Black Man of the Day: Bass Reeves (1st Black US Marshall)

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Bass Reeves (July, 1838 - 12 January 1910) was one of the first African Americans (possibly the first) to receive a commission as a Deputy U.S. Marshal west of the Mississippi River.

Reeves was born a slave in 1838 in Crawford County, Arkansas, and was given the surname of his owner, George Reeves, a farmer and politician. He moved to Paris, Texas with George Reeves. During the American Civil War, Bass parted company with George Reeves:

"some say because Bass beat up George after a dispute in a card game. Others believe that Bass heard too much about the 'freeing of slaves' and simply ran away."

Bass Reeves fled north into the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) and lived with the Seminole and Creek Indians.

Reeves became a crack shot with a pistol. Later Reeves moved to Arkansas and homesteaded near Van Buren. Once he got his farm going, he married Nellie Jennie from Texas. They had ten children – five boys and five girls.

Reeves and his family farmed until 1875 when the legendary Isaac Parker was appointed Federal Judge for the Indian Territory. Judge Parker appointed James F. Fagan as U.S. Marshal, and directed him to hire 200 deputy U.S. Marshals.

Fagan heard about Bass Reeves, who knew the Indian Territory and could speak several Indian languages, and recruited him as a deputy U.S. Marshal.

Reeves worked a total of thirty-two years as a Federal peace officer in the Indian Territory. He was one of Judge Parker's most valued deputies. He arrested some of the most dangerous criminals of the time, but was never shot (despite having his hat and belt shot off on separate occasions). He had to arrest his own son for murder.


Reeves was an expert with rifle and pistol. During his long career he developed superior detective skills. When he retired from Federal service in 1907, Reeves had arrested over 3,000 felons. Reeves admitted having to shoot and kill fourteen outlaws in defending his life while making arrests.

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http://www.bgol.us/board/showthread.php?t=647073

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That a racist assed Nick Searcy mentioned him a couple times on the show justified
 
Police History: Was U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves the real Lone Ranger?
The first black lawman west of the Mississippi, Bass Reeves rode a big gray horse, wore a black hat, and gave out silver dollars as a calling card

Some say U.S. Deputy Marshal Bass Reeves was the inspiration for “The Lone Ranger.” If he was, you might say he lived a life more dangerous and interesting than the legend that rose from it.

In 1838, Bass Reeves began life as a slave in Crawford County, Arkansas. During the Civil War he accompanied his master — Colonel George Reeves — as the Colonel joined the Confederate Army. After hearing of the Emancipation Proclamation, Bass proclaimed himself to be a free man and escaped.

His flight landed him in Oklahoma Territory, where he was embraced immediately by the Cherokee. It was here that he learned to ride, track, shoot, and speak five Native American languages fluently — all skills that would serve him well.

Bass Reeves, Deputy Marshal
At war’s end, Reeves married, began raising his children and worked as a farmer as well as an occasional scout for lawmen tracking criminals. In 1875, Judge Isaac Parker hired him as one of 200 Deputy Marshals in the Oklahoma Territory sent out to tame “Indian Country.”

At a time when the average man was about 5’6”, Reeves was a towering 6’2.” He was broad at the shoulders, narrow at the hips, and said to possess superhuman strength. The first black lawman west of the Mississippi, Reeves cut a striking figure on his large gray (almost white) horse, while wearing his trademark black hat and twin .45 Colt Peacemakers cross-draw style.

He gave out silver dollars as a calling card.

The “Indomitable Marshal”
Reeves became famous among criminals for his skills and relentless pursuit. Although shot at many times, he remained untouched by a single bullet, and because of this he was called “The Indomitable Marshal,” so tough he could “spit on a brick and bust it.”

A newspaper of his times reported, “Place a warrant for arrest in his hands and no circumstance can cause him to deviate.”

The Oklahoma City Weekly Times-Journal reported, “Reeves was never known to show the slightest excitement, under any circumstance. He does not know what fear is.”

This was never truer than the case where three men he was pursuing managed to get the drop on him and ordered him off his horse. The leader approached, gloating that the “Indomitable Marshal” was about to die.

Showing no fear, Reeves calmly took out his warrants and asked the three men, “What is the date today?”

The puzzled leader asked, “What difference does that make?”

Reeves explained that he’d need to put the date of the arrest on the paperwork when he took the three of them in — dead or alive, their choice.

