SYMHC Classics: Who was the real Lone Ranger?

Today we're revisiting an episode from previous hosts Sarah and Deblina. The Lone Ranger has traditionally been portrayed by white actors, but many believe this character is based on a former slave named Bass Reeves.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, Happy Saturday, everybody. We have gotten a few requests
from listeners to do a show on bass Reeves recently,
but guess what, previous hosts have already got that subject covered,
So we're gonna share our episode, which is by prior
hosts Sarah and Deblina. Bass Reeves was a deputy U
S Marshal in the nineteenth century, so of course this
story has its fair share of violence and daring do

(00:25):
And just a quick note that towards the end of
the episode there is also a brief description of animal cruelty.
So if that's not your thing, it's cool. It's Saturday.
Do what you want and everybody else listen up. Woo.
Welcome to stuff you missed in history class from house
stop works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast

(00:52):
Time to blin a checker boardy and I'm fair dowdy.
And if you're a fan of the Wild West, or
maybe if you've just watched a lot of TV as
a kid, you're probably at least sort of familiar with
the character of the Lone Ranger, a fictional renegade lawman
who roamed the American West trying to help people fight
bad guys. And enact justice, and the same character has

(01:13):
been featured in a number of ways on the radio,
on TV shows, and in movies, and in all of
those cases, his overall story has been pretty similar. He's
a guy named John Reid who's part of a group
of six Texas Rangers. One day, five of his group
are killed by outlaws, and Read survives and is rescued
by a Native American named Tonto. After Tonto nurses him

(01:36):
back to health, Read makes himself a black mask and
becomes the Lone Ranger. Most representations of the Lone Ranger
also feature that unmistakable theme song of the William tell overture.
Let's take a listen to that song. So hopefully that

(02:18):
got you guys in the mood for this podcast. And
another common point that you'll see in most representations of
the Lone Ranger is that it's usually played by a
white actor, but there are many who believe their inspiration
for the Lone Ranger character was actually a man named
Bass Reeves who was not only black, he was a
former slave. So Reeves, who became a US Deputy Marshal,

(02:41):
is known as one of the first black lawmen west
of the Mississippi River and also one of the bravest
and best lawmen as well. In fact, he's been called
one of the bravest men this country has ever known,
So in that sense, it's not too hard to see
how he would have inspired the Lone Ranger character. However,
Reeve's life wasn't entirely without controversy. He had more than

(03:05):
one incident that almost compromised his reputation and his position
as an upholder of the law. But it's those sort
of gray areas that some might say make him all
the more interesting. So we're going to take a look
at reeves story and some of his most famous adventures.
But first we're gonna look at how, as a black
man in the eighteen hundreds he became a deputy marshal
in the first place, So Bass Reeves was born into

(03:28):
slavery in around July eight thirty eight in either Texas
or Arkansas. And we should say here that a lot
of the deep these details about his life, especially about
reeves early life, are kind of sketchy. A lot of
them derived from oral history that's been passed along throughout
the year. So perhaps it's only fitting that we start
out with one of these more debatable facts. Some historians

(03:50):
believe he was born near Van Buren, Arkansas, while others
think it's more likely he was born in Paris, Texas.
One thing we do know, though, was that Reeves and
his parents were owned by a man named will Lilliam S. Reeves,
who was a farmer and a politician. That's where he
got his last name from, of course, And according to
the Oxford African American Study Center, Reeves worked in the

(04:10):
cotton fields as a water boy when he was young,
and that's where he started hearing adventurous stories and these
songs about black outlaws. And not too much is known
about rubs parents, but apparently it really worried his mother
that her young son was so enthralled with violence and
guns and these less than upstanding men. Maybe a little

(04:31):
afraid her boy would become an outlaw himself. By the
time the Civil War broke out, though, in eighteen sixty one,
Reeves was working as the personal servant of William Reeves's son,
George Reeves, who was a colonel in the Confederate Army
and organized the eleventh Cavalry Regiment for Grayson County, Texas.
What exactly happened to Bass Reads during the war is

