Bass Reeves was born into slavery in Crawford County, Arkansas, in the summer of 1838, and he would go on to become one of the most legendary lawmen of the American Old West, serving as a deputy U. S. Marshal for over three decades. Historian Art Burton called him “the greatest frontier hero in American history, bar none,” noting that he “walked into the valley of death every day for 32 years and came out alive.
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Reeves and his family were owned by farmer William S. Reeves, who moved them to Grayson County, Texas, in 1846. As a teenager, Bass was selected to serve as a companion to George Reeves, the owner’s son, acting as a coachman, valet, butler, and bodyguard. When Bass asked permission to learn to read, the request was denied, but George allowed him to learn how to handle firearms instead, even entering him into shooting contests and profiting from the prize money.
When the Civil War broke out, George Reeves was commissioned as a colonel in the 11th Texas Cavalry, and Bass accompanied him as a body servant. At some point, Bass escaped bondage, allegedly after an altercation with George that turned physical. His daughter Alice later said Bass “laid him out cold with his fist and then made a run for the Indian Territory. ” He hid among the Creek and Seminole peoples, learning their languages and survival skills.
By 1870, Reeves was living in Arkansas with his wife Jennie and their first four children. Eleven children would follow over the years. He worked as a farmer before becoming a scout and tracker for U. S.
Marshals, and in 1875 he was deputized under Judge Isaac Parker, known as the Hanging Judge, whose federal court in Fort Smith, Arkansas, had jurisdiction over Indian Territory. Indian Territory had become a haven for outlaws after the Indian Removal Act displaced dozens of tribes there. Tribal courts only had jurisdiction over tribal members committing crimes against each other, leaving non-Natives and intertribal crimes effectively lawless. Deputy marshals were tasked with enforcing federal law in this vast, dangerous region, and between 75 and 100 deputies were killed in the line of duty during Parker’s two decades on the bench.
Reeves was exceptionally effective at this dangerous work. He reportedly arrested over 3,000 criminals and killed between 14 and 20 men in the line of duty, though the exact number remains debated. He stood about 6 feet 2 inches tall with notably large hands, and one contemporary writer described him as having “long, muscular arms” with “a pair of hands that would do credit to a giant. ”
Reeves routinely traveled undercover, disguising himself as a farmhand, cowboy, preacher, or even an outlaw.
In one famous incident, he showed up at a cabin looking ragged and was invited to join an outlaw gang. That night, while the fugitives slept, he handcuffed both of them without waking them and marched them 28 miles back to his wagon. He often returned to Fort Smith with a dozen or more prisoners, with his largest recorded haul being 17 men. While Reeves was not technically the first Black deputy marshal west of the Mississippi, as records show others preceded him, he became the most prolific.
He worked with Native American scouts and regularly used disguises and clever tactics to capture wanted men. In 1884, tragedy struck when Reeves accidentally shot and killed his camp cook, William Leach. Reeves claimed the rifle discharged accidentally while he was trying to dislodge a stuck round. Nearly two years later, in January 1886, he was indicted for first-degree murder and jailed in the infamous Fort Smith prison, the same jail where he had delivered many outlaws.
The conditions were notoriously brutal, with overcrowding, no ventilation, and mold-covered bedding. A rumor circulated that Reeves had killed Leach for pouring hot grease down a puppy’s throat, but court transcripts told a different story. Testimony revealed the two men were arguing over a dog in camp, and Reeves had been working on his rifle when it discharged. The prosecution’s witnesses had mostly been arrested by Reeves in the past, and the jury acquitted him.
The ordeal was financially devastating, forcing Reeves to sell his eight-room home in Van Buren to pay legal bills. Reeves returned to duty and continued his relentless pursuit of outlaws. In November 1890, he reportedly attacked the stronghold of Cherokee fugitive Ned Christie, burning it to the ground, though Christie escaped. A false report even circulated that Christie had killed Reeves, but Reeves turned up alive with two wagonloads of prisoners.