The three men laughed at the absurdity of the thought, and Marshal Reeves used the distraction to grab the barrel of the leader’s gun. One of the men opened fire, but Reeves drew and shot him dead. He then killed the leader by bashing his skull with his pistol.

The third man wisely submitted to the arrest.

A Lawman Until Death
Reeves was also famous for his cunning disguises. While in pursuit of two criminals he discovered them hiding in a cabin that would be difficult to approach safely. He shot three holes in his hat, changed into tattered clothes, and hid his handcuffs in a bag.

He tied up his horse out of sight and walked up to the cabin, appearing exhausted. Reeves told a tale of harrowing escape from the custody of U.S. Marshals. The two bad guys were mesmerized as Reeves showed them the bullet-riddled hat, confirming the tale. The gullible criminals invited him to join them in their next planned robbery.

While the wanted men slept Reeves quietly handcuffed both of them, and then let them sleep through the night. In the morning he told them he’d let them sleep so they would be rested for their long ride back to the jail in Fort Smith.

In the twilight of his career, a newspaper reported Reeves had brought in 3,000 living felons and 20 dead. He corrected the record, saying that during his storied career he had killed 14 men in self-defense.

Reeves retired from Federal Service after 32 years, the last and longest serving of Judge Parker’s Marshals. He took a position with the Muskogee Oklahoma Police Department until his passing in 1910 of natural causes.

The lengthy and glowing obituary for this universally respected former slave turned U.S. Deputy Marshal described him as “absolutely fearless and knowing no master but duty.”

It almost doesn’t matter if Reeves was the basis for the Lone Ranger character — Reeves was clearly a lawman of the highest order. As you set out on your next patrol shift, perhaps you’ll have in the back of your mind that righteous call of the Lone Ranger: “Hi, yo, Silver! Away!”

https://www.policeone.com/police-he...U-S-Marshal-Bass-Reeves-the-real-Lone-Ranger/
 
Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves haunted the nightmares of desperadoes in Indian territory
Life under the gun with one of the greatest, and least known, lawmen of all time.

You think you know the West.

Every American thinks they do, conjuring up a fever of dusty towns, quick-draw gunmen, drunks, honky-tonk pianos, cowboys, desperadoes, black hat villains and white hat heroes out of bits of John Ford movies and "Lone Ranger" episodes. In that pulp paper West, all Native Americans were the bad guys (other than Tonto, of course) and all women were either wife, nun or saloon girl. If there was a black man, chances are his only job was to hold the horse of the courageous — and very white — sheriff.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves is where the fictional West gives way to the actual West, and it was lot more diverse in reality than it is on celluloid. One of several African-American deputy U.S. marshals who rode the bloody trails of the Indian Territory that eventually became Oklahoma — a place Reeves' biographer unflinchingly calls "The Valley of the Shadow of Death" — Reeves was born a slave in Arkansas, but rose to the status of living legend during his 30-plus years wearing a marshal's star, most of that served as a manhunter for "Hanging Judge" Isaac C. Parker of Fort Smith. With a reputation for going after the baddest of the bad — a giant for his day at 6'2", a crack shot with both hands, a skilled horseman and master of disguise — Reeves arrested more than 3,000 men, including his own son, and killed more than a dozen in the line of duty, often dragging in criminals a dozen at a whack, lashed to his chuck wagon.

Though there are stories of Reeves repeatedly having his hat and even his gunbelt shot off during firefights, he was said to live a charmed life by the Native Americans in the territory, able to walk between the bullets in a land where desperadoes pasted up wanted posters for police instead of the other way around, in a time and place where more than half the U.S. marshals ever killed in the line of duty met their end.

While Jim Crow and a general apathy about the history of non-whites worked to try to make sure Reeves' legend was never known in the modern day, his story has been resurrected fairly recently by a few dedicated researchers. It's one of the greatest Old West legends you've probably never heard.



Finding Bass


Historian Dr. Art Burton — author of the Reeves biography "Black Gun, Silver Star," and the researcher who has probably done the most to save Reeves' story from obscurity — started researching the life of Bass Reeves more than 20 years ago. Born in Oklahoma into a family that put kids in a saddle from an early age, Burton said there was always a disconnect between his experience as an African American and the West as seen in movies and books.