(04:52):
a little bit sketchy, though according to Encyclopedia Britannica, Reeves
claimed to have served in the battles of p Ridge, Chickamaugua,
and Missionary Ridge under Colonel George Reeves, but the Reeves
family the slave owner Reeves that is claimed, and many
historians believe that Bass Reeves actually ran away fairly early
on in the war. Supposedly, Bass and George got into

(05:14):
an argument while they were playing cards, and Bass attacked George,
knocking him unconscious. But by Texas law at that time,
Bass Reeves could have been killed for attacking his master
like that, so he took off for Indian Territory. And
we talked a little bit about Indian Territory in a
podcast we did last February called Who Was America's First
Black Millionaires, which was about a woman named Sarah Rector.

(05:36):
In that episode, we learned that Indian Territory in the
eighteen hundreds was basically in the area that would later
become the state of Oklahoma. In the early nineteen hundreds,
black people who lived there were in kind of an
interesting position. Initially, Indian tribes kept them as slaves just
as white people did elsewhere in North America. But after
something called the Treaty of eighteen sixty six between the

(05:58):
US government and the five civil i tribes, which included
the Creek, the Cherokee, the Choctaw, the Chickasaw, and the Seminole,
these tribes had to abolish slavery and make the former
slaves thereafter known as freedman full members of their tribes
that had quote equal interest in the soil. So basically
former slaves could own land, and some even served as

(06:19):
Indian policemen. So Indian Territory was a great place for
Reeves to escape to after supposedly attacking his master, probably
for a lot of the same reasons. It was a
popular place for outlaws to go and hide out in
even after the war. There just weren't a lot of
towns and villages, and the Indians there had jurisdiction over themselves.

(06:39):
They weren't really subject to US laws. They're so good
place to go. So Reeves went to Indian Territory, found
refuge with the Creek and Seminole Indians, and while he
lived among them, he really picked up their customs, became
fluent in the languages that's been a theme of our
recent podcast today. And besides that, though, besides going in

(07:00):
and living with Indians in Indian Territory, it's sort of
unclear what exactly Reeves did during the war. According to
an article by Art T. Burton in Wild West, Reeves
could have been part of the Union's first Indian Home
Guard Regiment under an Indian name, or he might have
even served with one of the guerrilla Union Indian vans sometimes.

(07:28):
Following the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation, Reeves left
Indian Territory and settled in Van Buren, Arkansas. By this
time he had married a woman named Nellie Jenny, who
he ended up having ten kids, with five girls and
five boys. By the eighteen seventies, he was earning a
living as a farmer and a rancher, and also occasionally
served as a guide for a deputy U S Marshals

(07:49):
who were going into Indian Territory to hunt for outlaws,
so his knowledge really came in handy there. Then, in
eighteen seventy five, Judge Isaac C. Parker took a for
the Fort Smith Federal Court in Arkansas, and Parker became
known as the Hanging judge for all the death sentences
that he handed down in his court. When he took over,
his court had jurisdiction over all of western Arkansas and

(08:13):
Indian Territory, which was an area of about seventy five
thousand square miles in size, and it was the largest
federal court in U. S history just in terms of
its size. So, as we mentioned, Indian Territory was a
popular place for outlaws to hide out, and it was
considered the most dangerous area in the country. So it's
gonna be tough going for Judge Parker. So when he

(08:35):
came on board, he decided pretty much right away that
he wanted to crack down on criminals in that area
in particular. So one of the first things he did
was ordered that two hundred new US Deputy Marshals be hired.
So these marshals could arrest blacks and whites who weren't
members of the tribes in Indian Territory. That's what they
had power to do. The Indians, of course, had their

(08:56):
own law enforcement and courts for their people, so they
were outside of Parker's jurisdiction. Parker also decided that black
men would be perfect for these new deputy marshal positions
because a lot of Indians didn't trust white deputies. Some
white deputies hadn't always treated them so well. No surprised there,

