
There is a tale in American West folklore of a man who was as fierce as Billy the Kid, as skilled with a gun as Wild Bill Hickok, and as quick as a horse on the Pony Express. Heroes in this region are made up of both lawbreakers and lawabiding citizens. Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves stood six feet two, his mustache as intimidating as ever. It was reported that his strength would cause a brick to break if he spat on it.
Biographer Art Burton described him as the “Michael Jordan of frontier lawmen.” “He could whip either two men using his bare hands.”
Reeves virtually had unrestricted access across the Indian and Oklahoma Territories, making him a nightmare for any lawbreaker, according to Burton, an authority on African-American Studies. “When I started the research, I kept shaking my head all the time, stating people aren’t going to believe this,” he stated.
A nearly self-telling wild west story, you would suppose. Still, Burton kept running into dead ends when gathering material for a book about Reeves, such as when attempting to track down the Bass Reeves family tree. “A lady got the phone, and she said that’d never heard of him,” Burton stated. “Well, he was an African-American deputy U.S. marshal,” I remarked. She expressed regret for not having preserved the history of Black people in this location, but she was also quite kind about it.
Reeves was an escaped slave from Texas before he became a lawman. Eventually, the former slave gained notoriety—and not without consequence—by apprehending white individuals. However, Oklahomans believe that his time has come despite the fact that his incredible narrative has largely been forgotten, much like a ghost town. “He’s the stuff of legend,” remarked one man. I find it hard to believe that he was white and that his career did not already have multiple huge motion pictures attached to it.”
According to actor David Oyelowo, Bass Reeves’ story is similar to the Lone Ranger’s but better. “It’s something to be a white guy with a mask, mounting a pretty damn wonderful horse,” he stated. “To be carrying out that task with little funding is another matter. What happens when a Black man escapes slavery after more than 30 years of enslavement and no one gives him any attention? We don’t know much about him, which almost seems purposeful.”
In an interview with “Sunday Morning” this past spring, Oyelowo discussed her efforts to make up for historical omissions by executive producing and starring in an eight-part series titled “Lawmen: Bass Reeves” for Paramount+, CBS’ sister network.
Starring seasoned performers like Donald Sutherland and Dennis Quaid, it’s a grand production that was primarily filmed on a Texas ranch.
“Man, it’s awesome to do a Western,” Quaid exclaimed. “It feels like I’m twelve years old again. It is, in fact.”
Bass Reeves’ actual allegiance to the law impressed Quaid just as much: “The thing was the fact that Bass Reeves really was the real deal.” He was that, actually.”
To perfect his speech patterns, Oyelowo claimed to have examined recordings of slave narratives from the Library of Congress. He also picked up riding and rope skills. “I’m constantly searching for opportunities to frighten myself, so I really did it!” chuckled he.
He’s gained enough knowledge about the kind of man Reeves probably was. However, the job also served as a reminder that brilliance is always illuminated by light, regardless of the duration. “A tenet I live every day by is that brilliance is the best weapon versus prejudice,” Oyelowo remarked. “He was very good. Saying something like, “Oh, that’s a Black man who is inadequate, who should be subjugated,” was not easy. That kind of dismissal was not acceptable. And for that reason, it would be incorrect not to honor him.”
Bass Reeves lived to be 71 years old. He spent his last years in Muskogee, a frontier town. Reeves is currently honored at the Three Rivers Museum, where he is recognized annually at the Bass Reeves Western History Conference.
Maybe this just adds to the mystery surrounding Reeves’s burial place, which is unknown.
For Art Burton, it doesn’t matter since he still feels a childlike gratitude towards Reeves for introducing him and other Black Americans to a legend all their own.
“I used to often wonder, where were we [in stories of the Old West]?” Burton replied. “So it’s like, God heard my prayers by giving me somebody, prior to I passed away, that said, ‘Well, we were all part of the scene, too.'”