AUTHORS NOTE
In the late 1990s my wife Barb and I were living in Wickenburg, Arizona. While there we received a VHS from one of my stepsons, Matthew Drazkowski, who lives in Winona, Minnesota. It was a tape with an approximate three minute biography on Bass reeves, whom I had never heard of. I was so impressed with the lawman’s apparent honesty, exploits, and history that I knew I had to research his life for a potential screenplay or novel. Consequently my wife and I decided to visit Fort Smith, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. While there we learned a lot about Oklahoma when it was Indian Territory and truly got the feel of the people and the land.
We even found places in the Nations where Reeves had several of his shoot-outs and sites where major captures occurred. It was especially informative when we found the site of the Woodford community in what used to be the Chickasaw Nation where Bass Reeves had a running gunfight with the Texas Outlaw James Webb.
Besides talking with several people who had stories to tell that they had heard about the ‘deputies who rode for Parker,’ we learned a lot from several museums we visited. But during our trip I also learned many important things in the Muskogee Public Library that I would have had trouble finding elsewhere. It was there along with his obituary that I found an article that stated that all seven U.S. Marshals that Bass worked for in his thirty-two year career were present at his funeral January 12, 1910.
It was written that after the funeral those seven marshals put their heads together and all agreed that Bass never once brought in the wrong man. What’s remarkable about that is that being born a slave Bass Reeves never was given the opportunity to learn to read and write. When given a writ, or warrant, for a wanted criminal Bass would take the document to someone he trusted and have them read it to him and he would memorize what they told him and how the criminal’s name looked spelled out on the warrant.
As for the written word on Bass Reeves and the Nations, I learned the most from Art Burton’s informative book on the African-American and Native American deputies who rode for Judge Parker. The name of Art Burton’s book is Black, Red, and Deadly [Black and Indian Gunfighters of the Indian Territory, 1870-1907], Published by Eakin Press.
The following quote is from Art Burton’s chapter on Bass Reeves:
“Bass Reeves was truly a man of contradictions. He was the humblest and gentlest of men, yet he killed fourteen. He was easy going and good natured, yet could erupt with great physical violence when a situation demanded it. He was a devoted father, yet he could seek and arrest his own son when the law was violated.”
B.B.