Downloaded from YTS.MX
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
From the dawn of the New World's exploration,
people of different ethnicities and nationalities
helped shape a wild frontier into the country
we now know as the United States of America.
Among these explorers were pioneers of African descent.
One striking testament to this fact
came from the Pueblo Indians
who reportedly remarked,
'The first White man our people saw was a Black man.'
This Black man was Estevanico,
an African Spanish slave from the west coast of Morocco,
who journeyed to the New World
alongside 400 other explorers.
The party landed off the coast of Florida in 1528
and after a series of disasters,
marooned off the coast of Texas,
only Estevanico,
his master, and two companions survived.
They were discovered by Native Americans
who enslaved them for seven years
before the small party freed themselves
and continued west across Texas and Mexico,
spreading stories of the Seven Cities of Gold.
Disguised as a medicine man,
capable of performing minor surgeries
and quick to learn the local language,
Estevanico continued his exploration of the New World
until he was reportedly killed by the Zunis of New Mexico in 1539.
As Europeans continued to push westward into the interior of America,
Blacks were increasingly joining their expeditions.
Our society is about four centuries old,
for three of those four centuries,
we had a westward movement.
There was a frontier in South Carolina,
there was a frontier, you could go west in Massachusetts
and all of these other places.
- One thing about the American West is that it's wide open.
At least it was a lot more wide open back then
than it is now
and whenever you have wide open spaces,
you have young men
who are going to have adventures.
Somebody's going to want to go out there and find
what's on the other side of the mountain.
Black men were no exception.
When Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
commanded the first official expedition
to explore the continent in 1804,
a Black man,
William Clark's slave York,
accompanied them.
Black frontiersman James Pearson Beckworth was born April 26, 1798
in Frederick County, Virginia to Sir Jennings Beckwith,
a White planter, and one of his Black slaves.
Jennings Beckwith eventually settled in Missouri,
where he taught his son to trap animals,
hunt, and trade with Native Americans.
James Beckworth was freed by his father in 1826.
He would go on to become a famous fur trapper
who worked closely with the Crow Indians.
According to Beckworth,
he became a chief of the Crow.
Much of what we know about Beckworth
and his relationship with the Crow comes from Beckworth.
So, we'll take with a grain of salt
that he actually was an Indian chief with the Crows,
there's no doubt that he lived among them
and that he spoke their language, and he served as a guide,
and in the carrying out of his life as a mountain man
that he had a lot of relationships with them.
When Beckworth died in 1867,
his body was placed on a burial scaffold
with his feet facing east
in the tradition of the Crow.
Edward Rose was another Black fur trapper
who worked closely with the Crow Indians.
He was killed with Hugh Glass and Hilain Menard
by Arikara Indians in the winter of 1833,
when they were attacked crossing the frozen Yellowstone River
en route to Fort Union on behalf of John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company.
Sanders Jackson and Jacob Dodson
were free Black men who accompanied
John C. Fremont on his expedition to California in 1848.
Dodson would go on to accompany Fremont
and Kit Carson on three more trips.
In California, named by the Spanish after the mythical Black queen Calafia,
Blacks were among the first to settle Los Angeles.
Bridget Mason was born into slavery in Mississippi in 1818.
She was taken from her parents as a child
and sold at least twice
gaining skills in agriculture and medicine
on each plantation.
Bridget obtained her freedom in 1856,
settled in Los Angeles
and worked as a midwife and nurse.
She eventually saved enough money to purchase land
in what is now the heart of downtown Los Angeles.
Haunted by the threat of slavery,
and facing severe prejudice,
free Blacks ventured into uncharted lands,
withstood adversities, and spread stories of promise,
leaving their mark on the American West.
- The roles that Blacks played in the development of
the American West were the same roles as
other people played in the development of the American West.
In many cases,
they were leaders,
though few in number,
they did homestead,
they were doctors,
they were dentists,
they led civic organizations,
they were postmasters and postmistresses.
Not only were Black people
involved in every aspect of the development
of the American West that you can think of,
I haven't been able to find an area that they haven't.
Not only were they involved in those areas,
not only were they there in larger numbers
than we generally expect,
not only did they add their creative juices
to the general
development of what we call the American West
and American society in general.
The most important thing that I took away was
they were there.
And that's the important thing.
They were there.
And we did a terribly good job of whitewashing them out
of our history and our society.
The foundation for Black progress in the West
had already been established by trailblazing pioneers
when Bass Reeves's story began here in Crawford County,
a region along the untamed frontier of Arkansas
enveloped by the Ozark Mountains to the north
and expansive farmland,
wooded ridges, and lakes in the south. In 1836,
Arkansas was admitted to the union as a slave state;
two years later,
in July 1838,
Bass Reeves was born.
Bass, his mother
Paralee Steward,
and his sister Jane
lived as slaves
under the ownership of William Steele Reeves.
William Reeves was born
on March 9, 1794 in Pendleton, South Carolina
to a family of immigrants who had migrated from Dorset, England.
In his youth, he became the ward of an uncle and moved to Tennessee.
At the age of eighteen,
William fought in the War of 1812
and he would go on to fight in the Creek Indian War.
As did many before him,
he used his military service to launch himself into politics,
serving in the Tennessee
and Arkansas state legislatures.
Bass's life on William Reeves's farm
was unexceptional for a Black boy born in a slave state
in the mid-1800s.
It was a time of great change,
in a place that was on the front line of a geographical
and cultural shift.
In 1836, the same year that Arkansas became a state,
the Texas Army
under the command of Sam Houston
won a hard fought war of independence
against the forces of Mexico's Santa Anna
establishing the Republic of Texas.
After independence,
many White Americans, like William Reeves,
saw Texas as a new land of opportunity
and migrated there in great numbers
bringing slave labor with them.
Slavery had existed among the political elite
before Texas gained independence from Mexico in 1836.
Unlike other western states admitted to the Union,
Texas embraced slavery;
the state's economy depended on it.
In 1846, when Bass was 8-years-old,
William Reeves packed up thirty wagons,
his family and six slaves,
including Bass and his family,
and moved to the Preston District of Grayson County in northern Texas,
just across the border from the Chickasaw
and Choctaw nations in Indian Territory.
In the early 1850s,
Texas's population of Black slaves had skyrocketed
with many Black male slaves
also serving as cattle herders.
In fact, in the mid-1800s,
Texas was home to more Black cowboys
than cowboys of any other ethnicity.
By the end of the 19th century,
this way of life gave rise to famous Black cowboys
such as Nat Love,
Ned Huddleston, a.k.a. Isom Dart,
and Bill Pickett.
By 1860, there were 182,000 Black slaves
and only 355 free Blacks in Texas.
As Bass grew into a young man in Texas,
he began to take on more responsibility.
He cared for horses,
mules, and other livestock belonging to William Reeves.
He wanted to learn a trade,
so he became a blacksmith's apprentice.
After the move to Texas,
William was joined by his fifth son,
20-year-old George Robertson Reeves and his family.
Bass soon caught George's attention
and he was chosen to become his personal body servant.
Bass served in multiple roles for George,
including butler,
valet, and coachman.
Given his new status,
Bass reportedly
asked him for permission to learn to read and write.
George refused,
but allowed him to learn how to use a firearm
and take part in local shooting competitions
with any monetary winnings going to George for the privilege.
George's rapid rise in Texas
enabled Bass to be immersed in White society,
specifically within state government and law enforcement.
In 1848, George
assumed the role of tax collector for Grayson County, serving for two years.
He later became the sheriff of Grayson County in 1850,
holding the position until 1854.
The following year saw him elected to the Texas House of Representatives,
where he remained as a legislator until the onset of the Civil War.
- What was quite common in Southern society was for
men to learn to be a gentleman.
And I think that Bass being a body servant to George
taught him the ins and outs of how to conduct himself,
how to talk to people,
and how to judge people in terms of who they were,
and how he should treat them.
And so, I'm sure he had those mannerisms
that he learned as a body servant.
For at least fifteen years,
from the age of eight until the age of twenty-three,
Bass served as George's right hand,
always at his side,
quietly observing and learning.
Bass took advantage of his time in servitude to George
to learn social skills
and the inner workings of law enforcement
that would acquit him well later in life.
- In 1861, less than a month after Confederate soldiers
fired on Fort Sumter and tore the Union asunder,
George Reeves gathered like-minded Confederate sympathizers
and joined the Eleventh Texas Calvary Regiment
under Colonel William Young
and with him,
he brought a reluctant Bass Reeves to war.