(09:16):
but there were. There was this precedent of black freedmen
who were kind of part of the tribes, part of
the community, so Indians tended to trust black people a
little more. Therefore they'd make good potential marshals. Reeves in
particular was just perfect for one of these positions. After all,
as we mentioned, he knew Indian territory well. He once

(09:38):
said that he knows the area like quote a cook
knows her kitchen. His knowledge of Indian languages and customs
was a huge plus two, because Parker really wanted to
keep good relations with the tribes. That close relationship with
the Indians actually might have influenced the Lone Ranger story
to some extent through the character of Tonto. So Reeves
was commissioned a Deputy U s Marshal in eighteen seven

(10:00):
five went to work. Incidentally, you just mentioned his his
close relationship with Indians that came in part because of
his mastery of their some of their languages. That mastery
of languages is even more impressive when you consider that
Reeves was illiterate. So um, I mean that sounds difficult
enough to have several languages in your head and not

(10:21):
know how to read or write them, but in your
own language and your own language. But for his martial work,
he'd have to get somebody to read arrest warrants and subpoenas,
and then he'd memorized the names of the outlaws any
other details and head out from there. So now we're
getting a little bit into his work, which is really interesting.
I mean a lot of details about his work as

(10:41):
a martial kind of border on legend, which is why
his adventures make for such good stories, I think. But
what we know for sure is that he was a
natural at what he did, or he seemed to be.
He was physically well suited for for one thing, he
was about six ft two and anywhere from one hundred
eighty two hundred pounds. According to another article of Burton's
in New Crisis, Reeves personally like to dress that intimidating

(11:06):
frame of his and snazzy clothes. He always had his
boots polished, for example, and he liked to wear a
big black hat that was slightly upturned in the front
more often than not, though, especially when he was after
an outlaw, Reeves would wear disguises, and that was kind
of his trademark. He disguised himself as a cowboy or
a preacher, or a farmer, or even an outlaw. So

(11:28):
this is also kind of a lone ranger ish element
to his mask, except maybe even a little more interesting. Yeah,
I think so, because he went to some serious trouble
in these disguises, I think, and one really authentic because
in one really well known mission, Reeves was pursuing two
outlaws in the Red River Valley of the Chickasaw Nation

(11:48):
and he heard that they were hiding out somewhere near
the Texas border. So he wrote out that way with
his posse. By the way, at this time, Deputy Marshalls
would travel around Indian Territory with a few possemen a
in a wagon just because the area they were patrolling
and hunting for outlaws and was so vast, I mean,
a typical loop was around A typical loop that they

(12:09):
would travel was around eight hundred miles. Trip would be
eight hundred miles, right, So they'd be out there for
a while. So the posse set up camp about twenty
eight miles from where these two outlaws they were pursuing
were supposed to be hiding out at their mother's house.
So then Reeves disguised himself as a tramp. He really
paid attention to every detail too. He removed the heels

(12:30):
from an old pair of shoes, He carried a cane
with him, and then he put on a floppy hat
that he had shot with a few bullet holes to
look all roughed up. He also, of course concealed the
handcuffs and the pistol and the badge that he was
carrying underneath his clothes. Then he started walking twenty eight
miles traveling on foot to the mother's house. When he

(12:53):
got there, he asked her for some food, you know,
complaining that his feet really hurt because he'd been walking
and trying to escape from this posse that was pursuing him.
The mother really sympathized with him. She let him in,
she fed him. She told him that her sons were
running away from the law to She even suggested that
maybe he should hang out with her and team up

(13:14):
with her own son so they could protect each other.
When the sons came home, they agreed to this plan,
this deal that mom has set up for them, and
then that night they set up a separate room for
Reeves to sleep in. He insisted that no, we should
all sleep in the same room in case something happens.
That way we can protect each other. When the outlaws
were asleep, though, he handcuffed them without them waking up.

