Black Gun, Silver Star

Black Gun, Silver Star
Author: Art T. Burton
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 496
Release: 2022-09
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1496234464

In The Story of Oklahoma, Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves appears as the "most feared U.S. marshal in the Indian country." That Reeves was also an African American who had spent his early life enslaved in Arkansas and Texas made his accomplishments all the more remarkable. Black Gun, Silver Star sifts through fact and legend to discover the truth about one of the most outstanding peace officers in late nineteenth-century America--and perhaps the greatest lawman of the Wild West era. Bucking the odds ("I'm sorry, we didn't keep Black people's history," a clerk at one of Oklahoma's local historical societies answered one query), Art T. Burton traces Reeves from his days of slavery to his Civil War soldiering to his career as a deputy U.S. marshal out of Fort Smith, Arkansas, when he worked under "Hanging Judge" Isaac C. Parker. Fluent in Creek and other regional Native languages, physically powerful, skilled with firearms, and a master of disguise, Reeves was exceptionally adept at apprehending fugitives and outlaws and his exploits were legendary in Oklahoma and Arkansas. In this new edition Burton traces Reeves's presence in the national media of his day as well as his growing modern presence in popular media such as television, movies, comics, and video games.

The Legend of Bass Reeves

The Legend of Bass Reeves
Author: Gary Paulsen
Publisher: Laurel Leaf
Total Pages: 162
Release: 2008-12-30
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0307513793

Born into slavery, Bass Reeves became the most successful US Marshal of the Wild West. Many "heroic lawmen" of the Wild West, familiar to us through television and film, were actually violent scoundrels and outlaws themselves. But of all the sheriffs of the frontier, one man stands out as a true hero: Bass Reeves. He was the most successful Federal Marshal in the US in his day. True to the mythical code of the West, he never drew his gun first. He brought hundreds of fugitives to justice, was shot at countless times, and never hit. Bass Reeves was a black man, born into slavery. And though the laws of his country enslaved him and his mother, when he became a free man he served the law, with such courage and honor that he became a legend.

Black Gun, Silver Star

Black Gun, Silver Star
Author: Art T. Burton
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 411
Release: 2022-09
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1496233425

In this new edition of the biography of Bass Reeves, who was formerly enslaved and then served as a peace officer in and around late nineteenth-century Indian Territory, Art Burton traces Reeves’s presence in contemporary national media and in popular modern media.

Bass Reeves Frontier Marshal

Bass Reeves Frontier Marshal
Author: Milton Davis
Publisher:
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2017-07-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781946183194

BASS REEVES LEGENDARY MANHUNTER In the years after the Civil War, the greatest lawman to operate in the untamed wilderness frontiers was U.S. Deputy Marshal Bass Reeves. An ex-slave, Reeves took on the silver badge because he believed all men to be equal in the eyes of the law and so he would become an agent of that justice. In his actual career he captured over 3,000 felons and survived fourteen gun battles. A crack shot with both rifle and pistol, he was never wounded once. Here, in this second volume of an ongoing series, the Deputy Marshal finds himself teaming up with a spitfire of a she-devil known as Quickshot Katy, chasing down desperate train robbers, protecting an army gold shipment and defending a vicious killer against an entire town demanding blood. Writers Milton Davis, Mel Odom, Michael Black and Derrick Ferguson have saddled up to deliver four new action packed western yarns starring the one and only Bass Reeves - Frontier Lawman.

Bad News for Outlaws

Bad News for Outlaws
Author: Vaunda Micheaux Nelson
Publisher: Carolrhoda Books
Total Pages: 52
Release: 2009-08-01
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 0761357122

Sitting tall in the saddle, with a wide-brimmed black hat and twin Colt pistols on his belt, Bass Reeves seemed bigger than life. Outlaws feared him. Law-abiding citizens respected him. As a peace officer, he was cunning and fearless. When a lawbreaker he

Follow the Angels, Follow the Doves

Follow the Angels, Follow the Doves
Author: Sidney Thompson
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2020-03-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1496218752

Follow the Angels, Follow the Doves is an origin story in the true American tradition. Before Bass Reeves could stake his claim as the most successful nineteenth-century American lawman, arresting more outlaws than any other deputy during his thirty-two-year career as a deputy U.S. marshal in some of the most dangerous regions of the Wild West, he was a slave. After a childhood picking cotton, he became an expert marksman under his master’s tutelage, winning shooting contests throughout the region. His skill had serious implications, however, as the Civil War broke out. Reeves was given to his master’s mercurial, sadistic, Moby-Dick-quoting son in the hopes that Reeves would keep him safe in battle. The ensuing humiliation, love, heroics, war, mind games, and fear solidified Reeves’s determination to gain his freedom and drew him one step further on his fated path to an illustrious career. Follow the Angels, Follow the Doves is an important historical work that places Reeves in the pantheon of American heroes and a thrilling historical novel that narrates a great man’s exploits amid the near-mythic world of the nineteenth-century frontier.