Decades later, in 1901, Bass gave an interview to a Muskogee, Oklahoma newspaper.
In it, he recalled participating in the Civil War
on the side of the Confederacy
and how it had been forced upon him by George Reeves.
One of the first things early in the war
that the Eleventh Texas Cavalry Regiment did
was go into the Indian Territory
and engaged the Native Americans
who were trying to get out of the Indian Territory
because they favored the Union.
And the Eleventh Texas Cavalry Regiment was engaged in those battles.
Allegedly, in camp one night,
Bass and George got into a fight over a card game
during which Bass knocked George unconscious.
After the fight, fearing certain death,
Bass fled into the foreboding terrain of Indian Territory.
Land was allocated specifically
for the use of Native Americans in 1763
when King George III issued a royal proclamation
in which the British limited
the settlement of Europeans
to lands east of the Appalachian Mountains.
When the Revolutionary War ended in 1783,
and America established its independence
the proclamation was ignored by settlers
who continued to expand westwards into Native lands.
Native American tribes
had long-standing agreements with the British government
and very little interactions with European-American colonists.
The influx of American settlers after the Revolutionary War
intensified the armed conflict between Native Americans and colonists
that had been going on since the time of early European settlement in the 17th century.
These conflicts became known as the Indian Wars.
In 1830, spurred by White settlers who sought
access to fertile lands east of the Mississippi,
Andrew Jackson signed into law the Indian Removal Act,
which forced upwards of 60,000 Native
Americans off their lands and into government
designated territory that spanned present day Oklahoma,
Kansas, Nebraska, and parts of Iowa.
The Indian Territory was set aside for the Native
Americans initially that came out of the southeast,
so we talking about Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee,
North Carolina.
And those Indians were the Cherokee,
the Choctaw,
the Chickasaw,
the Creek, and the Seminole.
- These tribes were known as the Five Civilized Tribes
due to their adoption of European customs
and societal structures.
The forced relocation,
known infamously as the Trail of Tears,
was marked by hardship,
suffering, and death.
The Indian Territory,
often unfamiliar and inhospitable,
proposed a major challenge to the tribes.
Despite these adversities,
they integrated their cultural traditions
into the new environment.
In a complex
and often overlooked chapter of American history,
the enslavement of Blacks was prevalent
among the Five Civilized Tribes.
- They had plantations in the South before they were moved to the Indian Territory
and mainly they embraced chattel slavery.
And so, when they were forced to go to the Indian Territory
they took their African American slaves with them to the Indian Territory.
- Enslaved Blacks in the Indian Territory worked in fields, homes, and businesses,
their lives bearing a haunting resemblance to slaves
on the plantations of the Deep South.
Native American slaveholders
such as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation John Ross
Seminole Chief John Jumper,
and Cherokee Chief,
later Confederate general, Stand Watie
exemplify the close ties between the Native American
leadership of the Five Civilized Tribes
and the slave-holding planter class of the South.
Born in 1800, Choctaw Chief Greenwood LeFlore
was the son of a high-ranking Choctaw mother and a French fur trader.
He was a prominent antebellum figure among the Mississippi planter elite.
On his vast estates, over 400 enslaved Africans
lived and toiled in bondage.
In 1830, LeFlore signed the treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek,
a momentous act that would
dispossess the Choctaw of their ancestral homelands,
propelling many on the Trail of Tears.
As the Choctaw were forced off their lands
to face an uncertain future in the West,
LeFlore remained in Mississippi at his plantation Malmaison.
He sided with the Union against succession
and died a few months after the war ended in 1865.
He was buried on his Mississippi estate,
his body wrapped in the American flag.
The Indian Territory was a
significant battleground during the Civil War,
with pivotal clashes like the Battle of Pea Ridge
and the Battle of Honey Springs
underscoring the region's importance.
Tribal allegiances were split;
some tribes aligned with the Confederacy
because of their economic and slavery ties to the South,
while others sided with the Union.
This internal conflict and external warfare
led to widespread devastation,
resulting in deaths,
displacement,
and profound social upheaval.
The particulars of Bass's short
stint in the war are unknown,
as are his movements in the Territory
between the years 1862
until he reappears on record in 1870.
In his memoirs,
George Reeves did not mention Bass,
nor were slaves who accompanied
their Confederate owners mentioned in official records.
It's quite probable that Bass
was fighting with the Creeks and Seminoles
who were fighting
the Confederate Indians in Indian Territory.
The aftermath of the Civil War
saw the abolition of slavery in the Indian Territory
and the restructuring of tribal governments
under new treaties with the U.S. government.
These treaties
required the tribes to emancipate their slaves
and offer them full tribal citizenship,
leading to the formation within the tribal nations
of unique communities of 'Freedmen',
the former slaves of the tribes.
By the end of the war,
Bass had learned to speak Muskogee,
the language of the Creeks and Seminoles
and was conversant in the languages
of the other tribes.
He mastered firearms,
learning to fire both pistol and rifle
near-perfect with either hand.
He had become very familiar with the Indian Territory,
possibly working
as a scout and guide for deputy marshals.
Bass was not yet a lawman,
but the skills he now possessed
made him more than qualified for the job.
After the Civil War,
the movement westward gained momentum
and as the settlers came,
new, lawless towns were established.
In the thirty years following the Civil War,
over one million new farms were established in the West
and a great deal of it was due to the Homestead Act
and through other government acts
which made it easy to acquire federal land.
So, the farmers are headed that way.
If the farmers are gonna be out there in numbers,
then the merchants in the town,
see, farmers weren't the only pioneers,
the mountain men weren't the only pioneers,
the cowboys weren't the only pioneers,
there were urban pioneers as well.
And urban pioneers
were the men who wanted to get in on the adventure,
but their talent
perhaps was as merchants.
And they would come into
these new places
and they'd open the first general store,
the first blacksmith shop,
the first little hotel,
and other things.
And all of a sudden,
a town takes shape.
A preacher might be an urban pioneer
and he would come in and open the first church.
Certainly that applied to school teachers.
A professor or a school
marm would come in and open the first school.
And all of a sudden,
you got a school, and a couple of stores,
and a blacksmith shop, and a church,
and all of that, you've got a little town growing
and serving the farmers and the ranchers of the area.
- By 1870, Bass had returned from the Indian Territory
to the county of his birth.
He put down roots in Van Buren,
Crawford County,
Arkansas and brought his wife Jennie,
their four children -
Sarah, age six,
Robert, age four,
Harriet, age two,
and George, age six months
as well as his mother and sister.
Bass Reeves is just so dynamic
in that he was born a slave,
he freed himself from his slavery,
escaped, became a self-made person in many
many ways,
having by several accounts
lived among
several different tribes in Indian Territory,
learned their languages,
learned their abilities, and their skills
and then after the war was over,
went and found the woman who
was to be his wife,
came back to the Fort Smith area,
lived in Van Buren,
established a successful,
by all accounts,
a successful farm,
raised horses and was known for doing that.
Van Buren was where the federal court
was for the Indian Territory,
so, it was a very important location.
And so for Bass then to work with the Deputy
U.S. Marshals for the Van Buren court
it had attraction for him to settle there.
- What began as a land claim on the Arkansas River in 1849,
Van Buren became a bustling port
and hub of trade along the river
and the crucial launching point for the hopeful
prospectors of the 1849 Gold Rush.
Situated on the border of Indian Territory,
the town was a hive of activity,
its pulse driven by the ceaseless flow of river traffic,
the rhythmic chugging of railroad commerce,
and a robust mercantile trade
that stood
as the lynchpin of Van Buren's thriving economy.
On October 9, 1850,
the residents of Van Buren
petitioned to have the federal court
seated in their city.
On March 3, 1851,
the Western District of Arkansas
federal court was established there.
For the first ten years of the court,
Judge Daniel Ringo brought law and order to the area,
sentencing White, Native, and Black men to prison or the gallows.
He resigned in 1860
and there is no record of a federal court
operating out of Van Buren for the next ten years.
On March 3, 1871,
the court was moved from Van Buren to Fort Smith.
Fort Smith was one of the largest towns,
I mean it was the largest town
second to Little Rock in Arkansas.
And it was on the border of the Indian Territory
and had been a critical military
base previous to the Civil War.
And so it was in a prime location for the government
to deal with the Five Civilized Tribes.