(13:37):
And when morning came, they realized what had happened, and
Reeves had a march right on back to his camp,
all twenty eight miles, and apparently the mom followed them
for at least three of those miles, cursing Reeves the
entire way. I have to imagine she would be pretty
upset about the whole thing. He was pretty happy about it.
There The reward of returning those guys in was five

(13:59):
thousand dollars. Typically these marshals got paid when they brought
the outlaws back to court to be tried. So that
story is pretty amusing, but it doesn't totally illustrate how
dangerous this job really was cuffing outlaws in their sleep.
Reeves was shot at several times during his career as
a marshal. His belt was shot into two onnths. Another time,

(14:20):
his hat brim was shot off, and still another time
his bridal rein was cut by a bullet, but it
said that he himself was never actually wounded, which I
think is just fascinating. Well, he was a real gun
expert to His weapon of choice was a Winchester rifle,
but he was also known to carry around two cult
revolvers that were positioned but forward on his belt for

(14:42):
easy access and conveniently for a ranger a lawman. He
was ambidextrous, so pretty much equally good no matter which
hand he was shooting with, probably especially handy when you're
shooting on horseback. Reeves was still really careful even though

(15:06):
he was heavily armed. Though It said that he rode
a big red stallion with a white blaze on its face,
so just like the lone ranger. He has his signature horse,
Trusty Steed. Yep, he's a flyery horse with a speed
of light, a cloud of dust party Ohio silver. But
he also kept some other horses around for his undercover work. Apparently,

(15:27):
if you rode a horse that was too fancy, that
would tip off the outlaws that you were marshal, no
matter what kind of disguise or outfit you were wearing,
so he couldn't just ride his red horse around. Well,
I have to imagine too, if you had such a
distinctive horse to a red stallion with a white blaze,
people would begin to recognize that pretty easily. Very true.

(15:47):
Most of all, though, Reeves was just unbelievably brave. He
really didn't seem to be afraid of anything. For one example,
there was a place eighty miles west of Fort Smith
that was known as the deadline, sort of the end
of civilization, and when deputy marshals crossed that line, they
were thought to be as good as dead. You know,

(16:08):
you're taking your life into your own hands by crossing
the deadline. But Reeves really just thought as a challenge.
He would go riding across the deadline several times just
to just to do it. But his bravery is maybe
most evident in the encounter where he comes as close
as he ever did to losing his life, and that
happened in four when he got ambushed by three outlaws,

(16:30):
the Brunch Brothers, and they were wanted for horse stealing, robbery,
and murder. When they ambushed him, they told him to
get off his horse and to keep his hands away
from his gun. But Reeves did not follow their instructions
at all. He stayed really calm and showed them warrants
he had for their arrest, and he just asked them,
you know what day is it, so I can make

(16:51):
a note of this for the government. I want to
make sure my paperwork is good. At that point, the
outlaws just thought he was crazy and started laughing at him.
And while they were distracted, while they were so amused,
Reeves shot two of them dead, diverted the gun barrel
of the third, and then killed him. And Reeves actually
killed quite a few outlaws during his career, even white ones,

(17:14):
which might have gotten him lynched in other areas of
the country. And I'm not sure on this point if
he actually got paid for the ones that he killed.
I've seen sort of differing opinions and various sources out there.
So if anyone out there knows if you get paid
for the ones that you killed to please let us know.
We're not sure how this whole deputy marshal thing worked
in that respect. But of course, as we hinted at earlier,

(17:37):
there's more to the story than just Reeves Winds. As
you might imagine, with the line of work he was in.
His life was tainted a little bit with scandal too.
The biggest one had to do with the death in
four of his black cook, William Leach. So early that April,
when Reeves Posse was camping out near the Canadian River,
Leech and Reeves got into an argument that supposedly started

(18:01):
when Reeves was dissing Leeches cooking not a bad or
not a good idea. Rather, things escalated though, and according
to some accounts, Leech poured some hot grease down the
throat of this puppy that Reeves had their in camp
with them. After that, Reeves furious shot Leech. So nothing

