A separate held scholarly source now creates an earned, attributable crossing rather than an identity merge:

• Source: Matthew P. Rooney, The Charity Hall Mission: An 1820s Boarding School for Native American Children in the Chickasaw Nation (University of Florida dissertation, 2021), stored as Rooney_M charity hall mission.pdf, Drive ID 1F-vmwVcrbSW7o3llDUzxEMgUSc5Ki_Ys.
• Dedicated jacket: SOURCE JACKET — Rooney 2021 — Charity Hall dissertation — Bell ferry / Cotton Gin Port crossing, Drive ID 1dN9XpQE_cComP-EidXCpKaRfsRuPVUNGBHe6FicQBOk.
• Rooney printed p.118 reproduces a photograph captioned Deed of sale for Bell's Ferry Boat and Service; direct visual inspection of that embedded county-record image shows an 1826 deed spread bearing visible folio/page numbers 427–428 and naming Robert Bell and Thomas Mackadory.
• Rooney p.244 says he found the Bell's Ferry deed while examining deed records in the Monroe County Chancery Office.
• Separately, Rooney pp.117–119 carries later-source claims that Reverend Robert Bell's son John Bell operated / was licensed to run the Cotton Gin Port ferry, citing Elliott & Wells 2003:100 and Evans 1979:41. Those underlying local-history sources were not opened in this pass.

Why the crossing is earned: this present ScanEZ source independently identifies John Bell of Cotton Gin Port, Mississippi as the man appointed to take depositions in the Benjamin F. Smith controversy and cites his July 3, 1828 report. Rooney's source lane places a John Bell at the same named place in a ferry role and associates him, through later secondary sources, with a Reverend Robert Bell.

Boundary: shared place, surname, and approximate period justify direct retrieval of the underlying records but do not prove that the administrative John Bell in this jacket is the ferry-operating John Bell in Rooney's later-source account, nor that either is a son of the Robert Bell in the 1826 deed. No Bell identity bridge is closed.

Sharpened next targets:

1. Open the May 15, 1826 Monroe County deed at photographed folios/pages 427–428 and recover the exact deed-book volume.
2. Open Elliott & Wells 2003:100 and Evans 1979:41 to inspect what evidence they cite for John Bell's parentage and ferry license.
3. Open Bell to Barbour, July 3, 1828 in M234 roll 135 and compare its self-identification, locality, witnesses, endorsements, and associated depositions to the county-record lane without assuming continuity.

Maker: Fieldglass
Date: 2026-09-04

Quiet Reach source-genealogy addendum — 2026-09-05

Direct comparison with two separately held ScanEZ packets strengthens the earlier unresolved parent-publication state without changing Fieldglass’s packet-level reading.

The present 2-page packet (1suGEzFGhEtjowfj3HMJbawhD5lMd1klG) belongs to the same parent printed work / edition representation family as:

• TCCL_ScanEZ_2026-07-24_1604_People_of_the_Five_Civilized_Tribes_19pp.pdf — 1PqSAuKCtvTowh2WkoOT0ltiDM8hMOzBp;
• TCCL_ScanEZ_2026-07-24_1619_People_of_the_Five_Civilized_Tribes_Colbert_section_22pp.pdf — 1GLD6kSUy6dn2bkO1IcUHurkjG_6e6ko3.

Direct visual comparison supports this at the parent-publication / representation-family level: the 19-page packet visibly carries the running header THE PEOPLE OF THE FIVE CIVILIZED TRIBES; the 22-page packet continues the same biographical-entry apparatus and typography; and this 2-page packet uses the same page architecture, entry-heading grammar, and numbered-source-note apparatus on printed pages 121 and 127.

Parent-family jacket: SOURCE JACKET — The People of the Five Civilized Tribes — ScanEZ selected-page representation family, Drive ID 1h-Xd4-s6Q33jpvTCoNPqjzODZJ-H69gCVm11Y1uhIgk.

Consequence: these three modern ScanEZ packets should not be counted as three independent historical witnesses merely because they are separate Drive objects. Cite the exact packet and printed page actually used, and keep the parent work at the source-generation depth actually supported by the held physical object and bibliography. The exact title-page bibliography and whether all three packets came from the same physical library copy remain open.

No person identity, Bell–Colbert–McKenney relation, or historical claim changes from this representation-family correction. Fieldglass’s existing packet-level observations and authorship remain intact.

Maker: Quiet Reach
Date: 2026-09-05