"There are a lot of cowboys in my family," he said. "I grew up during the cowboy era on television, but you didn't see blacks in those programs. I felt like, my folks are doing this in Oklahoma because this is what people in Oklahoma do. It wasn't until later that I found out that African Americans played a role in the Western frontier."

Burton began researching the life of Bass Reeves during work for his 1991 book "Black, Red and Deadly," which presented profiles of African-American and Native-American outlaws and lawmen of the Old West. Burton said that most people who base their understanding of the West on popular culture just don't appreciate how diverse it was.

"African Americans were pretty much written out of that whole history," Burton said. "But if we look at the real Western frontier, we find blacks that were mountain men, blacks who were scouts, blacks who were entrepreneurs and cowboys... . You also found blacks who were in law enforcement across the West, in Montana and Colorado and New Mexico. Twenty percent of the military on the Western frontier were African Americans. So Hollywood just totally left out African Americans in the telling of the West, sad to say."

Burton has worked his whole life to try and correct the perception of a monochromatic West. When the Coen Brothers made their movie remake of Charles Portis' "True Grit" a few years back, Burton tried to reach out to them, without success, to encourage them to get the complexions more in line with history.

"They positioned their film for 1878," Burton said. "The majority of the federal workers for Fort Smith court in 1878 were African Americans. The majority. Many of the people who sat on the juries were African Americans. There's a case where a criminal was being tried in Fort Smith before Judge Parker's court, and the jury was majority black."

The more he learns about Reeves, Burton said, the more amazing his story becomes. Early on, his research was slow going, because the history of blacks wasn't often preserved, forcing him to go back to sources like court records, oral histories and newspaper stories. (He starts off "Black Gun, Silver Star," with an anecdote about an Oklahoma historical society writing to him with apologies, saying they didn't keep the history of black people). Before "Black, Red and Deadly" came out, the latest mention of Reeves in a book that Burton could find was a short item in an Oklahoma City School System textbook. "Previous to that book, he wasn't mentioned in a book since 1899," Burton said. "He had pretty much been left out of the discourse and discussion on the American West and frontier."

Though most of the people who actually remembered Bass Reeves were gone by the time Burton started his research ("I ran into a ton of folks who told me that I should have talked to so-and-so who passed away five years ago who knew quite a bit. That was really disappointing. I thought, man, if I'd done this 10 years earlier, I could have got a lot more oral stories.") Burton kept digging. Slowly, Reeves began to emerge from the mist.



Reeves unchained


Bass Reeves was born a slave in Crawford County in July 1838, the son of a woman owned by William S. Reeves. A prominent figure on the frontier, William Reeves had served in the Tennessee legislature before moving to Arkansas, and would eventually serve in both the Arkansas state legislature and the Texas state legislature.

When Bass was 8 years old, William Reeves moved his family and slaves to north Texas, where Bass worked as a stable hand and a blacksmith's apprentice. Eventually, according to a book by Bass Reeves' great-grandnephew, former federal Judge Paul Brady, Bass became William Reeves' manservant, following him everywhere. When William Reeves joined the 11th Texas Cavalry as an officer just before the Civil War, Bass followed him to battle, with Reeves later telling a newspaper interviewer that he'd accompanied his master to the battles at Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge and Pea Ridge in Arkansas (though Burton believes including Missionary Ridge and Chickamauga may have been a bit of subterfuge on Reeves' behalf, added to conceal his true activities during the war).

Though the historical records are unclear as to when or why Reeves fled his master and took off for the lawless Indian Territory — family history says it was over an argument during a card game in which he slugged Col. Reeves — he did just that at some point during the Civil War. Burton believes Reeves ran away after Northwest Arkansas's Battle of Pea Ridge in March 1862, which would have put Reeves in close proximity to sanctuary in the Indian Territory.

As a fugitive slave, Reeves took up with the Creeks and Seminoles, eventually learning to speak the Muscogee language and becoming relatively conversational in languages spoken by other tribes. In "Black Gun, Silver Star," Burton recounts that he found at least one legend that says Reeves served as a Union sergeant during the Civil War, with Burton suggesting that Reeves may have taken up with a unit made up of blacks and Native Americans that fought Confederate-allied tribes.

After the Civil War, Reeves and his wife, Jennie, moved back to Van Buren, where he bought a farm. Though he set out to become a farmer and horse breeder, Reeves employed his knowledge of Indian languages and the wilds of the Indian Territory gained as a fugitive slave by working as a tracker and guide for the U.S. Marshals' Office at Van Buren.