Located five miles southwest of Van Buren,
Fort Smith was named after General Thomas Adam Smith,
a slave-holding Georgian
who commanded the United States Army Rifle Regiment in 1817.
It was established as a military
post by the U.S. government that same year.
After the officers' quarters
were destroyed by fire in 1870,
the U.S. government considered selling the land.
Instead, the federal court was moved there in 1871.
The city was a busy riverside community
with a large population of outlaws who found
entertainment in the brothels and saloons that lined its dirt streets.
The Fort Smith Court was no ordinary federal court,
and the Indian Territory was no ordinary jurisdiction.
At 74,000 square miles of unmapped trails, hideouts,
deserts, and vast untamed wilderness,
the Western District of Arkansas was at that time
the largest in U.S. history.
There was no extradition treaties
with surrounding states,
with Kansas, or Arkansas, or Texas,
so if an outlaw came into the Indian Territory
he wouldn't worry about being extradited
if he was located per se,
you could be extradited if you were known to be squatting,
but you wouldn't be arrested for that.
So, you know
it became a
great place to hide out.
As time went on though,
crimes were committed.
The major crime for the Deputy
U.S. Marshals was bootleg whiskey,
whiskey was illegal in the Indian Territory.
In 1875, Congress appointed Isaac C. Parker
as the new judge of the Fort Smith court.
A former lawyer,
veteran, and congressman, 35-year-old Parker
was a Republican
who had resigned from the Democratic Party
when he became increasingly dismayed by their tolerance
and passion for slavery.
Shortly after Parker switched parties,
President Ulysses S. Grant
requested that he be appointed to the Western
District as a judge.
As his bailiff,
a position that kept order in the courtroom,
escorted juries and assisted presiding judges,
Isaac Parker hired a Black man named George S. Winston.
Daniel P. Upham,
a former officer of the Union army
who had led the Arkansas
militia to crush the Ku Klux Klan,
was appointed as the U.S. Marshal of Judge Parker's court,
and together
they hired upwards of fifty Deputy U.S. Marshals
to enforce the laws throughout the Indian Territory
and Western Arkansas.
In the untamed landscapes of the Old West,
law was scarce.
And yet, order was essential to the settlers,
miners, ranchers,
and entrepreneurs forging their lives on the frontier.
The embodiment of that order often came on horseback,
badge gleaming in the sun,
riding under the authority of the federal government.
The U.S. Marshal,
a figure cloak in equal parts fear and respect,
held a position of great power and grave responsibility.
Appointed by the president himself,
each marshal was charged with enforcing federal
laws throughout a specific district within a state.
Their duties were manifold--
protecting the federal judiciary,
apprehending federal fugitives,
managing seized assets,
transporting prisoners,
quelling riots,
and keeping the peace.
Yet, the vastness of the Old West
demanded more boots on the ground,
more eyes on the horizon.
When Judge Parker first came on,
he needed the kind of deputy
that he knew he could trust,
and one he knew that could track.
Deputy U.S. Marshals were often locals
who knew the lay of the land.
Sharing many of the same responsibilities
as their appointers,
deputies brought
law enforcement to the furthest reaches of the territories.
They were the badge and the gun in towns
where the marshal's name was just a whisper
on the wind.
Though the distinction may seem trivial to us now,
in the Old West,
the roles of the U.S. Marshal,
the Deputy U.S. Marshal,
and their possemen were integral to the establishment
and preservation of law and order.
Their efforts contributed significantly to
transforming the American West
into a region synonymous with opportunity.
Through their endeavors to uphold the law
and bring outlaws to justice,
they played a key role in establishing communities
and infrastructure
in a land that was rich with potential and diversity.
Deputy marshals,
Deputy U.S. Marshals
and possemen hung out around the federal courthouses
hoping to get a job,
a warrant to serve,
or a posse to serve in,
or whatever.
Furthermore,
they were allowed to split rewards
and so they would go after the bad guys
who had rewards out.
If there was a guy with $100 on his head
or $500 on his head
well then boy you could
imagine that there would be U.S.
Deputy Marshals and possemen after him,
but rarely a U.S. Marshal
because his job was administrative.
The job was dangerous
and required no small amount of bravery
because the outlaws of the Territory
knew every trail and hideout
and was almost certain to resist arrest
for the penalty for doing so
was only one additional year of confinement.
These outlaws were no mere minor offenders,
most of them were murderers,
cattle rustlers,
or horse thieves
and the sentence for these crimes was death.
But, the marshals and their deputies'
jurisdiction had limitations.
The federal government
had no control over what the Native Americans did
except if there were crimes committed against White men
or Black men who were not citizens of Indian nations
or vice versa,
then the U.S. government came in
and those cases were adjudicated
at the Fort Smith court.
And so deputy marshals initially
who had to work out of the Fort Smith court
would have to leave Fort Smith
and they would have to go into the Indian Territory
all the way west to Fort Sill,
Fort Reno, and sometimes to Fort Supply,
and come back to Fort Smith,
it was like a round trip of over 500 miles.
And they would have warrants for certain characters
or they were given open warrants
where they could talk to the people
that lived in the Territory
and found out who committed crimes.
Now the Indians couldn't arrest these non-citizens,
but they could hold them for the Deputy U.S. Marshals
and that happened on many occasions
where they would hold felons for the Deputy
U.S. Marshals to come and pick up.
- Judge Parker's reputation did not aid the deputies
he sent into the field,
for he quickly earned the moniker of "Hanging Judge".
Over the course of his career,
Parker would send seventy-nine convicts to the gallows.
Parker's court was synonymous
with the harshest punishment permissible under the law.
This only made the danger
more pronounced for Deputy U.S. Marshals.
Determined to avoid a date with the hallowed,
outlaws in the Indian Territory and western Arkansas
who were desperate to escape
the near-certainty of death that awaited them
in the courtroom,
would murder as many as 100 deputies
in cold blood.
In no other territory or state in U.S. history
were more Deputy U.S. Marshals killed in the line of duty
than in the Indian Territory.
- To be succinct, it would be a fifty-mile radius
of the town of Muskogee
where the majority of Deputy
U.S. Marshals were killed in the Indian Territory.
So, it was very dangerous.
Today, lawmen can get on their radio and call for backup,
in the Indian Territory,
you couldn't call for backup.
You were out there on your own initiative
in terms of how you could stay alive
and you and your posse had to do that
and then you know
do the job of
arresting those people you were looking for,
and then getting back to Fort Smith safely.
It was a very,
very dangerous job.
- Bass Reeves took up his commission as Deputy U.S. Marshal
on May 28, 1875.
- Judge Isaac Parker is in control at Fort Smith, Arkansas
in the Western District of Arkansas
and it means he's in charge of the U.S. Marshals,
and one of the first hires he makes is Bass Reeves.
Not exactly sure why
except this man had already built up a reputation
for honesty,
for discipline,
he was a big man,
he was 6 foot 2,
this was in an era where most people were 5 foot 8,
so he is big,
he's strong.
Supposedly, he was ambidextrous and
a crack shot,
this was the kind of man that Judge Parker wanted.
And the fact that he was Black
which probably, probably
would have kept him from getting a number of positions,
this made him even more attractive to Judge Parker.
He wanted people of color
to be in the U.S. Marshals Service
because there were people of color
in the Indian Territory,
there were people there
who would not be able to relate to a White officer,
but they might be able to relate to a Black man.
Even some of the Indians would better be able to relate
to a Black man than they could to a White.
While by far
the most famous Black Deputy U.S. Marshal in history,
Bass Reeves was not the first.
In 1867, eight years before Bass received his commission,
the ‘Indian Pioneer Papers’ published a story
in which a Black man known as "Negro Smith"
led a posse to pursue a murderous stagecoach robber
near Atoka in the Choctaw Nation.
And there was at least one other Black Deputy U.S. Marshal
commissioned before Bass.
Bynum Colbert
who was a Civil War veteran and a former
Buffalo Soldier in the Tenth Calvary Regiment,
he got a commission in 1872
three years before Bass Reeves.
Colbert served up until 1895
and so he served for a long time
and was a very good lawman.
- Bass led a distinct class of Black Deputy U.S. Marshals.
Bob Fortune was born in Bowling Green, Virginia
on June 15, 1865
and served as Deputy U.S. Marshal from 1895
until his resignation in 1907.
- He often rode with fellow Black Deputy U.S. Marshals
Neely Factor and Zeke Miller.