In 1891, Reeves captured Greenleaf, a Seminole fugitive who had been on the run for 18 years, an arrest he reportedly considered one of the high points of his career. That same year, he also killed outlaw Bob Dozier in a gunfight during a thunderstorm, though court records show he also delivered a Bob Dozier to Fort Smith alive, and the man was released due to lack of witnesses. By the mid-1890s, the changing times took a toll on Reeves’s personal life. While he was stationed away from home, two of his sons were sent to prison, and his wife Jennie died of cancer in 1896.
Reeves remarried in 1900 and continued working, though his duties shifted from frontier manhunting to cleaning up gambling halls and brothels in Muskogee. In 1896, the Supreme Court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson deeply affected Reeves. According to his family, he felt betrayed by the U.
S. government and became less vocal and more guarded in public, often standing at the rear of crowds. In 1902, tragedy struck again when his son Benjamin killed his wife and beat her lover after catching them together. Bass demanded the arrest warrant, saying it was his responsibility to bring his own son in, and he did so.
Benjamin was sentenced to life in prison but was released after 11 years. Reeves continued working well into his 60s. In 1907, at age 69, he participated in a gun battle with a group of black anarchists known as the United Socialist Club, who had taken over a house in Muskogee. He arrested his own pastor for selling whiskey illegally, and he kept making arrests right up until Oklahoma became a state in November 1907, when his marshal position was eliminated.
He then joined the Muskogee Police Department, walking a beat with a cane at over 70 years old, accompanied by an assistant carrying a sack of guns. His health declined due to Bright’s disease, and he retired in January 1910 after 32 years of service. He died on January 12, 1910, survived by his second wife, several children, and his 87-year-old mother. The location of Reeves’s grave is unknown, but his legacy is honored through monuments, a memorial bridge, and his induction into the Great Hall of Westerners at the National Cowboy Museum.
The theory that Reeves inspired the Lone Ranger originated with historian Art Burton, who pointed out similarities such as his use of Native American scouts and disguises, but Burton himself only presented it as a theory, and the original creators of the Lone Ranger never mentioned Reeves. As for the number of men Reeves killed in the line of duty, biographer Art Burton believes the commonly cited 14 is conservative, while David Kennedy of the U. S. Marshals Museum thinks seven is more realistic.
Regardless of the exact count, Reeves’s career as a deputy marshal who routinely brought in wagonloads of prisoners is well documented in official records. Britton Johnson was a Black man, likely born into slavery in Tennessee around 1840, whose life became the stuff of frontier legend for his solo efforts to rescue his family from Comanche captivity. Very little official documentation survives about him, but his story was preserved through family accounts, newspaper obituaries, and the memories of those who knew him. Johnson was likely brought to Texas by the Johnson family in the 1840s, settling in Young County.
By 1864, despite his slave status, he enjoyed considerable freedom, was paid wages, owned livestock, and was respected within the community. On October 13, 1864, a large force of Comanche and Kiowa warriors launched the Elm Creek raid on Young County. Johnson was away in Weatherford on business, having left his pregnant wife Mary and their three children at the Fitzpatrick Ranch for safety. The raiders attacked the ranch, killing one woman who tried to fight back, shooting down Johnson’s seven-year-old son Jim as he fled, and smashing a hidden newborn baby’s head against a wall.
They took the survivors captive, including Mary Johnson, two of her remaining children, and the ranch owner Elizabeth Fitzpatrick with her family. When Johnson returned and found his family gone, he decided to go after them alone. His neighbors, who respected him despite his slave status, provisioned him with a good horse, weapons, ammunition, and trade goods. In the spring of 1865, Johnson set out deep into Comanche territory, making contact with various bands.
He used sign language and Spanish to communicate and was able to establish relationships with some Comanche warriors who respected his bravery. Johnson made multiple trips into the territory, eventually confirming his family was alive and held by the Kiowa. In June 1865, with the help of a friendly Comanche chief named Asa Havey, Johnson’s wife and two surviving children were ransomed and returned to him. Elizabeth Fitzpatrick was also eventually ransomed after more than a year in captivity, though her young granddaughter Millie Durkin was believed to have died during a harsh winter.