(18:22):
came of this incident for a while, But then in
January eighty six, Reeves was indicted for first degree murder, arrested,
and held in jail for six months until he could
make bond. Kind of shocking that this famous lawman couldn't
make bond for six months, but apparently he made it
quite a bit of cash to in criminals. So his trial, though,

(18:43):
started October seven, and Reeves hired really great attorneys who
brought in ten witnesses for his defense. He testified that
he had argued with Leech, but it wasn't really that
big of a deal. And then later, while trying to
dislodge a bullet from his Winchester rifle, the gun had
accidentally mispired and happened to hit and kill Leach. Reeves

(19:08):
was acquitted, but the trial depleted his savings and he
had to move his family to a different home outside
of Van Buren. And after that, Reeves went back to
catching outlaws, but he was eventually stationed in different areas.
In eighteen eighty three, he'd already transferred from Fort Smith
to the Federal Court at Paris, Texas, and then in

(19:28):
he transferred again to Muskogee, which was where he was
until Oklahoma became a state in nineteen o seven. But
Reeves had one more brush with scandal later in his career.
After returning from one of his trips to deliver prisoners
to federal jail in Muskogee, he learned that his own
son had been charged with murdering his wife and was
somewhere hiding out in Indian Territory. So, of course, knowing

(19:52):
whose son this is, none of the other deputies wanted
the job of bringing the kid in. Reeves, of course,
was adamant about doing it himself. I mean, I have
to imagine partly just because he didn't want something to
happen to his son. Um. It took him two weeks
to get him, but Reeves returned with his son, whom
he later turned over to the court. His son ended

(20:14):
up in Leavenworth Prison, another place where our podcast subjects
seemed to be going lately, um, but was eventually pardoned
and apparently never got into any more trouble. Reeves served
as a Deputy U. S Marshal in Indian Territory for
a total of thirty two years, and was the only
one who did so from Judge Parker's appointment until Oklahoma statehood.

(20:36):
All told, he said to have arrested more than three
thousand outlaws and killed about fourteen, though it's very likely
there may have been more than fourteen killed. His work
ended after Oklahoma became a state, and after that he
walked a downtown beat for the Muskogee Police Department for
two years, and there was apparently never a crime on

(20:56):
his beat, So this was kind of a relaxing retirement
job almost for him. Commit your crimes on on Reeves
this day off maybe right, but it didn't last too long.
Reeves died at home January twelfth, nineteen ten, after being
diagnosed with Bright's disease. So was he the real Lone Ranger?
We have to go back to that question we posed
in the title of this podcast. Well, as we mentioned,

(21:18):
he said to have influenced or inspired the character. Obviously,
some details of his life are quite different from the
Lone Rangers, but it's easy to see how his brave
personality and his wild adventures would have influenced a tail
about a hero of the Wild West. Yeah. I mean,
after all, he's been called quote one of the most
successful lawman in American history. That sounds like somebody worth

(21:39):
making a TV show on. He was also the first
African American inducted into the Great Westerners Hall of the
National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City in nineteen
ninety two, and then on December five, he was inducted
into the Oklahoma Law Enforcement Hall of Fame, and in November,

(22:00):
these awards has kept on being heaped on him. Oklahoma
State Legislature passed an act officially declaring the bridge that
passes over the Arkansas River between Muscogee and Fort Gibson
Oklahoma as bath reads Memorial Bridge. Thank you so much

(22:21):
for joining us for this Saturday classic. Since this is
out of the archive, if you heard an email address
or a Facebook U r L or something similar during
the course of the show, that may be obsolete now,
so here's our current contact information. We are at History
Podcast at how stuff works dot com, and then we're
at Missed in the History. All over social media that

(22:42):
is our name on Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Pinterest, and Instagram.
Thanks again for listening. For more on this and thousands
of other topics, stuff works dot com