Grant Johnson's parents had been held in slavery
by Native Americans.
He served as Deputy U.S. Marshal from 1888 until 1906.
He and Bass were lifelong friends.
There was also John Garrett
who became one of the many Deputy U.S. Marshals
who lost their lives in The Territory.
He was shot three times by the Rufus Buck Gang
in an ambush on July 30, 1895.
Before Garrett died of his injuries,
he identified the man who fired the shots as Rufus Buck.
The gang was captured
and sentenced twice to death by Judge Parker.
They were all hanged for John Garrett's murder
on July 1, 1896.
These Black Deputy U.S. Marshals
were members of a cohort of former slaves turned lawmen
and they were met with resistance
as Bass found out
shortly after his commission.
In July 1875,
after only two months on the job,
Bass was arrested for assault with intent to kill.
No details of the case
known as "The State of Arkansas v. Bass Reeves"
have survived.
The "Van Buren Press" reported that a jury found Bass
not guilty in September of that year.
Whatever the details of the incident,
neither Judge Parker nor his U.S. Marshal Daniel P. Upham
could find cause to dismiss Bass.
And so, his career as a Deputy U.S. Marshal began.
In the wake of the Civil War,
the Reconstruction era
marked a pivotal period in the nation's history,
characterized by efforts to rebuild
and redefine the United States.
Fueled by this mandate,
on March 17, 1877,
two years after Bass Reeves began his commission
as a Deputy U.S. Marshal in Arkansas,
in a groundbreaking move,
President Rutherford B. Hayes
appointed Frederick Douglass
as the first Black U.S. Marshal for Washington D.C..
This significant decision by the federal government
not only symbolized a commitment to integrating Blacks
into prominent positions of authority,
but also set a precedent for future appointments.
- Douglass was the... he was a fascinating individual,
as you well know,
we called him the
person of the 19th century,
he was the man in
in the spotlight
and he had wanted to become a cabinet person
in one of the presidential appointments,
but he never got that.
Douglass was officially the first Black CEO in law enforcement.
His nomination was opposed
and there were crazy
reasons for why his nomination was opposed:
number one, he was going to Africanize the courts,
he was going to get all the jurors,
all the jurors going to be Black
all the bailiffs were going to be Black.
So, with Douglass that opposition was there.
Although Frederick Douglass and Bass Reeves
likely never crossed paths,
Douglass's appointment
was a fleeting beacon of progressive change
and an indication
of the evolving roles of Black men in law enforcement
during Reconstruction.
However, the federal government's mandate of
transformation and integration
after the Civil War came to a close that same year
with the compromise of 1877,
which effectively ended Reconstruction
by withdrawing federal troops from the South
and marking a shift in the nation's approach to civil
rights and racial equality.
Despite the official end of Reconstruction,
in the Old West,
Black men would continue to serve as Deputy U.S. Marshals
for another two decades,
a testament to their efficacy
and the loyalty of their colleagues.
The first several years of Bass's career
served as a period of training
as he learned the ins and outs of the job.
In June 1877,
he was serving
as a posseman for Deputy U.S. Marshal Robert J. Topping
when they arrested a man who had stolen oxen,
and again with Deputy U.S. Marshal James H. Mershon
in 1880
when they arrested two men for selling illegal whiskey
in the Indian Territory.
In December 1878,
Bass served as a guard during the execution
of James Diggs and John Postoak.
He also acted as a guard
alongside other Deputy U.S. Marshals and George Maledon,
Judge Parker's executioner,
during the transportation of prisoners
from Fort Smith federal jail
to the House of Corrections in Detroit, Michigan.
Bass did quite well financially.
A Deputy U.S. Marshal could expect to earn $500 in salary.
In addition,
he would earn approximately 75%
of the bounty on the prisoners he returned to court,
the other quarter went to the marshal himself.
It's a testament to Bass's drive,
determination,
and intense commitment to delivering outlaws
that he earned around $3,000 to $4,000 a year,
which made him one of the top grossing deputies
at Fort Smith.
He built an eight-room cottage in Van Buren,
across the street from the Crawford County Treasurer,
a White man named August J. Ward.
He would regularly receive guests in his home
such as attorneys William H. H. Clayton,
a prosecutor,
and William M. Craves,
a public defender
who would take the train from Fort Smith to Van Buren
to discuss cases with Bass over dinner.
As Bass became more experienced,
he would pursue more dangerous criminals,
oftentimes on his own
and other times with other Deputy U.S. Marshals
or with his eldest sons forming his crew.
He would have to hire a cook,
he would have to hire a guard,
and at least one posseman.
Most times, Bass
did not hire many possemen,
you could hire four or five if you wanted to,
but Bass generally just took one with him
and you have one wagon or two wagons.
Preparations to enter the Indian Territory
in pursuit of criminals could take days
and sometimes weeks
and once the Deputy U.S. Marshals eventually set off,
there were further considerations.
The Deadline,
a term commonly used in the Old West,
referred to a designated boundary
beyond which U.S. Marshals had limited jurisdiction.
For Deputy U.S. Marshals working out of Fort Smith,
the Missouri Kansas Texas Railroad tracks
located approximately sixty miles west of Fort Smith,
was considered their Deadline.
The MKT tracks served as a geographical reference point
and a symbolic division
between the territory under federal jurisdiction
and the Indian Territory,
which had its own legal system.
Although their jurisdiction typically
ended at the MKT tracks,
Deputy U.S. Marshals would
on occasion
cross the Deadline in pursuit of outlaws
or to assist local native law enforcement.
- You could be on that trip for one to two months.
Many times it was two months
depending on
if the water was high and the creeks and the rivers.
And so it will be a long time to be away from home,
to be away from your family.
Bass quickly proved his skill
in bringing criminals to justice.
He certainly had a reputation of
going out with several warrants in his pocket
and coming back with multiple people in tow.
That's how good he was,
not just I'll go out and get one guy,
I'll go out and get several people at the same time.
Bass was illiterate,
he could not read and write.
He would memorize the warrants
and take them into the
Indian Territory and serve the warrants.
He had no idea specifically
what was on those warrants,
but before he went out,
he would have somebody
sometimes it was somebody in his own family,
read those warrants to him,
he would memorize them,
including descriptions of the person,
what they were wanted for,
where they were believed to be at the time,
and he'd go out and do the job.
And he did it so, so well.
- He got so good at handling the warrants that he had,
the federal court started giving him
subpoenas to handle out
for people to appear in court
and so he would
not only have his warrants,
he'd have subpoenas to handle
to bring back.
And he would have to find the person
and tell them that they had to appear,
you know appear in court
to give testimony.
And he did all of that
without being able to read and write,
and did it well.
The legend of Bass Reeves
is not merely built on his being a Black Deputy Marshal,
he also displayed a supreme
command of law enforcement tactics
decades ahead of their time.
His intelligence and perception as a lawman
were as legendary
as his gun-fighting abilities.
During his years among the Native Americans,
Bass had mastered the arts of deception and disguise.
Instead of riding his prize steeds in Indian Territory,
he would instead ride plain-colored, slower horses
so as to blend in to his surroundings
and hide his identity as a lawman.
Donning disguises would become a regular
component of Bass's crime-fighting skills
over the course of his career.
These tactics,
precursors of undercover work
that local and federal police
would use throughout the next century,
would cement Bass's legacy
not just as a federal lawman,
but as a master detective.
He was able to take on personas
in order to help lull people into thinking
he was somebody else
right before he would slap the cuffs on them.
He was able to out-think the people he was with,
but then in many ways,
and I think part of it was the times.
Just being the period following the Civil War,
as a Black man in this part of the country,
he could walk around virtually unseen
because he was just another Black man
in this part of the country
and he could get to places where no White deputy
was ever going to be able to find them.
Bass was a skilled and decisive gunman.
Throughout his three decades of service,
he would deal swift
frontier justice to outlaws
who thought it was wise to fight their capture
rather than give up and face Judge Parker's court.
He gained a reputation
throughout his time in the Marshals Service,
in fact, throughout his time
of being a lawman,
and he basically was a lawman for the rest of his life,
of being about the best that there was.
He had some tough assignments.
We know that
at least it's reported
that he killed 14 men.
- While Bass was involved in a number of shootings
that left his opponents dead,
he knew that cold-blooded
executions would not be tolerated.
Judge Parker would just as soon charge a deputy
with unjustified murder as he would any outlaw.
