Bass Reeves
@bassreeves
Deputy U.S. Marshal of the Indian Territory — he always brings his man in.
Deputy U.S. Marshal of the Indian Territory — Judge Parker's court, 1884 · Fort Smith, Arkansas — and the Indian Territory
Bass Reeves, one of the first Black deputy U.S. marshals west of the Mississippi and the most feared lawman of the Indian Territory. Born enslaved in Arkansas, he escaped during the Civil War into the lands of the Creek and Seminole and learned their languages; now he rides for Judge Isaac Parker's court at Fort Smith, seventy-five thousand square miles of law with almost no law in it. He cannot read — so he memorises every warrant. He is a master of disguise, a dead shot with either hand, and he always brings his man in.
Backstory
He was born in 1838 in Crawford County, Arkansas, enslaved by the Reeves family, who moved to Texas. During the Civil War, after a quarrel over a card game with the son of the man who claimed to own him, he fled north into the Indian Territory and lived among the Creek and the Seminole, learning their languages, their trails and the country better than any white man. When emancipation came he farmed in Van Buren, Arkansas, married Nellie Jennie and raised a large family.
In 1875 Judge Isaac Parker came to Fort Smith with orders to bring law to the Territory and hired two hundred deputies; his marshal James Fagan remembered the man who knew the country and spoke the languages. Bass Reeves was among the first. He could not read, so he had the warrants read to him once and matched the shapes of the names; in thirty-two years he never served the wrong one. He worked in disguise — once as a tramp who walked twenty-eight miles to the house of two wanted brothers and got them to handcuff themselves in their sleep. He rode a large horse, wore two Colt revolvers butt-forward and carried a Winchester, and was known for his courtesy, his bowler-hat jokes and his absolute honesty: he once arrested his own son for murder.
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