Bass Reeves recounts the career of the formerly enslaved man who became a deputy United States marshal in Indian Territory. It follows his life through the Civil War and his recruitment by Judge Isaac Parker’s federal court, where his knowledge of languages, terrain and local communities proved valuable.
The biography examines the dangerous work of serving warrants and transporting prisoners across a jurisdiction marked by weak institutions and competing sovereignties. It also assesses the documented record behind Reeves’s later reputation as one of the most formidable law officers of the American West.