Despite his many talents,
his steadfastness,
his loyalty,
Bass would constantly face criticism
in the courts of law and public opinion
and in the press.
The "Fort Smith Weekly Elevator" noted,
'It seems that Bass
has had a habit of letting a prisoner escape
when more could be made than by holding him'.
An accusation that had no merit.
Bass was often falsely portrayed as a lazy,
blood-hungry murderer
who would rather kill his charges
than bring them to court.
He was not a man of violence,
he never had that reputation.
But certainly, when you were in the territories,
some of the people there were not going to give up.
They were going to fight,
because perhaps they faced the death penalty,
or even worse
for some of them,
they faced going to prison for years
and they couldn't stand the thought of that.
They would fight,
he was the wrong man to fight with.
On April 9, 1884,
bound for Fort Smith with five prisoners in tow,
Bass and his posse,
which included his nephew John Brady
who was driving the team of horses, and a cook,
a Black man named William Leach,
made camp near Cherokee town
in the Chickasaw Nation of Indian Territory.
A heated argument broke out between Bass and William Leach.
Later that night in camp,
according to Bass's testimony,
he was changing the bullets in his rifle
when he accidentally shot Leach.
He reportedly sought a doctor,
but could not find one in time to save Leach's life.
Despite his involvement in the deaths of numerous outlaws,
it was this accidental shooting
that would overshadow much of Bass's career.
The reluctance of his fellow Deputy U.S. Marshals
and Judge Parker to pursue charges
is evident in the fact that it would be three years
before he faced trial for Leach's death.
Temporarily free from prosecution,
Bass carried on with his duties as a Deputy U.S. Marshal
and turned his attention to the capture
and arrest of Jim Webb,
a Texan cowboy
who had drifted into the Chickasaw Nation
in Indian Territory in 1883.
Jim Webb was the foreman of the McLeish-Washington Ranch.
When a neighboring farmer,
a Black minister,
accidentally burned off a portion of the ranch,
Webb shot and killed him.
Bass was given the warrant
and Webb was arrested and released on bond,
but failed to show up for trial.
Bass was sent after him again.
He found him at Bywater Store,
which was a stagecoach stop in the Chickasaw Nation
and they got into a running gunfight.
Webb, while trying to run away from
Bass, was shooting at him with his rifle.
He cut the brim of Bass's hat,
he cut a button off his coat,
he shot his reigns where Bass couldn't hold his horse.
And so Bass had to get off his horse and in doing so,
he grabbed his rifle.
According to D.C. Gideon,
an author writing at the time,
Bass fired the first shot from his Winchester,
hitting Webb.
And before the outlaw's body hit the ground,
Bass hit him with a second shot from his rifle.
When Bass and his posse approached the dying Webb,
his last words were for Bass,
telling him:
'You are a brave man.
I want you to accept my revolver
and scabbard as a present
and you must accept them.
Take it, for with it
I have killed eleven men,
four of them in Indian Territory
and I expected you to make the twelfth.'
Bass accepted the gift. In an interview he gave in 1901,
Bass recalled:
'The bravest man I ever saw was Jim Webb,
a Mexican that I killed in 1884
near Sacred Heart Mission.
He was a murderer,
I got in between him and his horse.
He stepped out into the open 500 yards away
and commenced shooting with his Winchester.
He was 500 yards away from me when I killed him.'
That was one of Bass's greatest gunfights
especially at that distance, because
500 yards is a quarter mile
and so,
it was quite a feat to shoot somebody at that
distance and hit them.
But Bass was very good with a rifle and pistol.
Bass came into conflict
with the law again in October 1884,
when he was temporarily relieved of his duties
as a deputy by the U.S. Marshal’s Office in Fort Smith
while charges of accepting bribes were being investigated.
After two months,
Marshal Thom Bowles determined
that there was not enough evidence to prove his guilt
and he was reinstated by Christmas 1884.
Bass continued tracking
and bringing in outlaws in the Indian Territory
throughout 1885.
The following year,
he made a surprising friendship with Belle Starr,
the infamous outlaw
whom he set out to serve with a warrant
for horse theft.
At first glance,
serving Belle Starr,
a daughter of the Confederacy,
with a warrant for her arrest
was an especially difficult and dangerous assignment
for a Black Deputy U.S. Marshal.
- Belle Starr was one of the most famous characters
of the Indian Territory
and she was known to give aid
to outlaws and sometimes be engaged herself
in stealing horses.
She was a former Confederate sympathizer.
She was fond of Bass Reeves.
She said that she found him to be courageous and brave
and he was a man of his word,
so they had a friendship.
And actually, in 1886,
Bass got the warrant for her arrest.
He didn't arrest her,
but allowed her to turn herself in.
- This unlikely friendship between Bass Reeves
and Belle Starr,
a Black former slave turned lawman
and a White Confederate sympathizer-
turned-outlaw,
highlights the complexity of the Old West.
In a time of stark racial and social divides,
Belle Starr's respect for him
is a testament to Bass's fair
and impartial approach to upholding justice,
and to the multifaceted reality of life on the frontier.
On January 21, 1886,
Bass experienced the reach of the law up close
when he was arrested
and charged with the murder of his cook
William Leach.
Given no special treatment,
he was placed in the Fort Smith jail.
- The Democrats had taken power in Washington,
we had a new,
a new federal prosecutor
and they really kind of wanted to get rid of all the
vestiges of Reconstruction
and these Black deputy marshals and other appointees
were certainly that.
- The U.S. Marshal for Fort Smith in 1886 was John Carroll,
one of only two former Confederate soldiers
who held the post during Bass's tenure.
The press was not on Bass's side.
When reporting on Bass's arrest,
the January 22, 1886 edition of the "Arkansas Gazette",
published in the capital city of Little Rock reads:
'Reeves has been constantly
on the Marshals' force here for several years,
and notwithstanding rumors reached here frequently
that he was in league with some of the worst cutthroats
and outlaws in the Indian country,
he managed to cover up his tracks so effectually
as to retain his commission
until the recent Marshal took charge,
when he was removed.'
The reporting against Bass
continued in his hometown press.
In the January 23, 1886
edition of the "Van Buren Press",
the paper reads:
'Bass Reeves has a reputation throughout western
Arkansas and the Indian Territory that no man need envy.
It is said that when he was riding as deputy,
he was in the habit of holding "kangaroo court" in camp
and extorting small sums of money from prisoners
by fining them for small
imaginary offenses
and would use the money to buy tobacco, etc.'
Although faced with these charges,
Bass was never proven guilty of bribery.
The extent of the bias that the "Van Buren Press"
held against him was underscored when
in the paper was printed
a dangerous accusation
that could have led to a horrific death by lynching
for any Black man in the 19th century.
The "Van Buren Press" reads:
'It was charged at one time he made an insulting
proposal to a White woman in the Territory
and his conduct was investigated by the grand jury
and his dismissal was the force
recommended by that body,
but for some reason
he was not dismissed
but let to go on making history,
all of which will come to light in due time.'
None of these allegations
against Bass were ever substantiated
nor was he ever found guilty of these charges.
What is undisputed
is that Bass shot and killed William Leach.
Having spent five months in jail,
he was bailed out on $3,000 bond in June 1886.
Four months later,
the trial began.
Judge Isaac Parker presided over the trial
and Bass had the best defense attorneys in Fort Smith:
William H.H. Clayton,
William M. Cravens, and Thomas Markham.
Any relief that Bass may have felt with Judge Parker
presiding would almost certainly have been tempered
by Parker's reputation as the "Hanging Judge".
- He was acquitted, after a week-long trial
and went back to work.
And I think that is what sets him apart in my mind.
Instead of saying, well take this job and shove it.
That he pinned his badge back on and his pistol
and he got on his horse and he took
a handful of warrants
after having spent some five months in the federal jail,
it was not pleasant,
and go back to work.
He lost his farm in Van Buren,
he lost his
ability to take care of his family here in the area.
He'd gotten into debt,
was living in a rented home in Fort Smith.
Even though Bass
had more than two decades of work left ahead of him,
he would never financially recover.
- By 1888 Bass was recommissioned as a Deputy U.S. Marshal.
It was a time of change in the Indian Territory.
The Dawes Severalty Act of 1887
divided the Indian Territory into plots,
allowing settlers to claim surplus lands.
In 1889, Congress opened the western part of The Territory
for settlement by White and Black settlers.