In the years after the Civil War, the Indian Territory became increasingly lawless, with many criminals fleeing there from all over the U.S. It made for a hellish place where death was always close. Burton said the closest analogy he can come to the Indian Territory is "modern day Afghanistan."

"You could just lose your life over your hat, your horse, your gun, your woman, any damn thing," Burton said. "The Indian Territory was where the majority of deputy U.S. marshals had been killed in the line of duty in the history of the Marshals Service. You're looking at a little over 200 who have been killed in the line of duty to this date right now. On record, over 130 were killed in the Indian Territory. You also had Indian policemen getting killed. You had town municipal policemen getting killed. It had to be the greatest battleground between crime and law in the history of the United States of America."



Over the Dead Line


With the Indian Territory on the verge of anarchy, the federal court for the Western District of Arkansas was moved from Van Buren to Fort Smith in 1871, with former U.S. Congressman Isaac C. Parker confirmed as the federal judge there in 1875. Parker acted quickly, ordering his chief U.S. marshal to hire 200 deputy marshals to uphold the law and serve warrants in the Indian Territory and most of western Arkansas — almost 75,000 square miles. One of those hired was Bass Reeves, making him one of the first — if not the first — black deputy U.S. marshals west of the Mississippi.

In that world before radios to call for assistance, Reeves would have ridden out into the Indian Territory with only a pocketful of warrants from the federal court, a cook, a chuckwagon and a single "posseman" for backup (Reeves himself often worked as a posseman in his early days as a deputy marshal). Beyond that, Burton said, he would have been on his own.

"When you rode into the Indian Territory, you couldn't call for backup," Burton said. "It was you against the elements and desperadoes. Many times, they would be ambushed at night while they were sleeping in their camps. They would be assassinated."

Deputy marshals for the Fort Smith court would have ridden as far as Fort Supply in far western Oklahoma in pursuit of fugitives. Amazingly, Reeves was illiterate his whole life, so he memorized the warrants when he received them.

It was a difficult, dangerous place to try and enforce the law, beset both by entrenched criminals and jurisdictional quirks, such as the one that allowed a deputy marshal to arrest a Native American who had committed a crime against a white or black, but not another Native American. Though the deputy marshal's primary job was tracking down and bringing in those sought under warrants, they were also allowed to make on-the-spot arrests for most serious crimes, including murder, assault, arson, rape, robbery, theft and incest. Marshals were paid by the arrest, plus a per-diem fee and a fee for feeding the prisoners they arrested. They had a set time limit of 30 days (with allowances for high water) to make their rounds in the territory and return to Fort Smith, with the time limit serving to keep them from padding their per-diem account — a temptation that many deputy marshals appear to have succumbed to.

In a 1907 article from an Oklahoma City newspaper, reprinted in Burton's book, a recently retired Reeves talked about the dangers of his career to a reporter, who wrote:

"Eighty miles west of Fort Smith, it was known as 'The Dead Line,' and whenever a deputy marshal from Fort Smith or Paris, Texas, crossed the Missouri, Kansas and Texas [Railroad] track, he took his life in his hands and he knew it. On nearly every trail would be found posted by outlaws a small card warning certain deputies that if they ever crossed The Dead Line they would be killed. Reeves has a dozen of these cards which were posted for his special benefit, and in those days such a notice was no idle boast."

Historian Dan Littlefield, the director of the Sequoyah National Research Center at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and a friend of Art Burton, wrote the foreword to Burton's book "Black Gun, Silver Star." Littlefield said the Indian Territory was a place where those fleeing the law could quickly disappear.

"The Indian Territory was notorious for people going there and changing their names," Littlefield said. "The Indian kids had a little song that they sang. It went something like: 'Oh, what was your name in the States? Was it Johnson or Thompson or Bates? Did you kill your wife, and fly for your life? Say, what was your name in the States?' It was just common knowledge that many of the people in the Territory were crooks who went from one jurisdiction to another to avoid capture."

The secret to Reeves' longevity in those conditions, Littlefield said, was his toughness. "I think he was just meaner than anybody he tried to catch. That's what the qualifications were for the marshals in those days," Littlefield said. "Some of them were former outlaws who got a badge. But [Reeves] earned a reputation and a lot of respect, certainly among Indian nations. I think he got more cooperation from local people in the tribes than some of the other people did. I think that was part of his survival."



