Black History Month: Daily Updates

Bass Reeves (1838-1910) U.S. Marshal

Fans of the HBO series The Watchmen will know the name Bass Reeves as the Black masked lawman of silent film that inspires a young boy’s pride, enthusiasm, and strange journey central to the show. What many might not realize, however, is that unlike Hooded Justice, Sister Night, and other characters in The Watchmen, Bass Reeves was a real man. While he wasn’t exactly a masked hero in the comic book sense, he was known to employ disguises in his pursuit of criminals and is commonly believed to be the inspiration for another fictional mask-wearer - the Lone Ranger.

Bass Reeves was one of a “surprising number” of Black deputy U.S. marshals who served in the Indian and Oklahoma territories after Reconstruction. Born into slavery, and raised in Arkansas and Texas, Bass served as the valet, or “body servant” of his master Colonel George R. Reeves. Author Paul L. Brady writes that Colonel Reeves “indulged” Bass by teaching him how to handle a gun, but refused to permit his slaves to learn to read or write. 

Reeves accompanied the colonel in the Civil War, but after a fist-fight with the man over a game of cards, he fled into Native American territory where he lived with Cherokees and Seminoles until the Emancipation Proclamation “officially” freed him in 1863. Reeves’ gained knowledge of Muscogee contributed to his success when he “became one of the first men who “rode for Parker” - Judge Isaac Parker - in Fort Smith, Arkansas. 

In his 32 years as a U.S. Marshal and subsequent years as a police officer in Muskogee, Oklahoma, Reeves arrested over 3,000 outlaws and felons. His exploits - including costumes, ambidextrous marksmanship, and much-reported feats of bravery - became legendary and may even have served as the template for other legends.

In his book Black Gun, Silver Star: The Life and Legend of Frontier Marshal Bass Reeves, Arthur Burton outlines the “uncanny similarities” between Reeves and the fictional Lone Ranger:

Federal law mandated that deputy U.S. marshals have at least one posseman with them whenever they went out in the field. Oftentimes the men who assisted Reeves were Native Americans, like the character Tonto who assisted the Lone Ranger. It was common practice for Reeves to work in disguise while trying to capture fugitives from justice, à la the Lone Ranger, who wore a black mask. Many times the white settlers in the territory didn’t know Reeves’s name and called him the “Black Marshal”; likewise, many didn’t know the name of the Lone Ranger. For most African Americans during this time in American history, their dark faces became a black mask to white America—they became “invisible.”

Now, a Bass Reeves Monument stands in Ross Pendercraft Park, Fort Smith, Arkansas, not far from the federal courthouse where so many of the men and women he captured ultimately stood trial.

In Their Words

“For thirty-one years, going on thirty-two, I have ridden as a deputy marshal … and when [Chief Marshal] Bennett goes out of office I am going to farming for a living.”

Learn More

WATCH: Bass Reeves: The Lone Ranger - Biographics (17 min)

READ: The Best Trick U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves Ever Pulled on a Criminal - Atlas Obscura

LISTEN:  Bass Reeve‪s‬ - Dr. History's Tales of the Old West podcast (23 min)