Bass Reeves: The Slave Who Became A Federal Marshal

In 1887 a man stood at the defence table in Judge Isaac Parker's federal courtroom at Fort Smith, charged with murder. He had stood in that room hundreds of times, on the other side. He could not read the indictment, and he had been serving federal warrants for twelve years. Bass Reeves was born in Crawford County, Arkansas, in July of 1838, the property of a member of the Arkansas state legislature. He passed to the legislator's son, George Robertson Reeves, who took him to the Civil War as a valet. In 1861 or 1862 the two argued over a card game, Bass knocked him down and ran west into Indian Territory, and spent years among the Cherokee, Creek and Seminole learning their languages and the country itself. *Sources* Bass Reeves — Wikipedia, on his birth and enslavement, the 1861 escape, the 1875 appointment as deputy US marshal, the arrest figures, the William Leach charge, the arrest of Bennie Reeves, and his death on 12 January 1910 Bass Reeves, Black Hero Marshal — Legends of America, on the years with the Cherokee, Creek and Seminole, his height and dress, the Leach trial and William Clayton's defence, and his insistence on taking his son's warrant The Life and Times of Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves — Mental Floss, on his illiteracy, the letter trick, the bullets through his hat and clothing, and the end of his commission at statehood Bass Reeves — Encyclopedia of Arkansas, on the 1887 acquittal and Bright's disease