Reeves and the law


Though the history of the Wild West is full of fluffed resumes, Reeves was a figure who seems to live up to the hype. Story after story uncovered by Art Burton reads like something out of pulp fiction, with papers as far away as Galveston and St. Louis marveling over Reeves' skill and daring in the 1880s and '90s. Fort Smith papers regularly carried news of Reeves dragging back 15 prisoners or more at a time — many of them murderers — to face justice.

In one case, after Reeves had left the Fort Smith court and moved to the court at Paris, Texas, he and another deputy marshal singlehandedly put down a 1902 "race war" in Braggs, Texas, arresting 25 men, both black and white, who had participated. In another instance, related to Burton by an Osage woman, Reeves came across a lynch mob on the high prairie, rode into the middle of the angry mob, took their prisoner without a word, then rode off without a shot fired. Reeves' commitment to the law was so great that Reeves arrested the minister who baptized him for selling illegal liquor. Later, he arrested his own son, Ben, after he was charged with killing his wife. After his conviction, Ben Reeves was sentenced to life in prison at Leavenworth.

Eventually, Reeves became so much larger than life that he started chasing criminals into their nightmares according to an article, one of Burton's favorites, that appeared in a Texas newspaper. "I found a story where a guy tried to burn his fiance up. He tried to set her on fire," Burton said. "When he went to bed that night, he had a nightmare that Bass shot him while he was trying to get away. The first thing he did the next morning is go to the federal office and turn himself in."

Reeves' career wasn't without blemish, however, though that blemish may have been racially motivated. In April 1884, Reeves shot his cook, William Leach, while out on patrol in the Territory. Wounded in the shoulder, Leach eventually died. An inquest met, and no charges were filed. After a regime change that saw the U.S. attorney's seat filled by a Democrat and former Confederate, however, Reeves was arrested in 1886 in the killing of Leach. Stripped of his badge and charged with murder, he was held in jail for more than three months.

Though there was some testimony that the shooting might have been about an argument over a stray dog, Reeves and others testified that the shooting was accidental, with his rifle going off while Reeves was trying to pry a faulty cartridge from the chamber with a knife. Though he was acquitted of murder after a headline-grabbing trial, all accounts point to Reeves being financially ruined by the experience, forced to sell his home, presumably to help pay his legal fees and other expenses.

Sebastian County Circuit Judge Jim Spears is on the committee of the Bass Reeves Legacy Initiative, and has studied the transcripts from Reeves' murder trial. He believes that while the charges against Reeves were politically and racially motivated, Reeves' character is shown by the fact that he decided to continue his career after his acquittal.

"It cost him everything he had, but he had the character to put his badge back on and go back into the Indian Territory capturing bad guys," Spears said. "To me, that shows a lot of character ... . If he lets them run him off, they win. I think he had enough character and native intelligence to say: I don't think I'll let them win. I think it hurt him deeply, though."

Times were changing, however. Burton said many of the black employees of the Fort Smith federal court were pushed out of their jobs by the early 1890s as former Confederates came back into power. Reeves transferred to the federal court at Paris in the years after his trial. He retired from the Marshals Service in 1907, edging into semi-retirement by joining the police force in Muskogee, Okla.

He died there in January 1910 from Bright's disease, a disorder of the kidneys. Newspapers across the country carried Reeves' obituary, lauding him as a symbol of law and order in a rapidly vanishing Wild West. Though several stories commented on the pomp and honor with which Reeves was laid to rest, strangely, none of them mentioned where he was buried. With many of the old tombstones in Muskogee worn down to illegibility over the years, by the time Art Burton began searching for Reeves' grave, it couldn't be found. He believes Reeves may be buried in a small cemetery outside Muskogee, but the location of the great lawman's final resting place is, at this writing, lost.



Memorial


Though it looks like even the elements have conspired to erase Bass Reeves from history, thanks to historians like Art Burton, his legend is poised to thrill a whole new generation of history buffs. In May of last year, a 25-foot bronze statue of Reeves on horseback, accompanied by his dog, was unveiled in Fort Smith's Ross Pendergraft Park, and his story is sure to be front and center at the $50 million National U.S. Marshals Museum, set to open in Fort Smith in 2016. Reeves' gun and badge, donated to the Marshals Museum by his great-grandnephew Brady, are currently on display at the Rogers Historical Museum.

