

Of course, the recent Disney adaptation of the Lone Ranger devised a clever and meaningful explanation for the silver bullets in the classic tales. Reeves gave out silver coins as a personal trademark of sorts, just like the Lone Ranger’s silver bullets. He dressed and behaved like them so he could meet, fit-in and identify fugitives. Reeves was described as a “master of disguises.” He went undercover, using disguises to track down wanted criminals. Reeves was the first African-American to ever hold such a position.īurton explains that it was at this point that the Lone Ranger legend began. Deputy Marshal in Arkansas and the Indian Territory. He married, fathered 10 children and found his livelihood as a U.S.
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Once the Civil War had concluded, Reeves was officially and legally a free man. There, he lived peacefully among the Seminole and Creek Nations of Native American Indians. He beat his “master” within an inch of his life and then bravely escaped the bonds of slavery, fleeing to Oklahoma. During the chaos that ensued, Reeves found the opportunity to free himself.

His “owner,” or rather his slave-keeper, took Reeves with him as a personal servant when he joined the Confederate Army. It was Burton who recounted the life of a black man who headed West to find himself a better life than the one into which he had been born in 1838. Reeves had been born into slavery. “Black Gun, Silver Star: The Life and Legend of Frontier Marshal Bass Reeves.” Arthur Burton also released an overview of the man’s life a few years ago. Marshal,” won the 2010 Coretta Scott King Award for best author. The exceptions are Vaunda Michaux Nelson, whose book “Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Even historians of the American West have conveniently forgotten that the man who inspired the legendary Lone Ranger was a free black man. Historians have largely forgotten many aspects of the real Lone Ranger, his ethnicity being the major thing kept out of the legend. And he was the inspiration for the legendary Lone Ranger. He was accompanied by a Native American, riding on a white horse, and he had a “silver” trademark. He was an African-American who did, in fact, live among Native Americans.