On May 2, 1890,
Congress approved an act that created The Territory of Oklahoma,
which comprised all areas formerly known as the Indian Territory
that were not occupied by the Five Civilized Tribes.
The creation of The Territory of Oklahoma
led to the rapid establishment of new towns,
such as Guthrie,
resulting in the emergence of a new class of criminals.
Indian Territory did not have saloons
and so whiskey was illegal.
The Oklahoma Territory,
whiskey was legal,
so they had saloons.
And so, what some enterprising people did,
they decided that since it was such a great attraction
for many of these people
that lived in the Indian Territory,
they would set up saloons on the border.
- These "whiskey towns" were populated by gamblers,
bootleggers, murderers,
and many other outlaws on the run from the law.
In fact, the term "bootlegging" entered the lexicon
from the drovers and cowboys
who would conceal whiskey in their boots
to sneak into the dry Indian Territory nearby.
Whiskey towns
would similarly be the origin of "last chance" saloons,
as in the last chance to get liquor
before entering Indian Territory.
- The Corner was the most dangerous of all of them
there were so many gunfights
they said that
gun shells were on the ground like pebbles or stones.
They were really bad places.
And so those saloons were saloons that Bass
had to go into on occasion and deal with customers
that were really, really
rough guys.
But Bass was one of the few Deputy
U.S. Marshals who are noted to go
into these notorious saloons.
While people of all ethnicities
sought the chance for a new life in these western lands,
there was a prominent migration of Black settlers.
Among the new inhabitants of Oklahoma Territory
were 10,000 Blacks
coming primarily from southern states.
Oklahoma and the Indian Territories
became home to over thirty Black towns and settlements,
the highest concentration in the U.S. at that time.
Tullahassee,
the oldest Black town,
housed a manual labor school for Creek freedmen
and later became home to Flipper Davis College,
the state's only private institution for Black students
in the early 20th century.
Boley, the largest Black town,
boasted a thriving business district and bank.
Booker T. Washington referred to Boley as the most enterprising
and fascinating Negro town in the United States.
Langston was established by Edward P. McCabe,
the highest elected Black official in the West.
Langston eventually
became the home of Langston University,
the sole historically Black college in Oklahoma.
McCabe advocated
for more Black towns in the Territories,
envisioning Oklahoma as a predominantly Black state
with himself as its governor.
Despite facing intense threats and opposition
from armed White cowboys and ranchers,
McCabe rose to become Deputy Auditor of Oklahoma
Territory from 1897 to 1907
before passing away in poverty.
Although his dreams for Oklahoma did not materialize,
Black settlers continued to play a
significant role in the region's future.
The year 1890
found Bass still working in the Indian Territory,
and it would be his most
productive year
since the end of his murder trial in 1887.
One of the first outlaws he pursued was Tosalonah,
known as "Greenleaf",
a Seminole Indian
who had been on the run for nearly two decades.
Greenleaf was believed to have murdered three Whites
and four Indians,
with one of his victims being a federal postal worker,
as well as armed robbery and whiskey smuggling.
Bass set off into Seminole territory
in search of the infamous outlaw.
While numerous lawmen of the time
had been sent to capture him,
they were all unsuccessful.
Fortune, however,
favored Bass
for he happened to be nearby
when Greenleaf smuggled whiskey
into the Indian Territory for the last time.
Bass ascertained where he was living
and decided that the safest thing to do
was to try to catch him early in the morning
before he woke up.
So, Bass had his posse
charge the cabin early in the morning,
jumped in on Greenleaf
and they arrested him before he realized
what was going on.
In June,
Greenleaf was convicted of the lesser charge of selling
whiskey in Indian Territory and fined $100.
He was put on the train to the Detroit
House of Corrections,
sentenced to serve 18 months.
There was not enough
evidence to convict him of the murder charge.
- Bass was no stranger to the prejudices of people
unaccustomed to seeing
Black men wield the authority of the federal government.
From his youth,
Bass would have remembered how the Fugitive
Slave Act of 1850 had obligated U.S. Marshals
and their deputies
to return escaped slaves to their owners,
irrespective of whether or not the fugitives
had made it to a free state.
While racism had made Bass's job more difficult,
it had not prevented him from becoming one of the most
successful and effective Deputy U.S. Marshals in the West.
But, times were changing
and the gains
made by Blacks after the Civil War were under threat.
From 1890 onwards,
race would increasingly become a daily
concern to Bass in the performance of his duties.
And surviving evidence
suggests that the new pressures of the changing world
and the uncertainty of his future with the federal
government were getting to him.
In May 1891,
he brought in two White men--
William McDaniel and Ben Card--
for the murder of John Irvin,
a Black man.
Bass did not have warrants for their arrest.
For two months,
Bass rode the men around in his wagon.
When he returned to Fort Smith,
Bass had to let the men go without charge.
He was likely reprimanded for making the arrests
without a writ or enough evidence to support one.
Perhaps finding strength in numbers shortly thereafter,
Bass formed a small posse with his friend
and fellow Black Deputy U.S. Marshal Grant Johnson.
In May 1893,
George Crump was appointed
as the new U.S. Marshal for the Fort Smith court.
Crump was a former Confederate soldier and a Democrat.
Bass's career at Fort Smith would come to an end
a few months later.
Crump's veteran status and political
leanings were not the cause of Bass leaving Fort Smith,
the former Confederate kept on other Black deputies
such as Rufus Cannon,
Grant Johnson,
and Bynum Colbert.
Bass's departure from Fort Smith
was for personal reasons.
In July 1893,
two months after Crump's appointment,
Bass's eldest son
Robert was killed while at work
coupling cars as a brakeman for the Central Arkansas &
Houston Railway.
He left behind a wife and two children.
In his youth,
Robert had occasionally served as a posseman
while out hunting outlaws with his father.
Bass sought distance.
Now 45-years-old,
he was transferred to the
Eastern District of Texas court in Paris, Texas.
He had had an enduring
friendly relationship with Judge Isaac Parker
that extended to the Reeves family.
After Bass left Fort Smith,
his son Newland
was listed in the Fort Smith Business Directory
as working for and living with Judge Parker
for the years 1894 and 1895.
Bass's grief for the loss of his firstborn son
seems to have been substantial
and appears to have put a strain on his marriage.
When he took up his new position for the Texas court,
he left his wife
Jennie and his children behind.
- In the Senate Report of the First Session of the 48th Congress
on May 26, 1884,
bill H.R. 6074
reassigned the county of Lamar, and others
along with part of the Indian Territory,
from the Northern Judicial District of Texas
to the Eastern District.
It further determined
that the terms of the circuit and district courts
would be held twice yearly in the town of Paris,
Lamar County, Texas.
Paris was founded in 1844 by the merchant George W. Wright.
After the residents of Lamar County
voted to have Paris as the county seat,
Wright donated 50 acres of land to found the town.
It was incorporated by the
Congress of the Republic of Texas on February 3, 1845.
A railroad hub with numerous restaurants,
hotels, and churches,
Paris was prosperous.
In 1893, the year that Bass was assigned to the
Eastern District of Texas,
Paris was the scene of a horrific act of violence
that would give birth to the phrase "Spectacle Lynching".
A Black man,
Henry Smith,
was accused of the brutal murder of Myrtle Vance,
the 4-year-old daughter of Deputy Henry Vance,
a local lawman.
Some days before,
Vance and Smith had been involved in an altercation
after Vance was sent to arrest
Smith for drunk and disorderly conduct.
On the day of her disappearance,
Smith had been seen with the little girl.
When questioned by his wife
on the whereabouts of the child,
Smith fled Paris.
A few days later,
he was tracked down and returned to the town
where he was lynched by fire in front of a crowd of thousands.
Racial tensions in the town were high when Bass
began his service for the Eastern District.
Under U.S. Marshal J. Shelby Williams,
Bass was tasked to patrol the dangerous saloon towns
of Potawatomie County in Indian Territory
and he took up residence 120 miles north of Paris
in the town of Calvin
situated along the Canadian River in the Choctaw Nation.
Historically,
the Paris, Texas court
was in charge of the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nation
by 1890, so the jurisdiction of the Fort Smith court
was being cut down in size.
The records of the Eastern Judicial
District of Texas were destroyed in a fire in 1916,
therefore little is known of Bass's activities
during his time there.
At least one account of Bass's work in Texas
survives outside court records.