After being reunited with his family, Johnson moved to Parker County, where he started a freighting business. He continued traveling into Indian Territory to search for other captives, reportedly never asking for payment. He was described as having a “splendid physique” and a fine expression of face, and he was seen moving among various Comanche bands trying to secure the release of captives. Johnson’s luck ran out in November 1871.
He and two other Black men, Dennis Chisholm and Paint Crawford, were hauling freight through Young County when a group of Kiowa warriors attacked. The other two men were killed almost immediately. Johnson cut his own horse’s throat, used its body as a breastwork, and made a desperate last stand. When his body was recovered, it was found surrounded by nearly 200 spent rifle shells.
He had been heavily mutilated, and his killers had stuffed his dead dog into his gutted body. Some sources say the attack was led by a Kiowa medicine man named Mamanti. The story of Britton Johnson has been cited as a possible inspiration for the 1956 film The Searchers, which follows a man’s years-long quest to find a girl taken captive by Comanches. Author Alan Le May, who wrote the novel the film was based on, reportedly studied at least 64 abduction stories, and surviving research notes indicate Johnson was one of his primary sources.
However, the character in the film is driven by revenge in a way Johnson was not documented to be. Many details of Johnson’s life and family remain unknown. His wife and children disappear from historical records after 1865, and no confirmed descendants have been located. His grave is on private property, with grave diggers reportedly having attempted to steal his remains.
Johnson was killed at around age 35, leaving behind a documented legacy of extraordinary courage in the face of overwhelming odds. He only had about $300 and the bank president’s pocket watch to show for his trouble. After several close calls, Bill was finally captured, but he would never live to see freedom again, as his defiance and deadly nature followed him right up until his execution on March 17, 1896, at the young age of 20. Cherokee Bill, born Crawford Goldsby in 1876 at Fort Concho, Texas, was one of the most feared outlaws of Indian Territory.
Of mixed Black, white, and Cherokee heritage, he was the son of George Goldsby, a Buffalo Soldier who had escaped the Confederate Army and passed as a white man, and Ellen Beck, a Cherokee Freedman. Bill’s father abandoned the family, leaving young Crawford to be raised by his mother and various caretakers. By his late teens, Bill had become a skilled gunman, known for his dead-eye shooting and his flashy dress. In 1894, Bill shot a man who had beaten his younger brother, believing he had killed him.
He fled and joined up with the Cook brothers’ gang. Over the next several months, he participated in a string of robberies, killing a railroad agent, a barber in Chandler, and others. His crimes made him one of the most wanted men in the territory, with a reward of $1,300 on his head. Bill was finally captured in January 1895 at the home of Ike Rogers, a former deputy who was also his girlfriend’s uncle.
Rogers, hoping to claim the reward, bashed Bill over the head with a fire poker and handcuffed him while he was distracted. Bill was taken to Fort Smith and put on trial for the murder of a man named Ernest Melton. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. While awaiting execution, Bill tried to escape from the Fort Smith jail.
He had somehow obtained a pistol and shot a jailer, Lawrence Keating, who later died. Bill was recaptured after a fellow inmate, Henry Starr, convinced him to surrender by appealing to his love for his mother. He was then tried again for Keating’s murder and sentenced to death once more. On March 17, 1896, Cherokee Bill was hanged.
As he stood on the gallows, he reportedly told the crowd, “I came here to die, not make a speech. ” He was just 37 days into his 20th year. Ironically, the number 13 appears throughout his story, from the $1,300 reward to the date of his execution, though whether any of it means anything is pure speculation. His brother Clarence later killed the man who had betrayed Bill, but Clarence was never brought to justice.
His nephew Marcus was lynched in Nevada in 1916 for killing a deputy sheriff. Bill’s story, though brief, left a lasting mark on the history of the Old West.