Judge Jim Spears was instrumental in raising the $300,000 needed to get the bronze of Reeves cast and placed in Fort Smith. Spears said he started out just looking for a piece of public art for Fort Smith, but wound up fascinated by the life and legend of the lawman he calls an inspiration for everyone. "What I want it to show is that it's a new day," Spears said. "That a city in Arkansas could erect a statue to a former slave, so little black kids can come down with their mother and father and say, 'Who is that?' and Momma and Daddy swell with pride to tell them."

Art Burton said that a slew of famous actors have shown interest in making the Bass Reeves story into a movie over the years, most notably Morgan Freeman. He remains hopeful that a film biography will happen. In the meantime, though, Burton is happy to have been a part of making Reeves' story more known. He's been chasing Reeves for 20 years, and the story is a part of him now.

"As I got deeper and deeper into it, it became more and more of a passion to find out who this man was," Burton said. "He's with me every day now. It's just like he's a part of the family."

http://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/de...rritory/Content?oid=3018980&showFullText=true
 
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-bassreeves.html

Born to slave parents in 1838 in Crawford County Arkansas, Bass Reeves would become the first black U.S. Deputy Marshal west of the Mississippi River and one of the greatest frontier heroes in our nation’s history.

Owned by a man named William Reeves, a farmer and politician, Bass took the surname of his owner, like other slaves of the time. Working alongside his parents, Reeves started out as a water boy until he was old enough to become a field hand.

A tall young man, at 6’2”, with good manners and a sense of humor, George Reeves, William's son, later made him his personal companion when Bass was older. When the Civil War broke out, Texassided with the Confederacy and George Reeves went into battle, taking Bass with him.



It was during these years of the Civil War that Bass parted company from Reeves, some say because Bass beat up George after a dispute in a card game. Others believe that Bass heard too much about the "freeing of slaves” and simply ran away. In any event, Bass fled to Indian Territory where he took refuge with the Seminole and Creek Indians. While in Indian Territory, Reeves honed his firearm skills, becoming very quick and accurate with a pistol. Though Reeves claimed to be "only fair” with a rifle, he was barred on a regular basis from competitive turkey shoots.



"Freed” by the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and no longer a fugitive, Reeves left Indian Territory and bought land near Van Buren, Arkansas, becoming a successful farmer and rancher. A year later, he married Nellie Jennie from Texas, and immediately began to have a family. Raising ten children on their homestead -- five girls and five boys, the family lived happily on the farm.



However, Reeve’s life as a contented farmer was about to change when Isaac C. Parker was appointed judge for the Federal Western District Court at Fort Smith, Arkansas on May 10, 1875. At the time Parker was appointed, Indian Territory had become extremely lawless as thieves, murderers, and anyone else wishing to hide from the law, took refuge in the territory that previously had no federal or state jurisdiction.



One of Parker's first official acts was to appoint U.S. Marshal James F. Fagan as head of the some 200 deputies he was then told to hire. Fagan heard of Bass Reeves' significant knowledge of the area, as well as his ability to speak several tribal languages, and soon recruited him as a U.S. Deputy.



The deputies were tasked with "cleaning up” Indian Territory and on Judge Parker's orders, "Bring them in alive --- or dead!"



Working among other lawmen that would also become legendary, such as Heck Thomas, Bud Ledbetter, and Bill Tilghman, Reeves began to ride the Oklahoma range in search of outlaws. Covering some 75,000 square miles, the United States Court at Fort Smith, was the largest in the nation.



Depending on the outlaws for whom he was searching, a deputy would generally take with him from Fort Smith, a wagon, a cook and a Native American posse man. Often they rode to Fort Reno, Fort Sill and Anadarko, a round trip of more than 800 miles.



Though Reeves could not read or write it did not curb his effectiveness in bringing back the criminals. Before he headed out, he would have someone read him the warrants and memorize which was which. When asked to produce the warrant, he never failed to pick out the correct one.




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An imposing figure, always riding on a large white stallion, Reeves began to earn a reputation for his courage and success at bringing in or killing many desperadoes of the territory. Always wearing a large hat, Reeves was usually a spiffy dresser, with his boots polished to a gleaming shine. He was known for his politeness and courteous manner. However, when the purpose served him, he was a master of disguises and often utilized aliases. Sometimes appearing as a cowboy, farmer, gunslinger, or outlaw, himself, he always wore two Colt pistols, butt forward for a fast draw. Ambidextrous, he rarely missed his mark.