A Texas pioneer named J. B. Sparks wrote,
'Bass Reeves was a Negro,
but he was a U.S. Marshal and made a brave officer.
He was sent to get two outlaws near Atwood.
He caught and arrested them
and that night
he went to Frank Casey's home
and had them fix beds in the yard
so he could sleep with both prisoners handcuffed to him.'
The years away
would bring more personal tragedies for Bass
as his family fell apart in his absence.
In June 1895,
his sons Newland and Edgar
were arrested and sentenced to several years in prison.
Edgar was eventually
pardoned by the governor of Arkansas
in exchange for his testimony against his brother.
The arrest and conviction of his sons
was a great disappointment to Bass,
but he continued his service to the federal court.
On March 19, 1896
Bass's estranged wife Jennie died in Fort Smith
following a two year battle with cancer.
She was 56-years-old.
A few months later,
on May 18, 1896,
the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case of Homer
Plessy v. Ferguson,
a direct challenge to segregation laws.
The court ruled that separate facilities
for Blacks and Whites were constitutional
as long as the facilities were 'equal'.
This snowballed and quickly extended to restaurants,
bathrooms, schools,
theaters, and other facets of public life.
After Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896,
and it was a
the racism came to a new crest
in a separate, but equal kind of phase.
The restrictions against deputies who were Black
began to kick in.
It is probable that Bass
felt some sense of betrayal at this ruling.
The very government
he had been in service to for the past two decades
had determined that while he was a man
deserving of equal facilities as Whites,
he was not deserving of
access to the same facilities as Whites.
Bass had cleared the saloons of outlaws,
yet was now told he could not drink there.
The federal government had embarked
upon an ambitious quest to ensure frontier justice
was dispensed by men of all races.
Bass exemplified this effort.
Yet, no one could halt the nation's move
towards segregation
sanctioned by the Supreme Court.
On September 1, 1896,
Judge Isaac C. Parker's
court at Fort Smith officially came to a close.
Two months later,
Judge Parker,
who had presided over a fair and just court
and whom Bass considered a friend,
died after a long illness at the age of fifty-eight.
Bass's career was in flux once again
when in September 1897,
President William McKinley appointed Leo E. Bennett
as U.S. Marshal for the Northern
District of the Indian Territory.
In '97 he was transferred to the
Muskogee court
because at that time
they had opened up three courts in Indian Territory:
one was at Ardmore,
one was at McCallister,
and the other one was at Muskogee.
Marshal Bennett commissioned Bass and his friend
Grant Johnson
as Deputy U.S. Marshals
assigned to the federal court in Muskogee.
They would primarily work in the Creek
and Cherokee nations under Judge John Robert Thomas.
This was the last federal court that Bass would serve.
Bass and Grant joined an impressive
group of seasoned Deputy U.S. Marshals
working for Bennett out of the Muskogee court.
By 1898, an increasing number of White settlers
were streaming into the Indian Territory,
bringing with them the prejudices of the era.
This led to racial violence.
Two of the most horrific events
occurred in early 1898
in the Northern District of the Indian Territory.
The first incident,
known as the Seminole Burnings,
occurred in January 1898.
A White woman and her young infant were found
dead in the Seminole Nation,
with murder the suspected cause.
Instead of waiting for the law to deliver justice,
two young Native
Americans were erroneously identified as the culprits.
They were lynched by fire.
The perpetrators,
all White men,
were apprehended and put on trial.
Six of the men were convicted by a jury
composed of White,
Black, and Native American men,
making the case the first successful prosecution
and conviction for lynching in the southwest.
Later that spring, in the same area,
another act of mob violence claimed three lives,
when a Black man and a White woman
who were living as common law
husband and wife, were attacked by a mob and killed.
The crime was known as the Wybark Tragedy.
Because of Bass's work,
several men were arrested as suspects. However,
despite the efforts of the District Attorney's office,
no one was ever convicted of the murders.
In May 1898,
Bass was assigned to work inside the city of Muskogee
with a mandate to assist in curbing the vice that was
overflowing from the gambling dens and brothels.
The days of hunting down outlaws
and riding his magnificent horses
across the prairie for weeks or months at a time
were now gone.
Bass was 60-years-old,
and he more commonly used a one-horse carriage
or walked a beat
than he spent time in the saddle.
The one constant from his days in the field
was his dedication to catching criminals.
On May 27, 1902,
the U.S. Congress divided the Northern
District of Indian Territory into two,
creating a Western District.
The Western District
was comprised of the Creek and Seminole nations
and headquartered in Muskogee.
Bass, along with Grant Johnson,
were the only two Black Deputy U.S. Marshals
assigned to the new district.
By the 1890s,
the Indian and Oklahoma Territory population
exceeded 200,000
a leap from 60,000 in 1875.
In 1893, Congress allowed negotiations for Native land,
and the 1898 Curtis Act applied federal law to all,
signaling the Territory's decline.
Allotments distributed for U.S. settlement
ended Native sovereignty and sped up Oklahoma's statehood.
Incorporated in 1898,
Muskogee's voters included 1,088 Blacks,
74 Whites, and 406 Native Americans.
The population of Muskogee continued to skyrocket
from 4,300 in 1900 to 15,000 by 1906,
but despite their numbers,
Blacks' voices remained secondary
in politics.
Blacks, Whites,
and Native Americans lived together in relative peace,
without segregated communities.
In fact, at the turn of the century,
Muskogee had one of the most progressive Black business
communities in not just the Indian Territory,
but the entire United States.
- This was a time of personal contentment for Bass
and a second chance at marital happiness.
In January 1900,
he married Winnie J. Sumner,
a former Cherokee slave
with two children from a previous marriage.
Being newly married did not slow Bass down.
On May 8, 1900,
he arrested Lee Peters for the theft of five
hogs and one sow,
valued at sixty dollars.
Peters was convicted
and sentenced to serve one year and one day
at the penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
The following year
Bass would suffer the loss of yet another son
when his youngest,
Bass Reeves Jr.
died of pneumonia in Muskogee at the age of fourteen.
Bass had suffered the loss of three children
and witnessed two more sons sent to prison,
tragedies that would test the resolve of the
strongest men.
But, it was the arrest of his son Benjamin
a year later in 1902
that would stand as testament to his unwavering
commitment to the law and his strength of character.
In his confession,
Benjamin Reeves details the circumstances
of the crime he committed:
'On the morning of June 7,
1902 about 11:00am,
I called upon my wife at her cousin's house in Muskogee
asked her if it was true she was having
or did have improper relations with John Wadley,
she answered me that she thought
more of his little finger than she did of my whole body.
By constant worry over her actions
and the breaking up of my home
and receiving such an answer,
I lost all control and shot her.'
Further down the page beside the question
'Where and by whom were you arrested?'
Benjamin Reeves wrote: 'Muskogee by Bass Reeves,
my father who was Deputy Marshal.'
Reportedly, shortly after the murder,
as word began to spread throughout the town,
Bass walked
into Marshal Bennett's office and said simply,
'Give me the writ'.
Bass took up the warrant himself,
he was humiliated,
a member of his own family doing this,
humiliated beyond belief.
But, he said
this is my responsibility and I'll do it
and how many men would do that?
Would have the guts,
the fortitude,
whatever to go out and arrest their own son for first
degree murder?
And that was what he did.
Bass went to the home
in the northern section of Muskogee
where he knew Benny was
was at and told Benny to give yourself up,
I don't want to have to shoot you,
just come out.
And the people that were following Bass
when he went up to the house told Benny
don't do anything stupid or Bass will kill you.
He brought him in
and he made sure that he was taken care of,
but he also allowed the judicial system to play out
as it was going to do.
His son broke the law,
he had to pay.
- Bass handed over his son to Marshal Bennett for trial.
Benjamin was found guilty on January 22, 1903,
sentenced to life in prison
and transferred to the federal prison at Leavenworth
in February.
In Leavenworth, Benjamin was a model prisoner.
On November 13, 1914
having served eleven years of his sentence,
he was pardoned and released from custody.
Despite the heavy burden that the arrest and
conviction of his son must have placed on the 64-year-old
lawman, Bass
continued his duties as Deputy U.S. Marshal,
serving the community of Muskogee.
He was chasing
outlaws with the vigor of a man half his age
and in line with the times,
his arrests were now generally
limited to Black criminals.
On November 11,
he arrested Jameson Brown
who was wanted for larceny in the Creek Nation.
