The Incredible Story of Bass Reeves

While historians posit that the Wild West was nowhere near as wild as Hollywood would have you believe, it was a place where certain lawmen forged reputations as legendary heroes in their pursuit of outlaws. (Although in some cases, such as Wyatt Earp, the lawmen were little better than some of the criminals, see: Wyatt Earp – The Great American… Villain?) As for “The Indomitable Marshal” Bass Reeves, he was a former slave turned Deputy Marshal who captured some 3000 outlaws in his long and storied career. Born in 1838 somewhere in Arkansas, Reeves spent his childhood as the slave of State legislator William Steele Reeves. Little is known about Reeves’ youth and he seldom talked about it as an adult, but we know at various times he served as a water boy, a blacksmith assistant, and eventually as his master’s companion, considered an “upper servant” position that allowed Bass and his family to eat “at the house table”. With the death of William Reeves, Bass became the slave of one of William’s sons, George Reeves, a colonel in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. During his time with the colonel, Reeves became an excellent marksman with a hunting rifle, reportedly well surpassing the colonel himself. He was so good, in fact, that George Reeves started entering Bass into various turkey shoot competitions, some of which he won. ... This is an abridged version of a video on our channel TodayIFoundOut which you can check out and subscribe to here:    / @todayifoundout