Bass Reeves was the first black deputy U.S. Marshal to serve west of the Mississippi River a decade after the ratification of the 13th Amendment.
Biography[]
Bass Reeves was born into slavery in Crawford County, Arkansas, in 1838. After severely beating his enslaver, he fled to the vast and lawless land known as the Indian Territory during the chaos of the American Civil War. He became a farmer and lived among the Creek people and other tribes, and in the process, Reeves picked up their languages and customs and earned their respect and trust. Bass stayed in the Indian Territory until he was freed by the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, in 1865.
Because of his familiarity with the region’s diverse population, in 1875, Reeves was recruited into the marshal service by “Hanging Judge” Isaac C. Parker, becoming the first black deputy west of the Mississippi.
Assigned to a district of Arkansas, he also covered the Indian Territory. Empowered with a ‘dead or alive’ mandate and paid by the bounty, Reeves was revered for bringing in some of the most dangerous criminals, being a marksman and having superior detective skills, and making over 3,000 arrests over 32 years— murderers, stagecoach robbers, horse thieves, bootleggers, counterfeiters—and killed at least 14 of them in the line of duty.
When Oklahoma became a state in 1907, Bass Reeves, then 68, became an officer of the Muskogee Police Department. He served for two years before he became ill and retired. He died in 1910 at age 71 in Muskogee and was buried in an unmarked grave.
Legacy[]
In 1921, Oscar Micheaux released a film titled Trust in the Law!, a film which dramatizes the life of Bass Reeves. The film was released only at the Williams Dreamland Theatre during the onslaught of the Tulsa race massacre. The film made a strong impression on a young Will Reeves, who inspired by the lawman would become a police officer for the New York City Police Department and eventually Hooded Justice.[1][2]
Trivia[]
- In real life, Bass Reeves was an American law enforcement officer who had on his record more than 3,000 arrests of dangerous criminals.
- On the HBO series Watchmen, a hooded Bass Reeves (portrayed by Jamal Akakpo) appears in the opening scene of Trust in the Law!, a film playing at the nearly empty Williams Dreamland Theatre as the Tulsa race massacre unfolds outside. The scene depicts Reeves chasing down a white man, whom he ultimately arrests after it’s revealed that he is a “scoundrel” while Reeves is a member of the law -- and the real hero of the story.
- Bass Reeves, was the basis for the Lone Ranger, who was a whitewashed version of him. Hooded Justice was "whitewashed" as well in American Hero Story.