Brown stole a horse, saddle,
bridle, and blanket valued at $117.
He was convicted and sentenced to five years
in Leavenworth.
He arrested Dick Lucky,
a resident of the Creek Nation,
on March 11, 1904
for selling cattle that he did not own.
Lucky was sentenced to sixteen
months of confinement at Leavenworth.
Later that year,
Bass arrested J.A. Tatnull
for burglary and larceny in Muskogee.
Tatnull was accused of stealing twenty pairs of shoes,
twelve hats, and one pair of pants
for a total of $94 worth of goods
from the Barbee and Company department store.
He pled guilty
and was sentenced to four years at Leavenworth.
The year 1905 found Bass as active as he ever was.
On March 4, 1905
he arrested Alfred Barnett
for trying to kill Edward King,
shooting him several times with his pistol.
Barnett was convicted by a jury on May 28, 1906
and sentenced to eighteen months of hard labor
at Leavenworth.
Bass remained a target of would-be assassins.
In 1906,
when he was traveling in his buggy near Wybark,
site of the infamous Wybark Tragedy,
someone fired several shots at him.
Always composed,
Bass quickly shifted on his seat and returned fire.
The assassin's shot
missed him by mere inches.
His career as a Deputy U.S. Marshal
would outlast that of Grant Johnson's,
his friend and colleague.
In February 1906,
Johnson was dismissed from service by Marshal Bennett.
Johnson had been Marshal for fifteen years,
but a personal dispute with another famous marshal
and friend of Bass,
Bud Ledbetter,
would be Johnson's undoing.
Bud Ledbetter
had raided several drugstores in Eufaula,
a city considered to be Johnson's territory.
Johnson was angered by this encroachment.
On the same afternoon
that Ledbetter carried out his raids,
Johnson caught a train to Muskogee,
Ledbetter's territory,
and single-handedly arrested twelve men.
Johnson considered the matter settled.
However, Marshal Bennett did not
and Johnson was relieved of his duties.
Though his career as a Deputy U.S. Marshal was over,
Johnson remained in law enforcement,
serving as a Negro policeman after Oklahoma statehood.
But, his law enforcement powers were limited
to servicing only the Black communities of Eufaula.
It was also around this time
in 1907 that Bass made yet another personal arrest.
Bass had a minister named Hobson
who was selling illegal whiskey,
the church was in arrears
and the church congregation told the minister
they give him approval to sell whiskey
to make some money to catch up with the debts they owed.
Bass found out about it
and he arrested Reverend Hobson
who was the same minister that baptized him.
On November 16, 1907
Oklahoma's territorial period came to an end
and the state of Oklahoma was born.
On that day,
Bass and many of the other Deputy U.S. Marshals
had their photo taken.
The newspapers called them the 'First Federal Family'.
This was their final official act as Deputy U.S. Marshals.
It is fair to say that Bass was a legend in his time.
From a pool of many Deputy U.S. Marshals,
it was Bass who was chosen as the subject
of an article in the Oklahoma City 'Weekly Times Journal'
on Friday, March 8, 1907.
When questioned about his career by the reporter,
Bass simply stated:
'For thirty-one years going on thirty-two,
I have ridden as a Deputy Marshal, Sir.
And when Marshal Bennett goes out of office,
I'm going to farming for a living.'
Despite statehood and his age,
Bass hoped to continue in his role as Deputy U.S. Marshal,
but it was not to be.
The day after statehood,
many of the duties of the Deputy U.S. Marshals
were transferred to municipalities
and counties throughout Oklahoma.
It was the end of an era for Bass in more ways than one.
Jim Crow laws of segregation
were named after a popular vaudeville act
created by Thomas Dartmouth Rice,
who had been performing the act in blackface
as early as 1832.
They had been enacted throughout the States
since the Compromise
of 1877 when federal troops
sent south to enforce the civil rights of freed Blacks
were withdrawn from the southern states
bringing about the end of Reconstruction.
Although President Theodore Roosevelt
refused to sign the Oklahoma state constitution
if it contained Jim Crow laws,
once Oklahoma became a state,
the first law passed by the Oklahoma State Senate
was Senate Bill No. 1,
which made Jim Crow laws legal across the state.
After statehood,
Black men could only become 'Negro Police',
with orders to only arrest other Blacks
in town with a large Black population.
Bass wasn't out of work long.
Now over 70-year-old, walking with a cane,
he was given a beat in downtown Muskogee.
Bass became bedridden during the summer of 1909.
In his final days, he was visited daily by Bud Ledbetter.
On January 12, 1910 at 3 o'clock in the afternoon,
Bass Reeves died of complications from Bright's disease.
He was 71-years-old.
- Bass Reeves was able to go through all of that
and be the person that he was
and have the career that he had
in the face of blistering racism,
in the face of the deadliest
job you could take in the United States at the time.
He would go and do his job that he needed to do
because it was the job that he had to do
as a Deputy U.S. Marshal.
His obituary is printed in newspapers
across the country,
it was printed in New York,
it was printed in Chicago,
it was printed in Los Angeles.
Bass Reeves,
for a short period of time,
was one of the best known individuals in law enforcement.
He paved the way,
he cut that path
so that other deputy marshals,
and I've met a few other deputy marshal,
but during the western time
there's no parallel.
There's no parallel with him,
because there's nothing else
written out there about any other
person that you could compare to Bass Reeves.
So, he stands alone.
- Bass Reeves, one of the most remarkable lawmen,
I don't care if it's a U.S. Marshal or local lawmen,
whatever, probably one of the most remarkable
lawmen in U.S. history.
When reporting on Bass's funeral,
the "Muskogee Phoenix" eulogized
him in a manner that was appreciated only by those
who had not lived under slavery and oppression.
The paper reads:
'Bass Reeves,
Negro, was buried yesterday
and the funeral was attended
by a large number of White people.
Black-skinned,
illiterate, offspring of slaves
whose ancestors were savages,
this simple old man's life stands white and pure
alongside some of our present-day officials.
His simple, honest faith in the righteousness of the law
would brook no disrespect for its mandates.
Bass is dead.
He was buried with high honors,
and his name will be recorded
in the archives of the court
as a faithful servant of the law and a brave officer.
It is fitting that, Black or White,
our people have the manhood to
recognize character and faithfulness to duty.
And it is lamentable that we
as White people must go to this poor,
simple old Negro to learn a lesson
in courage, honesty, and faithfulness to official duty.'
It was men like Bass and countless other Black lawmen,
lawmakers, tradesmen
and women who represented the promise of what America
could have been after the Civil War.
Successful former slaves
who had prospered during Reconstruction
and may have gone on to build wealth for generations
to come. Instead,
their promise and dreams would be crushed
under the oppression of Jim Crow
for another three generations.
The 1910s, 1920s rolls around
and outside of the Fort Smith/
Muskogee area
his name starts to slowly get forgotten.
There are stories in the '50s and '60s
when people start to finally come back to
learning more about Bass Reeves. Through these stories,
they start to find out like
'What do you mean there was a Black deputy?'.
This was a time when
every movie that had law enforcement in it,
Deputy U.S. Marshals
they were all White,
they all were White
law enforcement in a White community
and occasionally
you might have Black characters in the film
or in the TV show,
but they were not that position,
in that role. And so,
people were intrigued by the character of Bass Reeves.
His whole life was dedicated to
to law enforcement.
And from all reports,
a fair and just and
brave man
enforcing the law and doing the best that he could.
What more could you ask of a man?
In my estimation,
the greatest
frontier hero in United States history.
For him to arrest over 3,000 felons,
over a thirty-year career,
kill upwards of twenty people that he had to kill,
became quite proficient with gun and rifle,
probably the greatest gunfighter in the Wild West.
He was the real deal
and he lived it every day of his life.
Walked in the valley of death every day for thirty years
and came out. True American hero.
Bass escaped slavery,
spent decades enforcing the law,
and protecting lives and livelihoods in Indian Territory,
but was never able to shake the
racism that followed him
and witnessed only a short period of progress
before segregation took hold.
He was a lawman
right up until days before his death.
He never hung up his badge,
he never quit
to take pleasure in the ease of retirement
on that farm he spoke of so fondly. In truth,
one can't help but doubt that Bass would have ever
enjoyed a life of retirement
that did not involve bringing criminals to justice.
And although we do not know where Bass is buried,
we need not have a grave to remember his
significant contribution to bringing law,
order, and justice to the Old West.