Was Bass Reeves The Inspiration Behind The Lone Ranger?Īrt T. He became financially successful as he notched thousand of arrests, including his own son, who he arrested for murder.Īnd since Reeves was illiterate, he would memorize all of his warrants. When Indian Territory was opened to non-Indigenous settlement, thousands of recently freed Black people moved there, including Reeves. One reason being that white troublemakers from surrounding states would flee to Indian Territory. The courthouse was fulfilling a need in the area.ĭiron Ahlquist, an Oklahoma City-based historian for law enforcement in Indian Territory, said common crimes were murder, larceny, assault and battery, bootlegging alcohol and horse theft.
The federal courthouse is a short trek behind the statue of Reeves in downtown Fort Smith. “But you got lucky and you got some people like Bass Reeves.” “And at first, they were just looking for people who - ‘Could you ride a horse? Could you shoot a gun? Could you enforce the law?,’” Kennedy said. Marshal Service in Fort Smith, was given jurisdiction over crimes committed in Indian Territory. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas, which contained the office of the U.S. Since Reeves knew the terrain, languages and customs of Indian Territory, he began working as a guide for U.S. Reeves did end up gaining his freedom in the early to mid 1860s, when, by most accounts, he escaped to the Choctaw Nation. The son says, ‘No, you're never going to get your freedom.’ At which point Bass gets up, punches the owner's son and leaves.” “The son at one point told Bass that if he won this hand, he would get his freedom,” Kennedy said. Once when the two were playing poker, Kennedy said according to folklore, the game took an interesting turn. Marshals Museum in Fort Smith, said during the Civil War, Reeves joined his enslaver’s son, an officer in a Confederate cavalry unit. He eventually moved to Texas with his enslaver William Steele Reeves.ĭavid Kennedy, curator of collections and exhibits at the U.S. He came across a paper about Reeves, written by a University of Oklahoma student in the 1950s called “The Forgotten Lawman,” which became an anchor for Burton’s 30-plus years of research.īy most accounts, Reeves was born into slavery in Crawford County in northwest Arkansas in the 1830s. “And she said, ‘I never heard of him.’ And I said, ‘Well, he was an African-American lawman that served for quite a while in the area.’ She was very polite, she says, ‘Sir, we do not keep black people's history here.’ She couldn’t see my face, but, you know, I’m like, ‘Okay.’ ” And a lady answered the phone, and I told her I was trying to do some research on Bass Reeves,” Burton said. “So I called up the Muskogee Historical Society. Burton poses next to a Bass Reeves mannequin at the Bass Reeves Western History Conference in Muskogee.īurton contacted historical societies across Oklahoma and was surprised by the response. He was a real good lawman.’ I was shocked, you know. “And they said, ‘Yeah, we’re quite aware of him. And I asked them, ‘Have y'all ever heard of Bass Reeves?,’” Burton said. Because, you know, if this guy was that good, everybody would have known about him.”įrom that point forward, Burton was determined to learn everything he could about Reeves. “And my first inclination was these people are off their rocker. “And then he told me that Bass could outride, outshoot, outrope, outfight out-blah, blah, blah, blah,” Burton said. But Burton’s interest in Reeves was sparked again in the '80s when he started hearing second hand information about Reeves. He first heard of Reeves as a child while at his grandparents’ home in Arcadia, Oklahoma.
So to get to the bottom of whether Reeves was the real Lone Ranger, I traced the legend back to the main person responsible for popularizing it.
#Was the lone ranger real tv
This is just one example of Reeves’ pop culture ties, being featured in upcoming movies like Netflix’s “The Harder They Fall,” which is a western produced by rapper Jay-Z, and acclaimed TV shows like HBO’s “Watchmen.” But in recent years, people have started to also associate Reeves with being the inspiration for the character The Lone Ranger.
Reeves is now considered among the most prolific law enforcement officers in American history. Bass Reeves Statue in Fort Smith, Arkansas.