Leaving Fort Smith, often with a pocketful of warrants, Reeves would often return months later herding a number of outlaws charged with crimes ranging from bootlegging to murder. Paid in fees and rewards, he would make a handsome profit, before spending a little time with his family and returning to the range once again.



The tales of his captures are legendary – filled with intrigue, imagination and courage. On one such occasion, Reeves was pursuing two outlaws in the Red River Valley near the Texas border. Gathering a posse, Reeves and the other men set up camp some 28 miles from where the two were thought to be hiding at their mother’s home. After studying the terrain and making a plan, he soon disguised himself as a tramp, hiding the tools of his trade – handcuffs, pistol and badge, under his clothes. Setting out on foot, he arrived at the house wearing an old pair of shoes, dirty clothes, carrying a cane, and wearing a floppy hat complete with three bullet holes.



Upon arriving at the home, he told a tale to woman who answered the door that his feet were aching after having been pursued by a posse who had put the three bullet holes in his hat. After asking for a bite to eat, she invited him in and while he was eating she began to tell him of her two young outlaw sons, suggesting that the three of them should join forces.







Feigning weariness, she consented to let him stay a while longer. As the sun was setting, Reeves heard a sharp whistle coming from beyond the house. Shortly after the woman went outside and responded with an answering whistle, two riders rode up to the house, talking at length with her outside. The three of them came inside and she introduced her sons to Reeves. After discussing their various crimes, the trio agreed that it would be a good idea to join up.



Bunking down in the same room, Reeves watched the pair carefully as the drifted off to sleep and when they were snoring deeply, handcuffed the pair without waking them. When early morning approached, he kicked the boys awake and marched them out the door. Followed for the first three miles by their mother, who cursed Reeves the entire time, he marched the pair the full 28 miles to the camp where the posse men waited. Within days, the outlaws were delivered to the authorities and a $5,000 reward collected.



One of the high points of Reeves’ career was apprehending a notorious outlaw named Bob Dozier. Dozier was known as a jack-of-all-trades when it came to committing crimes, as they covered a wide range from cattle and horse rustling, to holding up banks, stores, and stagecoaches; to murder, and land swindles. Because Dozier was unpredictable, he was also hard to catch and though many lawmen had tried to apprehend the outlaw, none were successful until it came to Reeves. Dozier eluded Reeves for several months until the lawman tracked him down in the Cherokee Hills. After refusing to surrender, Reeves killed Dozier in an accompanying gunfight on December 20, 1878.



Though the tales of Reeves’ heroics are many and varied, the toughest manhunt for the lawman was that of hunting down his own son. After having delivered two prisoners to U.S. Marshal Leo Bennett in Muskogee, Oklahoma, he arrived to bad news. His own son had been charged with the murder of his wife. Though the warrant had been lying on Bennett’s desk for two days, the other deputies were reluctant to take it and though Reeves was shaken, he demanded to accept the responsibility for finding his son. Two weeks later, Reeves returned to Muskogee with his son in tow and turned him over to Marshal Bennett. His son was tried and sent to Kansas’ Leavenworth Prison. However, sometime later, with a citizen’s petition and an exemplary prison record, his son was pardoned and lived the rest of his life as a model citizen.



In 1907, law enforcement was assumed by state agencies and Reeves’ duties as a deputy marshal came to an end. Next, Bass took a job as a patrolman with the Muskogee Oklahoma Police Department. During the two years that he served in this capacity, there were reportedly no crimes on his beat. Reeves’ diagnosis with Bright’s disease finally ended his career when he took to his sickbed in 1909. He died January 12, 1910 and though he was buried in Muskogee, Oklahoma, the exact location of his grave is unknown.




Over the 35 years that Bass Reeves served as a Deputy United States Marshal, he earned his place in history by being one of the most effective lawmen in Indian Territory, bringing in more than 3,000 outlaws and helping to tame the lawless territory. Killing some 14 men during his service, Reeves always said that he "never shot a man when it was not necessary for him to do so in the discharge of his duty to save his own life."



Many argue, including Bill O'Reilly's Legends & Lies 2015 television series, there is evidence that Bass Reeves was the basis of the now classic radio and later television series "The Lone Ranger", with several key similarities between the character and the real legend. However that claim is debated by others. We tend to believe he really was the 'Lone Ranger'.
 
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