Who was the real Lone Ranger?

The Lone Ranger has traditionally been portrayed by white actors, but many believe this character is based on an African-American named Bass Reeves. A former slave, Reeves became one of the most successful lawmen in U.S. history. Tune in to learn more.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm to blaying a charkerboarding and I'm fair DOUTI. And
if you're a fan of the Wild West, or maybe
if you've just watched a lot of TV as a kid,

(00:21):
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 been featured
in a number of ways on the radio, on TV shows,
and in movies, and in all of those cases, his

(00:41):
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 back to health, Read
makes himself a black Mass and becomes the Lone Ranger.

(01:02):
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 got you guys

(01:40):
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
is who became a US Deputy Marshal is known as

(02:03):
one of the first black lawmen west of the Mississippi
River and also one of the bravest and best law
men 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, Reid's life
wasn't entirely without controversy. He had more than one incident

(02:27):
that almost compromised his reputation in 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.

(02:48):
So Bass Reeves was born into slavery in around July
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 Reeve's 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

(03:09):
more debatable facts. Some historians 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 William 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,

(03:30):
Reeves worked in the 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,

(03:51):
maybe a little 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

(04:12):
Reid's during the war is 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,

(04:34):
Bass and George got into 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 and a podcast we did last
February called Who Was America's First Black Millionaires, which was

(04:55):
about a woman named Sarah Rector. 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

(05:17):
eighteen sixty six between the US government and the five
civilized 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 friedman
full members of their tribes that had quote equal interest
in the soil. So basically former slaves could own land,

(05:39):
and some even served as 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. They weren't really subject

(06:02):
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 podcastay And besides that, though,
besides going and living with Indians in Indian Territory, it's

(06:24):
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 bands.
Sometime following the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation, Reeves

(06:45):
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 in a rancher and also
occasionally served as a guide for a deputy U. S.
Marshals who were going into Indian Territory to hunt for outlaws.

(07:07):
So his knowledge really came in handy there. Then, in
eighteen seventy five, Judge Isaac C. Parker took over 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

(07:27):
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
was gonna be tough going for Judge Parker. So when

(07:49):
he 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

(08:10):
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,

(08:30):
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. Reads in particular,
was just perfect for one of these positions. After all,
as we mentioned, he knew Indian territory well. He once

(08:52):
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 seventy

(09:14):
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

(09:35):
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

(09:55):
a marshal 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 it. 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

(10:19):
intimidating 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

(10:42):
this is also kind of a lone ranger ish element
to his story, 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
and one really well known mission. Reeves was pursuing two
outlaws in the Red River Valley of the Chickasaw Nation,

(11:02):
and he heard that they were hiding out somewhere near
the Texas border. So he rode out that way with
his posse. By the way, at this time, Deputy Marshalls
would travel around Indian Territory with a few possemen, a
cook and 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

(11:23):
they would travel was around eight hundred miles. 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

(11:44):
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

(12:07):
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 led 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

(12:28):
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.

(12:51):
And when morning came, they realized what had happened, and
Reeves had a march right on back to his camp,
all twenty eight miles. 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. Yeah, he was pretty happy about it, though.
The reward of returning those guys in was five thousand dollars. Typically,

(13:15):
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 months, another time his hat brim was
shot off, and still another time his bridal regin was

(13:38):
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 easy access and conveniently for

(13:59):
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 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

(14:21):
Lone Ranger, he has his signature horse, Trusty Steed, a
blery horse with a speed of light a cloud of
dusty silver. But he also kept some other horses around
for his undercover work. Apparently, 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

(14:41):
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. Most of all, though, Reeves was just
unbelievably brave. He really didn't seem to be afraid of anything.

(15:01):
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, 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

(15:24):
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, the Briner brothers, and they were wanted for
horse stealing, robbery and murder. When I ambushed him, they
told him to get off his horse and to keep

(15:45):
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 him, you know what day is it so
I can make 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

(16:06):
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, which might have gotten him lynched in
other areas of the country. And I'm not sure on

(16:26):
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, there's more to the story
than just Reeves Winds. As you might imagine, with the

(16:49):
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 really, that April, when Reeves Posse was
camping out near the Canadian River, Leech and Reeves got
into an argument that supposedly started when Reeves was dissing

(17:10):
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 came of this incident for

(17:30):
a while, But then in January eight 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, started October eight seven,

(17:53):
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 Leech. Raeves was acquitted, but the

(18:16):
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 he transferred again to Muskogee,

(18:37):
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,

(18:58):
of course, knowing who's done 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

(19:20):
ended 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

(19:41):
Oklahoma statehood. 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 Muscogee Police
to armament for two years and there was apparently never

(20:02):
a crime on 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,

(20:25):
as we mentioned, 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

(20:46):
somebody worth 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 eleven, these awards has kept on being

(21:08):
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 Bass Reeves Memorial Bridge,
So people kind of continue to commemorate him and research
his life. Art Burton, whose articles we mentioned in this episode,

(21:29):
has a book on him called Black Gun, Silver Star,
and there are some others as well. I think there's
one called Bad News for Outlaws by Vonda Nelson. There's
also a new Lone Ranger movie coming out in two
thousand thirteen stars Johnny Depp as Tonto Army Hammers The
Lone Ranger and Helena Bottom Carter as We don't know who,

(21:49):
but we'll find out, I guess. So yeah, we don't
know if there will be any Bass Reeves nods in
that that one. Then it will be interesting to check out.
Maybe Johnny's listening to this podcast and it's gonna go
um mess with the script a little bit, and that's
an exciting thought. With Johnny Depp in our heads, it's
always a good time to transition on over to listener mail.

(22:12):
So this postcard is from Dave and it is a
very special postcard because it's from Antarctica. And Seplena and
I were talking. I think this means now that we
have received postcards from every continent in the world. So awesome.
So like we need some celebration music there or something

(22:33):
not not like Polar Silence. But Dave wrote to say
that at least one podcast listener was present at the
centennial observation of Robert Scott's arrival at the South Pole.
The Scott ceremony was a sober affair, as you might expect,
but the night before the ceremony, Major Henry Worsley of

(22:54):
the British Army talked about Scott's journey, illustrated with photos
he and his companions had taken as they skied along
Scott's root the previous weeks. Anyway, thanks for making history entertaining.
My wife, daughter and I are all devoted listeners, so
thank you. Dave. It's a cool postcard too. It is
of the South call kind of a contemporary art illustration

(23:17):
of herhole. So awesome Antarctica. We also got a postcard
from Monica in London and she recently attended an exhibit
at the Natural History Museum of Scott's last expedition and
it was Man hold Sledges. It was a postcard of Yeah,
Katie and I discussed Man hold Sledges a bit in

(23:37):
that episode and it it's kind of a horrifying looking situation.
It's the four guys straining under this giant fled packed
with boxes and in the realm of I listened while
I x Monica tells us, but she listens while she
knits on the tube on her way to class. Sounds fun.

(23:57):
So thank you Monica, and thank you Dave for our
our chilly postcards we received. And if you guys want
to make any other suggestions to us or let us know,
um if you've attended exhibits about topics we've covered anything
like that, we are at History Podcast at Discovery dot com.
Remember it's our new email address. We're also still at

(24:20):
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You can look up an article called how the Emancipation
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(24:43):
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