Bass Reeves: From Slavery to Deputy U.S. Marshal

Bass Reeves was born enslaved and died a respected lawman, having served in Indian Territory (later Oklahoma), Arkansas and Texas. His career ran from the U.S. Federal Court for the Western District of Arkansas in 1875 until two years after Oklahoma became a state in 1907.

Bass Reeves. Image from the National Park Service's page.

Early life

Records of enslaved people were not always kept, but Reeves is believed to have been born in Crawford County, Arkansas, around July 1838. His family — including his mother, Pearlalee, and sister Jane — were enslaved by the family of William Reeves, a veteran of the War of 1812 and the Creek Indian War. Around 1846, most of that family moved with six enslaved people to Texas, to Peter's Colony, just north of today's Dallas–Fort Worth area.

According to Judge Paul L. Brady, young Bass worked as a water boy and field hand, and sometimes sang songs about robbery and murder, which made his mother fear he would turn to crime. When he asked permission to learn to read, out of interest in the Bible, his enslaver refused — but because of his quick hands and sharp eyes, he was allowed to learn to shoot, a skill that served him well for decades.

From slavery to freedom

For his strength, his skill with a gun and the respect both the Reeves family and other enslaved people had for him, Bass was chosen as his enslaver's "companion," serving as bodyguard, butler, valet or whatever else was required, with better food, clothing and shelter.

It is alleged that during the Civil War, a card game with George Reeves, William's son, turned into a violent argument that ended with Bass beating George severely. Perhaps fearing punishment, Bass fled toward Indian Territory and stayed there for several years. He learned the languages and customs of several tribes, and the ways fugitives avoided the law — knowledge that shaped his long career.

Becoming a deputy marshal

With the end of the war and the 13th Amendment, Reeves was free. By 1870 he had settled on a farm near Van Buren with his first wife, Jennie; they raised ten children, five boys and five girls. Besides raising horses, he earned extra money as a scout and tracker in Indian Territory, helping the U.S. Marshal's office in Van Buren.

In March 1875 he was asked to serve as a Deputy Marshal for the Western District of Arkansas and Indian Territory. Some authors say Judge Isaac C. Parker, newly appointed to the federal court at Fort Smith, believed formerly enslaved men would make good officers there, because tribal members and formerly enslaved people shared a mistrust of white men.

Fact and fiction

True accounts of Reeves's arrests and gunfights rarely reached the newspapers of the day: his name was left out, or the credit went to others. The Indian Chieftain of Vinita reported Jim Webb's death in 1884 and noted that Reeves was present — but not that he killed Webb. His role came out later, in D.C. Gideon's Indian Territory and in Reeves's own 1907 newspaper interview.

Many white people were angered that a Black man, enslaved only a few years before, had the power to arrest them, and editors played to that anger. The result is an incomplete and exaggerated record, with figures such as 3,000 arrests and — depending on the source — 12, 14 or 20 outlaws killed. They have been repeated for years, but should be used with caution.

Undercover

Many stories illustrate Reeves's dedication. Adam Grayson, a Creek Freedman interviewed for the Indian-Pioneer Papers, told of a $5,000 reward for two outlaws hiding near the Texas border:

1. Reeves chose a posse, rode toward the hideout, and made camp about 28 miles away, leaving the posse behind while he scouted and made his plan.
2. He disguised himself as a tramp: he shot three holes in an old floppy hat, put on worn-out shoes with the heels removed, took a walking stick, and hid his pistol, handcuffs and badge under his clothes.
3. The outlaws' mother answered the door. Feigning weakness and complaining of blistered feet, he said a posse had shot the holes in his hat; she fed him and suggested he join her sons, who were also on the run.
4. That night a whistle came from a nearby creek; the mother went out and came back with both sons. They agreed to band together, and Reeves persuaded them that all three should sleep in the same room, in case of trouble.
5. Once they were asleep, he handcuffed them to the bed. In the morning he woke them with kicks and marched them the 28 miles back to camp — their mother following for the first three miles, cursing him.

Mugshots of Benjamin Reeves. Image from the National Park Service's page.

Arresting his own son

On June 7, 1902, Reeves's son Benjamin — "Bennie" — murdered his wife in a fit of jealousy in Muskogee. He had married Castella Brown, from the Muskogee area, in 1900; strained by his long working hours and her loneliness, which led to affairs, the marriage became unbearable, and when she told him she did not love him, his suspicion grew. He found her at a friend's house and, after a brief exchange, shot her at 11 a.m.; turning the Colt .45 on himself, he only grazed his forehead, and fled.

After some hesitation by Marshal Leo Bennett, the warrant went to Bass Reeves, who set out to bring his son in, dead or alive. According to a 1959 interview with his daughter Alice Spahn, Benjamin had once asked his father what he would do about a cheating wife, and Bass allegedly answered, "I'd have shot the hell out of the man and whipped the living God out of her." Whatever he said, Bass felt it was his duty to arrest his son.

Benjamin was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in January 1903. He served eleven years before his sentence was commuted and he was released from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; back in Muskogee, he worked at a local restaurant for several years.

To the end

Reeves served as a deputy U.S. marshal until Jim Crow laws forced Black men out of the marshal service in Oklahoma on the day of statehood in 1907. After working out of Fort Smith, Muskogee and Paris, Texas, he walked a beat for the Muskogee police for two years, then retired because of his health.

He died on January 12, 1910, of nephritis — kidney inflammation then called Bright's disease. The Muskogee Phoenix wrote that he would be remembered for his "devotion to duty, his unflinching courage and his many thrilling experiences."

Further reading

• Art T. Burton, Black Gun, Silver Star: The Life and Legend of Frontier Marshal Bass Reeves (University of Nebraska Press, 2006)
• Arthur Burton, Black, Red and Deadly: Black and Indian Gunfighters of the Indian Territory, 1870–1907 (Eakin Press, 1991)
• Richard D. Fronterhouse, Bass Reeves: The Forgotten Lawman, unpublished thesis, University of Oklahoma, 1960
• D.C. Gideon, Indian Territory (Lewis Publishing Company, 1901)
• Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshal (Lerner, 2009)
• Gary Paulsen, The Legend of Bass Reeves (Random House, 2006)
• Glenn Shirley, West of Hell's Fringe: Crime, Criminals and the Federal Peace Officer in Oklahoma Territory, 1889–1907 (University of Oklahoma Press, 1978)

Sources

Based on "Bass Reeves (Site Bulletin)," Fort Smith National Historic Site, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The bulletin dates Adam Grayson's interview to 1938 in its text and to October 14, 1937, in its reading list, so no year is given here. Misspellings in the source ("boyguard," "Chieftan," "investugate," "bothers," "Banjamin," "srime," "Ciminals") are corrected.