BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : AFRICAN AMERICAN BASS REEVES THE FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN TO BE SWORN AS DEPUTY U.S. MARSHAL IN WEST MISSISSIPPI RIVER : GOES INTO THE " HALL OF BLACK GENIUS "

                     BLACK             SOCIAL               HISTORY                                                                                                                                                                  Bass Reeves  July 1838 – 12 January 1910 was one of the first African Americans (possibly the first) to receive a commission as a Deputy U.S. Marshal west of the Mississippi River.

Reeves was born a slave in 1838 in Crawford County, Arkansas, and took the surname of his owner, George Reeves, a farmer and politician. He moved to Paris, Texas with George Reeves. During the American Civil War, Bass parted company with George Reeves. "Some say because Bass beat up George after a dispute in a card game. Others believe that Bass heard too much about the 'freeing of slaves' and simply ran away." Bass Reeves fled north into the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) and lived with the Seminole and Creek Indians until the end of the war. He learned to be a crack shot with a pistol.

Later Reeves moved to Arkansas and farmed near Van Buren. He married Nellie Jennie from Texas, with whom he had ten children, five boys and five girls.

Reeves and his family farmed until 1875, when Isaac Parker was appointed federal judge for the Indian Territory. Parker appointed James F. Fagan as U.S. Marshal, directing him to hire 200 deputy U.S. Marshals. Fagan had heard about Reeves, who knew the Indian Territory and could speak several Indian languages. He recruited him as one of his deputies.

Reeves worked for thirty-two years as a Federal peace officer in the Indian Territory. He was one of Judge Parker's most valued deputies. Reeves brought in some of the most dangerous criminals of the time, but was never wounded, despite having his hat and belt shot off on separate occasions. Once he had to arrest his own son for murder.

Reeves was a marksman with a rifle and pistol. During his long career, he also developed superior detective skills. When he retired in 1907, Reeves claimed to have arrested over 3,000 felons. He said he had had to shoot and kill fourteen outlaws to defend his own life.

When Oklahoma became a state in 1907, Reeves, then 68, became an officer of the Muskogee, Oklahoma police department.

He was himself once charged with murdering a posse cook. At his trial before Judge Parker, Reeves was represented by former United States Attorney W. H. H. Clayton, who had been his colleague and friend, and was acquitted.

Reeves' health began to fail, and he died of Bright's disease in 1910. He was an uncle of Paul L. Brady, the first African-American appointed a Federal Administrative Law Judge (in 1972).

In 2007, the U.S. Route 62

 bridge crossing the Arkansas River between Muskogee and Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, was named the Bass Reeves Memorial Bridge in his honor.

On May 16, 2012 a bronze statue of Reeves by sculptor Harold Holden, of Enid, Oklahoma, was cast at a foundry in Norman, Oklahoma. It was moved to its permanent location at Pendergraft Park in Fort Smith, Arkansas.