Black, Red, and Deadly

Black, Red, and Deadly
Author: Arthur T. Burton
Publisher:
Total Pages: 328
Release: 1991
Genre: History
ISBN:

Black and Indian gunfighters in the Indian Territory

Hell on the Border

Hell on the Border
Author: Sidney Thompson
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2021-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1496225392

Adapted for the Paramount+ miniseries Lawmen: Bass Reeves, directed by Taylor Sheridan and starring David Oyelowo 2022 Oklahoma Book Award Finalist for Fiction 2021 National Indie Excellence Award Finalist Set in 1884, Hell on the Border tells the story of Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves at the peak of his historic career. Famous for being a crack shot as well as for his nonviolent tendencies, Reeves uses his African American race to his strategic advantage. Along with a tramp or cowboy disguise, Reeves appears so nonthreatening that he often positions himself close enough to the outlaws he is pursuing to arrest them without bloodshed. After a series of heroic feats of capturing and killing infamous outlaws--most notably Jim Webb--and an introduction to Belle Starr, Reeves finds himself in the Fort Smith jail, charged with murder. This second book in the Bass Reeves Trilogy investigates what really happened when Reeves made the greatest mistake of his life on the heels of his greatest achievements.

Bass Reeves and the Lone Ranger

Bass Reeves and the Lone Ranger
Author: Martin Grams, Jr.
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 24
Release: 2018-01-20
Genre:
ISBN: 9781984066725

For almost a decade there circulates a myth that falsely suggested an African-American U.S. Deputy Marshal named Bass Reeves was the inspiration for the fictional character of The Lone Ranger. Triggered by recent folklore and influenced by racial bias, the myth spread across the internet like wildfire. While the real life of Bass Reeves deserves to be better-known, it is unfortunate that this fanciful "Lone Ranger" theory is what has brought him additional attention. A book published a decade ago caused unnecessary confusion by falsely suggesting Reeves was the inspiration of the fictional Lone Ranger. (i.e. Reeves rode a white horse as one flimsy connection.) This book documents the origin of The Lone Ranger through historical archives from across the country, with scanned reprints of the most important of documents, proving that three individuals, living in two different states, were responsible for the formation of The Lone Ranger, and proof that the Masked Man was intentionally patterned off of Robin Hood and Tom Mix, debunking the myth that one person deliberately created a children's program in the local Detroit area in 1933 on a historical figure that had never been referenced in books or magazines until the late 1950s. For people who insist Bass Reeves was the inspiration, and have no archival documents to back up their facts, this book provides a superb opportunity to understand why historians across the country have been debating for so long -- Bass Reeves was never the inspiration for The Lone Ranger.

Cherokee Bill

Cherokee Bill
Author: Art T. Burton
Publisher: Eakin Press
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2020-01-03
Genre:
ISBN: 9781681791562

Once upon a time in the late nineteenth century, there was an outlaw that captured the imagination of the American public like no other. He can be compared to John Dillinger or Pretty Boy Floyd of the 1930s. Like both of these men, he garnered national press for his exploits; the well-known New York Times had a running commentary on his actions and deeds. This outlaw's name was Crawford Goldsby, better known as Cherokee Bill.Cherokee Bill was every bit as colorful and outrageous as any criminal of the western frontier, perhaps even more so. There were a few things about him that made him truly unique for a famous desperado of the purple sage. First and foremost, he was an African American living in the Indian Territory. He was also Native American, Bill was a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, as a freedman, from his mother's lineage.Compare Cherokee Bill to Billy the Kid, (Billy Antrim), of New Mexico Territory fame. Although both outlaws received national media attention for their crimes while they were living, Billy the Kid was remembered and immortalized in books and films in the twentieth century; this did not occur for Cherokee Bill. Art Burton's newest book will help change that.